Blue Foam

Ode to Blue Foam

by Elizabeth Chaney

Blue Foam is everywhere

In my nose,

In my hair...

Yes even in my underwear!

Blue Foam is everywhere. (cough)

I've spent the past few weeks working on my final project for 3-D art- an abstract sculpture carved from dense insulation foam. All the little bits of foam stick to you, no matter what you do! After class I looked the abominable snow-woman! The room looked like a snowglobe! I would shed blue foam wherever I went. I'm so glad I don't have to breathe it in anymore and that this project is over! It was hard coming up with an interesting abstract sculpture and I think mine was fine but maybe now I'd tweak it. It was interesting to learn a new building technique- now I can make anything I want!

The maquette:

You laminate pieces of foam together with spray adhesive:

Then carve with a small saw and files:

Then I pegged the appendages on and covered it with Durham's- a dry putty mix that you mix with water to create a hard skin:

Here is my turkey-stegosaurus-bunny ear-cat whisker-melted peep:

(I got so many funny comments as to what it looked like!)

Don't ask why I gravitated to BRIGHT yellow- I don't know!

Here are a few that I liked alot from my classmates:


And here's some not-so-hot ones, unfortunately two of the worst offenders took off with their project before I could snap a picture:
Boring shapes, boring color, boring assembly



A Renaissance Yoda Mermaid?

A shrimp? A fetus? And not well carved or painted at that. That kink in the tail is terrible!

My friend Mike did this one...not bad but he needed more dintinct shading. It looks like it could be in a park! We joked about it needing some graffiti!

The shape is pretty interesting, but the paint does nothing for me! The muddy gray just makes it blah and takes away from the shape. (below)

Everyone in class really gravitated towards this one...but not me. I think they were all distracted by the fact that it was covered in candy....if it was just painted would they find it as interesting??? I think not.

Here's D's bug (or an antelope? I don't know):

D (the girl who couldn't see the carousel horse in my cardboard project) made an ugly bug thing (above) and I was so tempted to walk over to her and say..."You know what I see in your project? If I look real close it looks like...hmmm...a bug!" But I guess I had some class for a moment or two. I liked the bug's body shape before she put a head on it and I don't think the painting goes with the hard edges on the body.

I am getting tired of bailing out crappy slacker art students...I was nice the other day and let a guy from sculpture borrow my leftover spray adhesive...and he thought I gave it to him! And then he walked off with my leftover Durham's cause he thought I said yes to that too. When did I become the supply fairy?? Buy your own! Those cost $16! I probably wouldn't use the leftovers much, but I'm the one who bought them!! And now I'm kicking myself about the Durham's- I got the idea to make little foam ladybugs too late. I guess one of these days I'll buy some more and make some smaller sculptures out of foam leftovers.

Which leads to the question....what do I do with this sculpture now?? It's kinda big (2.5x2.5 ft) to keep but I spent so much time on it to throw it out!

Cardboard

Here is my cardboard carousel horse project in the er, flesh. The goal of this sculpture assignment was to take architechtural elements and create a sculpture that was not building-like. I took amusement park pieces to create a carousel horse. It took a LOT of time to make and it turned out HUGE! I made the body too big and from there the other pieces had to be big, too. Maybe I'll make a smaller one. I had to lay down the seat in the Jeep to get it to school! I am pround that it stands on its own. I got pretty nice reviews from my class and teacher during critique. Cardboard and hot glue are way stronger than you might think!

The front:

Body: ticket booth, neck: ferris wheel, head: bench seat on carousel, legs: horse tail, rollercoaster track, log ride and rollercoaster cars, thigh: carousel top framing, tail: wooden roller coaster

Front 3/4 view:

Back view:

Rear 3/4 view:

Detail of ticket booth on back (taken from above)

Detail of rollercoaster tail:
Funnily enough, someone else's sculpture made a fence or "paddock" for my horse!

Now, if I hadn't told you what the sculpture was, would you have recognized what it was? Funny Story: There is this girl in class who is a little dense...I don't know if she pays attention or what during critique. You'll be explaining something in depth and then she'll go and ask about what you just explained as though you had never spoken! It happens all the time during our critiques. So I tried to make it an obvious horse shape and I think I succeeded because everyone who walked into the classroom observed it was a carousel horse (they'd never seen it before critique day) in nanoseconds. During critique, we spent at least 15 minutes talking about my horse, my teacher talked about the ride architecture specifically making a horse, we talked about legs, it's tail, body, etc. We were not vaugue during critique as to what it was. Even if you didn't know what it was before, you should have known by listening to critique.

Then after class she comes up to me and says "You want to know what I see in your piece?" and I was like, uh..sure. She then proceeds to say "If you look at it from this angle, it looks like a horse!" as though she had discovered it was a horse and no one else had! She then asked "Did you see that it was a horse when you were making it?"

I tried real hard not to look too dumbfounded, what do you say? "Uh, yeah, I knew it was a horse." I could have totally made a smart aleck comment but was nice and didn't. I was thinking "Gee, it's a horse? Nooo...couldn't tell it was a horse after spending 25 hours on it!"

Some people crack me up.

Camera

I started getting sick on Tuesday with a really sore throat, cough, runny nose and fever and yesterday was just awful. I didn't want to go anywhere today, but I had to turn in this:

This is my wire project for 3-D art, you had to recreate an object and imply volume. I'm pretty pleased with the results, it was a lot of work. I had critique earlier today in class and it went well. My teacher liked it. I chose a camera because 1) I'm a photographer, 2) I collect antique cameras and 3) the structure lent itself well to a linear project like this (other people did stuffed animals which would be hard to do with wire). I tend to ask myself this question when deciding what to make: What do I want kicking around afterwards when it's all done? Hmmm...a camera.

Project Wire

For the first project in 3-D art (basically a beginning sculpture class), we are recreating a three dimensional object out of wire. I am planning on making an antique camera. But first, we had to make four practice pieces based off of artwork or photos in books. Here are my pieces- I like the lone butterfly the best. Working with wire is trickier than you might think. We are spending the next few weeks making the real project, and I'll show that when it's finished.

Butterfly (of course):

Lighthouse:
Butterfly with a Pansy:
and a Carousel Horse: