February 24 2021

Gender

Venus Of Willendorf

Venus of Willendorf is an 11.1cm tall limestone sculpture that was found in Austria in 1908 and is currently exhibited in the Naturhistorisches Museum in Vienna. It is thought to be one of the oldest surviving works of art, estimated to have been made between 24,000-22,000 B.C.E. There has been a lot of speculation around the meaning of this statue, however, many believe that it is a symbol of The Devine Feminine (Torres, 2021), Mother Nature and fertility.

The sculpture depicts the female form with exaggerated features such as the breasts and hips, this could indicate the character’s ability to nurse a child, this along with the deliberate attention to the pubic region of the sculpture, where traces of a red ochre pigment can still be seen, suggest that the sculpture was based around fertility and the female ability to give birth to and mother a child.

Instead of giving the figure a face, the artist chose to carve 7 horizontal bands that wrap around the head in concentric circles. Although some believe these represent braided hair, others believe that the seven rings on its head symbolized the seven levels of consciousness or the seven chakras. The fact that the artists chose not to add specific facial features to the sculpture shows that the artwork is not a portrait of a particular person, but rather an artwork that pays homage to the female form.

Bibliography

Torres, E., 2021. What Is The Divine Feminine?. [online] The Good Trade. Available at: <https://www.thegoodtrade.com/features/divine-feminine> [Accessed 24 February 2021]. – (Torres, 2021)

ZYGMONT, Dr.B., 2015. Venus of Willendorf – Smarthistory. [online] Smarthistory.org. Available at: <https://smarthistory.org/venus-of-willendorf/> [Accessed 23 February 2021]. – (ZYGMONT, 2015)

 

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February 22 2021

Fine art – Fifth Sculpture – Final Product

I enjoyed making this sculpture as it challenged me to use a medium that I am familiar with in a different and unexpected way.

I also decided to leave this sculpture with its natural colours of the material rather than paint or tint it. Despite this I like how the ‘log’ section of this sculpture looks to be a different colour to the ‘object’ of the sculpture as i used a slightly different coloured hot glue for it compared to the rest of the sculpture.

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February 22 2021

Fine art – Fifth Sculpture – Process

For a fifth sculpture I decided to challenge myself and make a sculpture entirely out of hot glue.

For this sculpture I wanted to depict my object lying over a log, so I began by wrapping a cylindrical object in tinfoil and using hot glue to create a bark inspired texture. I then layered the hot glue up to get the shapes for the body that I wanted and covered the whole body in an extra layer of glue to get a smooth and more rounded texture rather than seeing the layers used to get the shape. Once I had completed the body shape I used the same techniques to create a head, however, instead of building the shape up from the rest of the sculpture I made both the head and tail separately and attached them after I had completed them.

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February 18 2021

Fine Art – Fourth Sculpture – Process

For my fourth sculpture I wanted to use another uncommon medium: Insulating foam.

I started by creating base shapes out of paper and pringles cans so that I could cover them in the insulating foam so i did not waste the material. However I found it extremely difficult to use this material as it would not stick to the paper and carboard base object and just kept falling off before it could dry, so instead I tried building the sculpture up using layers of the foam so the sculpture was made entirely out of the single material. However, this didn’t work either as I had to wait over an hour for each layer to dry. Due to having to lair the material instead I ran out of foam very quickly and also because of the drying period I would not have had enough time to complete the sculpture in the time period given.

As an alternate to the foam sculpture, I decided to use the paper base shapes I created previously to create a large scale paper sculpture of my object, adding abnormally large ears to the sculpture to explore disproportionate sculpture. As I did not have any coloured paper that I could use to add the right details onto the sculpture, I instead ] coloured in normal white paper with coloured pencil and tore it up into small strips so that I could achieve a fur inspired texture on my sculpture. This was another sculpture in which I ran out of time with and could not complete as I wanted to create a full body sculpture. However the long monotonous process of colouring, tearing up and sticking down all the small pieces of paper took to long to do within the time frame. Despite this I think This piece looks okay on its own as I have a previous sculpture that is also just a head.

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February 17 2021

Effective Communication

Logo Design

Communication can take many forms. One of these forms is the visual representation of logos, which play an important role in conveying the purpose of a brand while grabbing the attention of potential customers. An example of this can be found in the logo of the Craft Village. This is a popular tourist attraction in Derry, known for its wide array of shops focusing on arts and crafts. It is home to many galleries, cafes, craft supply shops, custom wedding cake shops and more.

This logo depicts one of the four famous gable gateways of the Derry City Walls in two tone red and white – the colours of the Derry City coat of arms and flag. The use of such a recognisable city feature in this logo draws in both tourists and locals with a sense of connection and city pride. Emphasis is drawn to the word “craft” with the use of a darker shade of red, highlighting the main purpose of the area. This communicates information in a clear and concise manner, without requiring extra text that would otherwise distract from the logo.

Bibliography

CraftVillage, D., 2016. DerryCraftVillage – A Gem in the Heart of the City. [online] Derrycraftvillage.com. Available at: <https://www.derrycraftvillage.com/> [Accessed 17 February 2021]. (CraftVillage, 2016)

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February 15 2021

Fine Art – Third Sculpture – Process

For my third sculpture I used a polystyrene ball, cardboard, Polly filler and hot glue to create a head/bust sculpture of my object.

I started by cutting carboard into various shapes and stacking/gluing them together to obtain a 3d form for the various aspects of the object. I then used hot glue to attach the facial components to the polystyrene ball base. Once I had created the base shape for the head I used Polly filler  to smooth out the facial shapes and also to add texture details.

I found using Polly filler for this more challenging than I initially expected as because of the amount of moisture in the filler, it made the cardboard soggy and I had to have a lot of patience with waiting for each part to dry before adding more as otherwise the carboard shapes warped and made it very difficult to sculpt the shapes I wanted.

Once the base shape had dried i used more Polly filler to add the details of the fur onto the sculpture and also used hot glue to add the eyes and nose as it would give them a shiny and smooth surface much like the plastic components on the actual object.

I finished this sculpture by sing acrylic paint to add further details and colours.

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February 11 2021

Fine Art – Secomd Sculpture – Process

For My second sculpture I decided to use tinfoil to create s small scale version of my object in a sitting forward position. I started by scrunching tinfoil into the shapes of the different components of my object, eg head, ears, body, legs. I then used super glue to combine the pieces and added an extra layer of tinfoil around the components to give the sculpture a smoother texture.

Once put together I then used paint to add detail to the sculpture. I decided to use grey scale paint for this sculpture as it allowed me to leave areas of the sculpture bare and so that I could use the materials natural colour as part of its main design.

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