The Life of a Paper Clip.
This Sculpture stands 14 inches tall. The wide spread of the branches are 7 inches across. This took a very long time to assemble. It was a very tedious process. The tree is constructed of only paperclips. I did not use any tools to help me bend the paper clip wire. I did it all by hand. I put it together by straightening the paper clips then wrapping them around each other one by one. I started at the bottom and worked my way up. I made the basic outline or frame of the tree, then went back multiple times over it to create strength to hold itself together. I then place a small key on with wire on the back. I placed blue mermaid tears in the vitamin bottle to create stability and give the sculpture some color.
I was inspired to do this because my friend has a wire tree that she hangs her necklaces on. I thought that it might be cool to try to make something of my own. I saw some paper clips in a drawer and realized I had a ton of them. I thought that it was going to be easy to twist the wire together and not take very long. That ended up not being the case. I got irritated from time to time and at one point was going to completely start a new project. Once it was starting to look like a tree I was excited to see the final product.
I faced a few challenges while making my sculpture. It was a lot of trial and error. The paper clips are not very strong so I had to wrap them together to create strength. This was very time consuming. It was hard to make the sculpture tall because paper clips are short. I had to slowly work my way upwards connecting them one by one. I had to go back a few times and redo certain areas because they were not strong enough or kept falling apart. The branches took me a few trials to figure out. I found a way to coil the wire to make it more sturdy to hook the branches on to the rest of the frame.
I was a little disappointed that I could not get the sculpture to look how I pictured it in my head, but I was pretty satisfied other than that with then final product. It felt good to actually complete the project. I struggle with starting projects and not finishing them. If I made changes I would use actual wire that is bigger and use instruments to help bend the wire. If it had thicker wire, then I could have made it bigger and it would have better balance.
This Sculpture stands 14 inches tall. The wide spread of the branches are 7 inches across. This took a very long time to assemble. It was a very tedious process. The tree is constructed of only paperclips. I did not use any tools to help me bend the paper clip wire. I did it all by hand. I put it together by straightening the paper clips then wrapping them around each other one by one. I started at the bottom and worked my way up. I made the basic outline or frame of the tree, then went back multiple times over it to create strength to hold itself together. I then place a small key on with wire on the back. I placed blue mermaid tears in the vitamin bottle to create stability and give the sculpture some color.
I was inspired to do this because my friend has a wire tree that she hangs her necklaces on. I thought that it might be cool to try to make something of my own. I saw some paper clips in a drawer and realized I had a ton of them. I thought that it was going to be easy to twist the wire together and not take very long. That ended up not being the case. I got irritated from time to time and at one point was going to completely start a new project. Once it was starting to look like a tree I was excited to see the final product.
I faced a few challenges while making my sculpture. It was a lot of trial and error. The paper clips are not very strong so I had to wrap them together to create strength. This was very time consuming. It was hard to make the sculpture tall because paper clips are short. I had to slowly work my way upwards connecting them one by one. I had to go back a few times and redo certain areas because they were not strong enough or kept falling apart. The branches took me a few trials to figure out. I found a way to coil the wire to make it more sturdy to hook the branches on to the rest of the frame.
I was a little disappointed that I could not get the sculpture to look how I pictured it in my head, but I was pretty satisfied other than that with then final product. It felt good to actually complete the project. I struggle with starting projects and not finishing them. If I made changes I would use actual wire that is bigger and use instruments to help bend the wire. If it had thicker wire, then I could have made it bigger and it would have better balance.
Items used
- 120 paper clips
- 1 small key
- 10 blue mermaid tears
- vitamin bottle