Within my narrative and identity project I was asked to produce a ceramic portrait sculpture to interpret myself. I developed my idea by firstly looking on Pinterest for inspiration. I pinned lots of designs that I liked to a board yet none of them really stood out for inspiration. I then thought about how I could make it non-realistic, but still a portrait. I decided to search cartoon sculptures and I loved them all, they really stood out to me, so I knew from that point that my sculpture was going to be a cartoon inspired piece. I then drew some designs up which I could use, some cartoon and some more realistic. And decided on a cartoon design inspired by a photo I found on Pinterest.

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Throughout the project I changed a couple of small things on my design but nothing major. On my original design my hair was straight and just down past my shoulders, but I thought that my hair is really long and I like it wavy. So, I changed my design to make the hair wavy and all around the base so you couldn’t see the floor like panel beneath the structure. I then thought that the base was too thick and decided to take the floor like panel off and have the hair as the main base to my design.

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For reference material, I researched three artists; Silvia Mancini, Johnson Tsang, and Victor Hugo. I produced an artist research page on my wix website with analyses of a piece of their work. Mancini is a cake artist, she produces models out of fondant, one of her designs was my main source of inspiration. Tsang specialises in ceramics, stainless steel and public art work. His work is imaginative so I think it tied in with my piece really well. Finally, Hugo is a freelance 3D artist from Brazil and has worked with companies like Disney and Marvel. I think that his designs also gave my inspiration.

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I developed a lot of skills whilst making this project; I learnt how to handle clay and manoeuvre it to where I want it to be. I learnt that you need to use a lot of water to keep the clay from drying out and cracking and that it's easier to carve your design out of a block rather than sticking features onto one and another.

I preferred creating my ceramics to creating my 3D sculpture as I found it a lot more relaxing and I liked how I was just working with one media. I liked how I carved things out of one lump of clay rather than piecing things together to make a sculpture. I also visually like my ceramics design to my 3D sculpture as I think it looks tidier and more like a portrait.

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I think that my method of making my design was an effective way to do it as I really achieved what I wanted it to look like. My favourite part of the design is the face as I didn’t think that I would have been able to sculpt it to the ability that I did. I'm proud of my ceramics sculpture and there is nothing that I would change about it. I don’t think that there is anything that I want to improve on and I think that I managed my time well when producing the piece. I like how the hair flows around the head; one thing I could possibly change if I did it again is making the face a little bigger but it's not something that I'm concerned about within my piece.

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