It's All About the Mounting

BAS RELIEF WIRE PORTRAITS

BEGINNING 3-D ART

craft wire on bristol paper and matt board

I have to be completely honest, the kids hate this assignment, every year we've done it they let me know how much they hate it.  LOL

But I feel it's a really good experience for them.

And I think some things should be a bit more challenging, and working with wire is. 

I had them do a small preliminary piece first, this year we did tiny birds (I'll try to find the photos I took and post them).

They turned out fairly well, some were very realistic, some were whimsical.

So the kids went in with a pretty positive mind set.

I have the students bring in a photo that hopefully has some expressive qualities to it.

I make them trace the face and features with pencil, just to get the feel of it.

Then I bring out the wire and have them start on the easiest parts first.

This is where the kids start to crumble, and start to complain.

And this is where i keep pushing them forward.

I ask them to pull out some of the features so the face has a bit more bas-relief feel to it (hard to tell in the photos).

I feel like senior Jinnie Choi nailed the assignment above.

What I also really like that she added  background color when she mounted it.

And yes, they were also required to mount and sign the pieces.

8th grader Annie Lin also did a really nice job with this project.

Her subject was rocker Amy Whitehouse and I think she did a really great job on the eyes.

I also like the musical butterflies she added as embellishment.

I thought senior Jasmine Lim did a terrific job as well.

She really paid attention to all the little details which make for a very pleasing piece.

The mounting is very cool too, how the hair extends into the border area.

The kids got to chose from 3 differnt metals to work in, gold, copper and silver.

It's a fairly expensive assignment and the kids are pretty wasteful, but I still think it's so worth the experience.

(all the wasted, used wires are recycled in other projects)

Love, love, love how junior Kaili Hamada mounted her work above.

It really makes her piece stand out from the others.

And this one above is a different take on the assignment as well.  

Senior Dhruvi Chauhan chose to do a profile.  

All the others chose frontals or 3/4 views.

That also makes her work pop from the others as does the use of the decorative scissors on the white mounting paper.

Lovely!

One of my favorites was done by senior Megan Yeu.

She was one of the few kids that actually enjoyed the assignment.

Perhaps because she is also a 2-D students and is comfortable working with portraiture.

Whatever it was, her's is really outstanding and very creative in her mount too.

And this last one was so unique by junior Payal Morari, bringing in text, white pencil and tape.

Clever girl, clever piece!