In my art class we built a kinetic sculpture. The sculpture was built our sculptures based out of an animal’s movement we chose. We did a blue print that had our sketches of our sculptures we built up. To learn more about my animal and my blue print please check out my artist statement with the blue print below. In this project I am proud of my sculpture and my creativity of building a kinetic sculpture.
Blue print:
One way my natural element has been/currently is being used.
Earth:Fraction
Air: Wind
Focus on one method
– Explain the process in depth
Earth because my animal is a rabbit and it is mostly connected to earth.
Sketching a draft:
First I thought of doing a series of mountains and building a bike that can go up and down through the mountains. I thought that this idea was too simple and not creative enough, so I changed it to look like a windmill. I thought of doing a windmill, but different. For example I thought of doing two fans and try to make them spin different directions. This didn’t work because, I also thought it would be easy and boring to built. I came up with my last idea which was to to a spiny windmill. In other words I thought of having a tree trunk and branches coming out that can spin in a circular way on top of each other. I got a stick then I had to figure out how to stuck the branches on the stick with the branches moving. It was hard to figure out. I putting the sticks on a piece of tape and fold it down so it doesn’t fully stick, then I realized that this doesn’t work so I had to find something different. I want my sculpture to be turning around in a way where if you look at it from far away it would look like it is going up and down like my rabbit movement. I punched a whole in a small cup and tried to glue the sticks to the cup it worked, but the only problem I had was how do I get the cup to stand in one place. I ended up putting a string under each cup so it can hold it. After that I realized that the wholes are getting bigger each minute, so I put a small piece of paper inside the cup with the string. This was what finally worked, to make sure I glued the strings to the stick so it never falls and I glued the small sticks to the cups. After all that I started cutting down small pieces from a plastic plate so they can be leafs for the tree. I cut down each two leaf smaller than the one before so it can look like its going up and down. That was my whole planning of how I got to my final sculpture. Check out the picture and the video of my sculpture below.
Here is a video of my sculpture below,
Here is my artist statement below.
Deep in the air (8.5”x 36”)
(Narrow sticks, plastic plates, plastic cups, scissors, plant, mud, paint brush, color dark green, color light green, and the color beige)
Minnat Yahya
November,1. 2012
In my art class I worked on building a kinetic sculpture that represents the movement of my animal. My animal was a rabbit. I had different ideas of building my sculpture but each of the ideas had a problem to solve. First I chose the hopping-up-and-down movement of the rabbit. Then I looked at the work of different kinetic artists and chose one artist whose methods I liked who was, Lyman Whitaker . After that each student brought in materials that could be recycled, and we used them to build our sculptures.
My sculpture looks like a tree but it represents my animals movement. The stick in the middle with the cups represents the trunk of the tree. The branches are made out of wood attached to the cups. The leafs are made out of plastic plates and are attached to the sticks. The leafs are a circular shape, so they can be easily turned by the wind. After gluing all these parts together I stuck the sculpture in a pot filled with dirt. Lastly I stuck a flower on top tat is made out of plastic plates, so it can represent nature.
My sculpture will be turning in different directions. It is organized from the biggest leaf to the smallest, so when you look at it from far away you would see it like its going up and down. It will connect to my power animal because my animal is a rabbit and the rabbit jumps up and down. Since my animal is a rabbit so my natural elements are earth and air. In my sculpture I showed my element by first coloring It all green which represented earth. I also stuck my sculpture in a pot to represent plant and earth. By representing air, my sculpture can only move by wind blowing on it.