Spine & Ribcage Practical Progress

Here I have compared the measurements for all the vertebrae experiments that I have tested for usage within my spine sculpture. I at first experimented with sculpting the smallest vertebrae as a test for the materials and techniques that I would like to incorporate within my spine sculpture rather than the measurements for the scale of the piece. Although I feel this dry brushed acrylic layering technique is quite successful in terms of texture, I do not feel that the tones are accurate as they are too yellow/white rather than a light brown that I had studied on a human skeleton from life. From this experiment, I feel that I need to further experiment with creating tones that contrast whilst also closer to the tones that I have observed on bones.

I had originally planned a very large scale sculpture in which I would incorporate the largest vertebrae (approximately 17x30cm) but due to the lockdown, I have been unable to obtain materials such as mod-roc and acrylic in large quantities so I felt that scaling down the sculpture would prevent future problems such as lack of materials that affect the quality and overall outcome of the final major. I decided to compromise with a smaller scale and measurements due to this and the fact that I am unable to use the space that I had chosen within the studio as I feel I will be able to present a smaller scale sculpture more successfully within the space in my house that I will have to use.

Here I have used a stacking technique for the vertebrae by creating a hole that runs through the centre of each vertebrae and skewered them onto a bamboo cane. I chose to use a bamboo cane compared to the original plan of using wire as I found the cane to be much stronger and sturdier than any of the wire I had experimented with and provided a more rigid structure than the wire armature which was prone to bending or not keeping the shape for a sculpture of this scale. The larger surface area of the bamboo cane was also useful when applying the mod-roc to the newspaper vertebrae as it was able to be secured to both the vertebrae and the cane which would have not been possible with the width of the wire armature.