Sustained Investigation-3D Design

Investigating a Body of work

What is the sustained investigation section?

• A body of works that investigate a topic/idea and a set of inquires developed by the artist.
• All 15 works of art should show an investigation of a topic/idea, inquiries, materials, and processes.
• We will focus on creating 11 works of art and including detail, in progress, and multiple viewpoint images to complete the 15.
• Your sustained investigation should demonstrate growth and/or discovery through your works of art.

The writing section:

• You must write the following about each work of art you submit:
• Materials used (100 characters maximum, including spaces)
• Processes used (100 characters maximum, including spaces)
• Size (height × width × depth) in inches
• The below examples show this information for only one piece, but you will write this for every piece you submit.
• You must write the following about your entire sustained investigation
• Identify the questions that guided your sustained investigation
• Describe how your sustained investigation shows evidence of practice, experimentation, and revision guided by your questions (1200 characters maximum, including spaces, for response to both prompts)

How do you develop your topic and inquiries?

• What is your favorite medium or mediums?
• What are your interests?
• What is your favorite style of artwork?
• Who is your favorite artist?
• What are you passionate about?
• What questions have you developed as you have worked through your guided assignments?
• What will hold your attention through 11 works of art?
• Complete the homework assignment to help develop your topic.

What does it mean to do a 3D design based sustained investigation?

• You can investigate any topic, idea, or style as long as it also addresses design issues in three dimensions:
• Your message is conveyed through your imagery.
• Elements and principles of 3d design are used to develop and create your work of art.
• Elements of art are successfully used to create the subject matter.
• Principles of 3d design are successfully used to focus the work of art.
• Form is strong.
• Work of art shows an understanding of 3d design-based artwork.
• You can use any 3-dimensional material (clay, wood, plaster, assemblage, mixed media, relief), but remember it will be graded through the lens of a 3d design portfolio, so it still needs to address the issues above.
• Your in-progress images can include pictures of two-dimensional materials, such as sketches, investigative drawings, Autocad plans, etc.

Examples:

• As you look at these examples consider the following:
• What is the sustained investigation topic?
• What inquires could the artist be investigating?
• Do all of the works of art appear to fit under the same topic/investigation?
• Are the 3d design issues investigated and addressed?
• How would you grade this portfolio?
• 1: No recommendation
• 2: Possibly qualified
• 3: Qualified
• 4: Well qualified
• 5: Extremely well qualified

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• MATERIALS:

White clay, raku glaze, low fire glaze

• PROCESSES

Wheel thrown form, glaze, raku firing process, cut out shapes

• SIZE:

12”x 2” x 2”

Identify the questions that guided your sustained investigation

• How does body image impact women?
• How can outer perception change as self-confidence and personal acceptance grows?
• What is the relationship between interior space and exterior space?

Describe how your sustained investigation shows evidence of practice, experimentation, and revision guided by your questions (1200 characters maximum, including spaces, for response to both prompts)

• Through my sustained investigation I wanted to investigate something that has always been hard for me: self-confidence. In this day and age, females are consumed with their outer appearance and how other people view them. I want to show that no matter what you look like, your inner beauty should overpower that and shine through because as your confidence in yourself grows, your true inner beauty will shine through even more. Using ceramics and the use of positive and negative space, I want to portray inner and outer beauty through the sculptural forms. I created three sets of sculptures to represent different body types; tall and skinny, short and plump, and triangle shaped. As each set progresses, the pieces grow in size and the amount cut away from each increases. Through this, I want to show that as your confidence grows, your inner beauty shines through. I used the sculptural forms and cut outs to represent the body shapes. By glazing only the inside of the sculptures, the color shows through more as the cut outs increase, showing more inner beauty. By naked rakuing the pieces, it shows that no matter what the outside looks like, the inner beauty can still shine through. By using naked raku, patterns of black and white appear on the outside of the pieces, representing the dull feelings females can feel when they aren’t confident in themselves. By cutting out more and more on each piece, there is less black and white, but brighter colors showing through overtaking the self-consciousness.

