The piece Venus of Willendorf is thought to be one of the earliest known sculptures of a woman, being found near the town of Willendorf in Austria by archeologist Josef Szombathy. As of today it is placed as being made at around the years 24,000 - 22,000 BCE. At around the 1960's the piece's fame skyrocketed being a symbol of the raw female form with it's exagerated curves around the breasts, stomach, and buttocks that brings it it's feminine form.
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Just like this piece I want to depict a woman although instead of having the arms missing I want to have the head missing to provide anonymity as to the possible race of the woman since the only thing I want to be focused on is that it is a woman. The form of the piece with it's various curves will make sure it is obvious that the piece is a woman. The color of my piece compared to Venus of Willendorf will be different for sure since it was carved it limestone and I plan to use the wax I have available. I either plan on carving the wax and making it a subtractive sculpture as Venus of Willendorf seems to be or melting the wax and adding it to the piece little by little making it an additive sculpture. Similarly to this piece I plan on using symmetrical balance since it will be a human body so there should be about the same weight to both sides of the piece.
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For my first sketch I planned on making a female body torso out of wood or paper mache and then covering it in wax so that it would look like wax was spilled on it and dripped down. The wax would symbolize the protection of the female body from industries that tend to oversexualize women for profit.
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For my third sketch I decided to have a woman from her feet to her chest with her arms reaching up with her holding a heart in her arms. I thought of doing a physical human heart to show not just the message of the importance of personality in women but also the humanness of woman and room for imperfections there is in them. I also thought about making the female body not as conventionally attractive as woman are perceived to emphasize that message.
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The first thing I did was gather candles although I mostly used a candle with blood red wax I occasionally used wax from a white candle. The way I made blocks was by putting other small blocks made with wax in a rectangle and the continuously layering the rectangle until it became a thick block. This meant that for every layer I had to wait for the wax to melt in the candle and the pout it into the mold I had made. Then I had to wait for it to dry and pour in the next layer. If any wax was spilled from the mold I waited until it solidified enough to hold but not enough so that it was no longer soft. I would then put that wax into the mold and smooth it over using a palette knife. Once the block was the desired thickness I used the x-acto knife to remove the wax from the mold and carved the sides so that it would be smooth. When carving I did not cut into the wax like one would cut food but rather carved into it as if I were peeling it until I felt that side was both straight and smooth.
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I then made two more rectangles however I made both of those rectangles much thinner and I did not let them dry completely. Once they were solidified enough to be able to be held I wrapped them into a cylinder with both the top and bottom not covered. After the wax was solidified in that shape I poured melted wax inside and made sure to leave a small hole towards the top since these would be the feet of my sculpture. After both feet were dry and solid I used the x-acto knife to carve the feet so that they would look smoother and more like feet. I also made sure the hole I left towards the top was deep enough to pour more wax in.
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The next thing I did was get plastic straws to make the arms and legs. In order to make the arms and legs I poured a small amount of wax on the desk and the waited for it to solidify. Once it had solidified I put a straw in the wax with the straw standing upright and only the bottom opening of the straw in the wax. I then rolled up a notecard to use as a funnel for when pouring in the wax into the straw. Once the funnel was inside the straw correctly I poured the wax into the funnel and filled up the straw up to the top. I did this with four straws, using red was for two and white wax for two. Once the wax was dry I used the x-acto knife to cut the plastic straw off the wax. I used the x-acto knife by making one vertical cut across the entire straw and then carefully removing it from the plastic. Once I had done this with all four straws I carved out the torso once again using the x-acto knife to make sure the torso has a feminine form which would mean a small waist and a larger chest to simulate breasts.
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The last thing I did was connect the legs and arms to the torso as well as carve out the heart. First I connected the legs to the feet by pouring wax into the holes of the feet and putting the wax sticks inside. I then held them until the wax I poured into the holes was solid. Then I connected the legs to the torso by placing the legs right next to the bottom of the torso and pouring wax on the bottom of the torso to hold it together. After the first side had solidified I turned it around and poured was on the other side. I then tried to get the figure to stand up however I soon discovered the wax sticks were too thin for the weight of the torso since they kept breaking so I decided to wrap the legs in warm wax. I poured wax on the desk and once it solidified a bit I wrapped the warm wax on the legs and molded it with my fingers. I then connected the arms to the top of the torso in a similar fashion to the way I did with the legs except instead of connecting it to the very top of the torso I connected the arms to the top side of the torso. When connecting the arms I made sure the arms would point towards the midline of the body so that both arms would be able to hold the heart. Finally I carved out the heart from a block made from wax as previously explained and poured wax into the space were both arms could connect and I pressed the heart on top of the warm wax. Finally, I carved the entire piece once more to smooth over any bumps I did not like as well as the feet to make it stand up.
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