Exoskeleton

We had a "large" painting assignment for Adv. Painting and I had always wanted to paint on a dress form. Luckily for me, Darshana (another painter) had a dress form she was trying to find a home for. This fits in with the rest of the Body Modification series and is supposed to evoke the idea of a wrought iron and (frosted) glass exoskeleton to encase organs. I abstracted the view of the organs themselves because it wouldn't be especially appealing to see kidneys and mammary glands but I did use the metal to mirror the muscles and skeleton of the body. In the front there is the ribcage, sternum, abs, etc. and in the back: spine, pelvis, and shoulder blades. I'm tempted to go back in with 3 dimensional aspects but for the assignment I kept it painted only.
I think the hardest part of this was putting the gesso on. There was this fuzzy felt, jersey fabric covering the adjustable plastic form so I had to get past that in order to get a relatively smooth surface. This was easier said than done. Each layer took forever to dry and started to crack in places. Sanding it was also a pain and I'm fairly certain I have a nice cakey layer of gesso on the inside of my lungs now ^.^;;. Oh well. Stapling the skirt on the bottom wasn't especially easy but I think it gives the overall piece a nice finished look and ties it back in to the sheath dresses from the other paintings in the series.

This was on display with the rest of my class's response to the assignment at the Colburn Gallery at Williams Hall.


In other news, the majority of construction is now done. Unfortunately, tumblr has been down for the past few days which has been a hindrance but I'm pretty pleased with my results. Please check them out! ^.^

Big Dig

Please bear with me over the next few days (or weeks, this is a pretty big endeavor during finals time) while I update my blog. I want to make it as professional as possible and as thorough as possible now that my career will depend on it. I've gotten a lot better about posting regularly so I might as well get it ready for potential employers and colleagues to see. Some of the links may work one day and not another or won't work at all for awhile. I'll keep posting so please don't get discouraged by the links. Thanks! ^.^
This was for my first Adv. Drawing assignment when I was on a comic drawing kick (not that I don't love making them now but I go through phases of which medium I prefer) and wanted to play with the "square and cube" assignment.