• MATERIALS:

Wood panel, vellum, letter cut outs, paper clips, paint, fire to burn portions.

• PROCESSES

Interviews, sketches, playing with layers, building the design

• SIZE:

11”x 1” x 14”

Identify the questions that guided your sustained investigation

• How do numbers play a role in our personal lives?
• In what way does society place an importance in numbers?
• What impact does this focus on numbers, rather than character or integrity have on people?

Describe how your sustained investigation shows evidence of practice, experimentation, and revision guided by your questions (1200 characters maximum, including spaces, for response to both prompts)

• For my sustained investigation, I explored the idea that people are judged and represented by their numbers rather than their character or personality. So often in today’s society, people are judged by the numbers that they put forward, numbers like their test score, weight, number of followers they have, age, or their yearly income. I want to explore and articulate that there is more to a person than just the numbers they present. Numbers should not dictate how one is viewed and how one is represented, but instead they should supplement the character of the person. As my sustained investigation progressed, by style of representation began to transform from a literal representation of the connection between the person and numbers to a more abstract interpretation. In my final three pieces the transition can be seen as numbers aren’t actually included, but implied by the previous pieces. The numbers become an attack on one’s intellectual ability, as show in slide 11. Numbers become the balancing factor in life through the importance placed on finance, as shown in slide 12. This focus on numbers can lead to slowly taking over a person until they become hollow, as show in slide 14.

• MATERIALS:

Plaster, plaster strips, wite, wood, paint

• PROCESSES

Interviws, sketches, molded plaster, shaped and smoothed with powder plaster.

• SIZE:

18”x 6” x 24”

Identify the questions that guided your sustained investigation

• How can society shape a female’s understanding of herself?
• What are typical expectations and stereotypes placed on women?
• How can a person reclaim these opinions and reshape them to suit her own opinion?

Describe how your sustained investigation shows evidence of practice, experimentation, and revision guided by your questions (1200 characters maximum, including spaces, for response to both prompts)

• Is man truly a product of his environment? In my sustained investigation, I explore an adolescent female’s relationship with society and how the suggestions of society shape her opinion of herself and her relationships with others. I investigate these questions by creating colorless, white body parts that reflect society’s negative impact on the girl while the pink, found objects incorporated with the body parts represent the girl’s resilience to societies destructive opinions. The pale body parts form a body crippled by society’s negative impact yet brightened by the adolescent female’s pink resilience that “laughs off” every attack society launches. Each body part is distorted; a portion of the body may be grossly exaggerated or missing entirely. (1) The girl is attacked by society’s construct of virginity, losing her identity after “popping her cherry” as shown by the absence of upper portion of the face. The popped bubble gum reinvents the classic cliché, exemplifying the girl’s resilience. (2) The exaggerated, pointed foot depicts the pain the girl experiences to appear feminine, including wearing uncomfortable high heels. The pink ribbon symbolizes the girl releasing the physical and psychological pressure of feminine stereotypes. (3 and 4) The final piece is undistorted, the pink oozing from the mouth and eyes show that the girl has reclaimed her self-image. Her every observation, as symbolized by the pink from eyes, and action, as shown by the pink from the mouth, is ruled by her own spirit rather than society’s oppression.

Take away:

• Look at your evaluation sheet of each work of art. Which sustained investigations had the highest rating? Why was it more successful than the others?
• What changes would you make to the sustained investigation if it was your own?
• The order?
• The question responses?
• The technique?
• The subject matter to better reflect the topic?
• The investigating inquiries?
• How can you apply this to making your sustained investigation as successful as possible?

Your Sustained Investigation:

• If you haven’t already completed the below homework assignment, complete it now:
• Make a list of 20 ideas for a sustained investigation.
• Develop 3 investigative questions per topic idea for a total of 60 questions.
• Complete a sustained investigation essential questions sheet to finalize your topic and guiding questions.
• Revisit this list, is your final pick the best pick? Consider how well it will be viewed through a 3D design lens portfolio and how well your topic will flow through 11 pieces.
• When you are set on your idea, get to work!

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The End