Refined Concentration Ideas

  Last time i misunderstood the concept f concentration and came up with an idea that is centralized around a medium - scale. So i changed my idea this time to themes that relate more to myself.

  My first idea is trees since i love the way branches and leaves grow. I've seen many interesting shapes within my community, and the surface texture were just fantastic. One of them looks like thousand layers of paper (the first image); one of them so tall and high, with a "v" shape and extended branches (second image); there is even one that has beautiful colors.

  I know it might be hard to just make tree shapes out of paper mache or card boards, and it might become too repetitive, so i extended my concentration theme to a larger range - an eco-friendly concept. For example, make a flower with a crying countenance and put a foot above it, showing it is going to be stepped on. Or, make a hallow tree trunk that is almost in the shape of a wooden chair, indicating human beings are using them too muh.

  My second idea is LIGHT AND SHADOW. It sounds vague, but i believe this idea has a great potential. We've seen artists playing with shadow using wires as the fundamental "lines"; i also know paper cuts can form interesting shadowing. This afternoon i saw a shadow of a straight string casting on a round object, and the shadow became round as well. I can probably play some tricks with light and shadow.

  The third idea, a more personal one, is music. Music has played a huge part in my life, although it is never my school work to work on, or i can say, formal occupation, i've never doubt its importance to me. I won't just make instruments out of clay or paper, i will try to convey the emotion when i am playing music. I can make a sculpture of two tightened hands hold on a microphone to indicate the singer is singing a igh note - abstract but strong (first image). Or i can try to convey the atmosphere at a concert, like the guitarists jumping around (as shown in the second picture of a green day performance).

  It is amazing how i came from no idea to these three ideas, and i think my 3D thinking is really evolving. Now i will try to evaluate these three ideas again and settle on one to work on with.  

Ideas for lantern from Jellyfish

I just found blog full of beautiful images of Jellyfish, and the pictures gave me an idea to make a lantern out of wire first then cover it with very thin fabric that is transparent.

http://animalssafairs.blogspot.tw/2012/08/whatare-jellyfish-fish-in-disguised.html

Transforming 2D Images from Art History into 3D Arts

  The first artist i that came to my mind was Salvador Dali, the bizarre and supernatural quality of his subjects have a great potential to be transformed into 3D sculptures.
  One of Dali's signature is the elongated legs of animals such as horse and elephants.Some of them even have houses put over their back. I can apply the thick and thin contrast on my sculpture. The second image has those female figures with drawers extending from their chest and bellies. I think Jean has done it with tape already, so i might use cardboard or plaster to do it.

  The third image of book pages evolving to a butterfly's wing and then to a mother holding her baby. The layers of the book showed repetition and the whole painting was balanced with respect to the middle line. 

  Melting clock could be done by clay, but instead of painting the textures, i will cut card boards  into the shapes and hang them with kite strings.

  The right figure is a combination of eye, wood, and a pair of  muscular but thin legs. I can find a wood block, and build two legs with clay, but i'll probably change the eye to a nose or a mouth.

  The subject has very strong features, but the thing that is catching my attention is the way the face "stands" in the landscape - it is supported by few thin and unstable sticks. I can carve the face from plaster, well, with different kinds of features, and then use the same technique and stand the sculpture up with some seemingly weak stands. 

Potential Concentration Ideas

  For my concentration i've thought of doing more projects related to scales, as the technique i used in my mask project. I like the scaly texture and the repetitive patterns, they can show flowing motion and they are characteristic elements. Besides the leaf shape i used on my mask, i can cut other shapes of scales and put them in different patterns.
  I have to think about more themes, though. So far i have mermaids, fish, snakes, and monsters. Literally, scales can grow from anything, the objects don't necessarily have to be sea creatures, i can also make hand-shape sculptures and add scales on them. If my chameleon doesn't turn out so well with the paint, maybe it will look better with scale outfits.
  I saw the creative sculptures made of pencils and toothpicks on the collegeboard portfolios, and what really grabbed my attention was the quantity of those little components. I was fascinated by  how the artist transformed daily-life materials to art pieces that work together so well, and now i saw the same potential in using scales. This weekend i checked out Blanca's blog of last year and i found an artist called Fenella Elms who also created repetitive sculptures. Instead of using materials in daily-life she made her own basic shapes with tokens made from ceramics. This gave me another inspiration - using different kinds of materials to construct my works.

I am still looking for more possibilities, i have had many kinds of materials, but i still need a central concept to build my projects on, otherwise they won't be concentration.

  The second idea for concentration is the nowadays problem of “using smartphones too much”. I want to convey the severity of this problem by depicting the figures that are ignorant of their surroundings. It can be sculptures in human figures, it can be phone-shape large scale constructions.

Wire Sculptures

  Wires can form strong and clear lines, by twisting many wires together, we can create a negative space and firm structure. There is really no limitations in the subjects of a wire sculpture, wires are one of the most flexible materials to use in an 3 dimensional art work. 

Wires and gauze sculptures

I really like this idea of using wires and gauze to form transparent but three dimensional sculptures. Here are some examples: