Planning: I wanted to integrate science into my art and I found that creating a clay sculpture would be a perfect way to do so. I take Biology HL and during the 2nd semester I know we will be investigating human physiology. In preparation, in my summertime I read up on the human heart and now I will be creating this sculpture. First, I decided to refresh the anatomy of a heart and I did so by sketching and labeling a heart. I also had to figure out how big I was going to make the sculpture and decided on a 140% size relative to an average human heart. This way I would be better able to work on the details. I also thought about adding a butterfly that would perch on the aorta but did not have enough time to construct one. I feel as if it would've definitely incorporated another aspect of nature much like in Michele Parliament's work (an artist in my comparative study). I had to make sure I create the sculpture well as I did not want my hard work to be undone in the kiln. Therefore I revisited the fundamentals of clay sculpting such as slipping and scoring for attachments and the importance of hollowing. I was confronted with a challenge in the very beginning which was 'How do I hollow out the heart?' I thought about created the two halves separately and then putting them together however this would create dents in the body of heart as I working on the details. To solve this problem, I created an armature out of crumpled paper and tape. I created the armature to be 3/4 of an inch less in every dimension in order to compensate for the size increase once the clay was added on. Before starting, I also had a concrete plan of how to complete the Vena cava, pulmonary artery and the aorta. A friend of mine told me I could use cardboard and if it was tough to work with I can always apply water to make it malleable. I recycled a tissue box and created the rolls for the attachments. To create them bigger or smaller I corresponded with the right amount of cardboard.
Process: Now that I had done all the preliminary tasks, I wedged the clay and stuck it onto my armature, using the aid of a knife to spread it. In doing so, I made sure to keep the clay from drying out by spraying water occasionally. When the shell was completed I went back with the knife and made holes where the attachments were going to go. I wet the rolls of cardboard and situated them in the holes. Afterwards, I added clay with the knife, making sure to really work it because air bubble could be disastrous. Creating the aorta and the pulmonary artery was an identical procedure. After, roughly completing the heart, I went over it smoothing out areas and removing excess clay or adding necessary clay in some areas. Then I put the heart aside with a moist paper towel on top to prevent drying and starting rolling out thin coils of clay. These were attached using scoring and water. I made sure to include the marginal artery, the small and great cardiac vein and others that I had labeled on my heart sketch. Using my fingers, nails, and the knife I smoothed out the veins to make them look natural and not just coils. After the sculpture dries, I plan on firing it in a kiln and then glazing it to further my understanding of a heart.
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Title: Study of the Heart
Medium: Clay Size: 20cmx10cmx9cm Date: December 2016 Exhibition Text: Inspired by Leonardo Da Vinci's exploration of human anatomy, this piece focuses on the study of a human heart. Transforming 2D pictures in textbooks into a 3D work will allow one to enhance their understanding of the heart. Focusing on anatomical accuracy, the colors blue and red represent the circulation of blood and biege represents the fat. The heart is 150% larger than a normal human heart.
Artistic Inspiration: Leonardo Da Vinci was a Renaissance artist from 1452-1519. He was apprenticed to Andrea del Verrocchio where he learned the trade of an artist. Although throughout his life he did not create many finished works, Leonardo's interest ranged from physics to painting. This wide spectrum took up most of Leonardo's life. He studied in great detail and noted the observations accompanied by detail sketches in a few notebooks. He is famous for the Mona Lisa and a few other famous works but his sketches are what intrigues me. I feel we share similarities in the sense that both of us are drawn to science and art. For this project I decided to integrate the two to further my understanding of the human body. I sculpted a human heart to familiarize myself with blood flow and the anatomy of heart. One of the sketches indicate Leonardo also studied the human heart (back when it was not widely known/ investigated). I plan on using the detail and science Leonardo put into his sketch by incorporating it in my sculpture. I plan on making the heart proportional to an actual human heart and have decided to include all of the major anatomical features.
Experimentation: This was my first time working with an armature as a foundation for a sculpture. It immensely aided in creating the heart and I'm glad I became familiar with it. This project provided me with insight to create other sculptures with the aid of an armature. With the armature the sculpture is able to maintain its shape and provides a pleasant working experience. Clay is definitely something I like to work with.
ACT Questions:
1) Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and its effect upon your artwork. 2) What is the overall approach (point of view) the author (from your research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration? 3) What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration? 4) What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research? 5) What kind of inferences (conclusions reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning) did you make while reading your research? |
Critique: This critique is not able to be fully completed at this time. However, commenting on the first part of this project, I feel as if I was successful in emulating my artistic inspiration and achieving my goal. I desired to learn more about the heart and was able to. Leonardo Da Vinci created a sketch for his heart studies and I feel that a sculpture will be able to aid in greater understanding, especially when it is fired and glazed with different colors representing the blood flow. During the armature process, I made the body too large and did not compensate for the addition of the aorta, which increased the height by 3/2 inches. Ergo, I did not successfully achieve the proportions which is disappointing. In addition, some veins look lifeless and flat. I wanted to create them with more fluidity. Since this was my first time working with an armature, there are definitely some aspects I can improve on. I would like to work on creating organic form which would allow me to attribute smoothness and movement to my sculptures. In hindsight, I could have added more texture to the heart as actin and myosin are secondary proteins with linear forms. This means the heart body should have lines to represent muscle. To conclude, the heart resembles my sketch and is accurate (except for the absence of texture of muscle), the two goals I was aiming for.
Word Count: 1,100
Works Cited:
History.com Staff. Leonardo Da Vinci. (2009). A+E Networks. Accessed on December 4, 2016.
Works Cited:
History.com Staff. Leonardo Da Vinci. (2009). A+E Networks. Accessed on December 4, 2016.