Wild Kingdom -- Creating a paper maquette

I am beginning to work on my exhibit for the 2018 -- that's right 2018 -- North Carolina Botanical Garden Sculpture Show. The concept is "Wild Kingdom -- A Wildly Colorful Collection of Critters". They will be sculpted in steel and displayed among the plant materials in the garden, similsr to my 2017 exhibit, "Facing Humanity" in the Garden.

The first step in the process is working out the design elements for the pieces. I use paper maquettes to design the sculptures prior to fabricating them in steel. I select an image of the animal's face to serve as a model, in this case a giraffe. I make several copies if the image.






I cut the images up to separate dimensions of the face.














I trace the shapes on construction paper.











The construction paper shapes are then cut out.











The elements are then reconstructed, using spacers, into a three dimensional maquette.








The maquette will be deconstructed and the elements will be used a patterns to trace onto steel to be cut with a torch for the metal sculpture.






Stay tuned...