The Cardboard Catastrophe

The awaited cardboard thing! I have to admit I kind of surprised myself here. I don't know HOW I managed to survive last night through all the crazy insane cardboard madness until four in the morning until I MOSTLY got it to look the way I wanted to! The pictures below show the beginning and the end of the process, I was too frustrated to take too many pictures during the whole middle part of the production. Keep in mind I'm using my phone for these pictures I don't have a great camera with me at the moment so the quality of these pictures is going to be crapola but it will do for now. In the pictures you can see the original frame work of the sculpture, the geometry of the back and back of the head, and the beginnings of the workings on the face. Then you can see the finished product as it was just before I turned it in this morning! It's a big weight off my shoulders that is for sure, I never would have imagined making a bust out of cardboard would be something I would have done ever.

Over all impressions...I am actually kinda proud of myself! This is something very new for me, most of my work is drawing or painting of some sort. I'm not FULLY happy with the lips but I think it does resemble me. Maybe not to a T but there is definitely a resemblance! The most intimidating part of it I think would have to be how to do the eyes...and that hat. That hat gave me so much trouble at one point I thought I was going to ruin the whole project at 2 in the morning the night before! First I made a hat separately but the cardboard wasn't flexible enough and it didn't fit with the shape of the head at all and needless to say I wasn't exactly a happy camper! Finally I actually molded the hat onto the head itself by using the separated brown paper from the corrugated cardboard which was a lot more flexible.

Next project? I am making a clay thing-a-majig for that class of a very stylized sunflower. We are going to be making these things, then making a mold out of plaster and casting them again in paper. Each of our pieces will be fit together to form one giant abstract nature artwork. Should be interesting! Aside from that I am doing self portraiture in Drawing Observation and Invention. I will put up the brief sketches tomorrow, for now here is the anticipated CARDBOARD CATASTROPHE! Which may not have been such a catastrophe after all.