Strictly experimental, I learned a lot creating these 2 sculptures based on the painting, “Askew #111:Candy Land”. One discovery is that for me, plexiglass is more challenging to cut than wood panel. Also, I’m suspicious that working small, based on 12″x12″ paintings, may be less expensive materials wise, but more difficult to deal with than working larger. So next up, I’m taking the leap to 48″x48″. Drastic, I know, but I’m up for a new challenge.
Below are a series of photos showing my process in assembling 2 brand new sculptures.
What you see above are wood shapes, with a copy of the painting glued to each piece. I put them altogether here to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. Not a perfect fit by any means, but not so bad for a beginner using a scroll saw. Doesn’t really matter anyway, because this will become 3-dimensional eventually and will be scrambled, no longer looking just like the painting.
And here is the flip side (back side of the reproduction of the painting). I randomly painted each of these, using the general color palette, ignoring what was on the other side. At this point it’s unclear whether the two sides will work together when turned into a sculpture or not.
Here’s the wood base, all set to accommodate the wood shapes.
Above, I cut all the shapes again, out of plexiglass, and then painted each shape. What you see is a prepped base (out of foam core since I didn’t have a piece of plexiglass the size I needed). It’s covered in Japanese paper on which I printed a hand-cut stencil. The point of doing this second rendition was to compare it to the wood sculpture to see if one worked better than the other. In the photo a couple of the plexiglass shapes are awaiting their fate on the base.
Voila, here they are, wood on the left and plexiglass on the right. A photo of the painting from which the sculptures sprang is in the foreground. If you look closely you might be able to identify where some of the pieces in the sculptures came from in the painting.
Next up! What you see here is a big piece of Duralar (mylar) on which I traced the shapes from “Askew #57: Here and There”, 48″x48″ painting. It’s resting on a 48″x48″ piece of foam core, which I’ll cut to match each shape. The photo sitting on top of is of the painting, from which the sculpture will be based.
Here I am, beginning to cut each foam core shape by hand.
Done cutting! Next step? Figuring out how to piece this altogether. (from this angle it’s upside down).
Meanwhile, I haven’t abandoned painting! Above is the 48″x48″ I’ve been laboring over for months. The blue tape on the lower right side is my way of sketching with tape to help visualize what to do next . Meanwhile, in the foreground are two 24″x24″ panels all prepped and ready to go. Fresh starts coming up!