WEARABLE ART FINAL PIECE

For development towards the final piece lots of smaller paper shapes were made singularly and then arranged to create a wearable piece. One piece was a turtle neck and shoulder plate that came around the chest. These paper pieces were inspired by a model photograph capturing the idea of my chosen theme. 

 The ribbon was made like a fan by folding and alternating the folds. I felt this effectively created the pleats and folds of the neckpiece in the photograph

The neck piece looked very rigid so I cut slits around it to make it look more natural and feathery, it gave it a delicate effect they way they sat and have a sense of movement 

I attached one of the textures that I made to the shoulder piece to give an idea of what the texture could feel like all over the shoulder piece. To create an armour and bumpy effect I ripped up pieces of paper and layered them. By crumpling the pieces before sticking it gave a good rustic effect.

To replicate the animal skull horns in the model photograph, I folded a large strip of paper into a cone and used glue to seal. This was difficult since the glue took a while to dry and secure and the cones would sometimes come undone, next time it would be better to use tape or masking tape but I wanted to hide unnatural looking elements as much as possible which is why I used glue since it drys invisible.

FINAL PAPER WEARABLE PIECE: HOW IT WAS MADE

Flowers are a common feature in Takato Yamamoto's work and roses in particular are often used due to their layered petals portraying a delicate look and their rich red colour to signify the symbolism of bondage and gore. 

At first I was cutting out the petals individually on paper alternating between brown and white paper which was a laborious task. To make this easier I realised the simple trick (not even a trick really to be honest) to fold the paper multiple times and then cut out a petal so I ended up with about 5 or 6 with minimal effort. 

Originally I wanted to make origami roses, with more research into the types of origami roses and some practice I would have pursued this but with the allocated time and minimal knowledge or practice on flower origami I made roses another way. I ended up using sellotape to attach 4 base petals together and then folded and curled petals around each other and glued in the centre, it was difficult to get the layers of petals to stay together without being fully attached since real flower petals are layered loosely not stuck tight together.

Due to my artists chosen work being dark and incorportating viscous scenes I wanted to create a sense of danger and harm, this inspired by one of his pieces where a young boy is trapped in rose thorns and has scratches on his skin. 

I made the thorns by folding ripped strips of paper into a cone by using a very professional tool (my finger) to create spikes. It was difficult to make the spike ends have a very pointed tip since they came out quite thick and rounded, pulling the angle of the paper when wrapping round made it more pointed. 

To try and emulate rose vines and shrubbery that was intertwined I ripped thin strips of brown and white paper and twisted and scrunched the paper to make them tight. I then bended and curved them to imitate twisting vines. The paper would sometimes unravel so it may be worth wrapping them in clear tape to keep in place.

Taking inspiration from the model photograph and Yamamoto's use of skulls, I drew and cut out a shape of a bull skull and taped the edges to make it 3D. For the horns I used the same technique as the vines. Again, I intended on making a origami bull skull but the steps were too difficult and for an origami novice I did not have enough patience. So to reflect and improve on that aspect I could do with more patience.

The adjective my group associated with my piece initially was 'Danger'. This is an accurate representation of the idea and look I was going for since Takato Yamamoto puts beauty in dangerous and traumatic experiences.