This is a relief sculpture of my own original cartooning.  The drawing depicts two siblings, spending time together even though they are not actively playing with each other.

This was inspired by my two children, who love being with each other so much that they are simply happy just to be in one another’s presence.  They have such a deep, pure, honest love of each other, and I wanted to portray that here.

You can see these same two cartoon “characters” as fully 3D forms in my sculpture Back From the Market With Mom (2018).

 

Building it

The project began as a cartoon drawing, which I then scanned and digitally colored.

Then, using a digital drawing program, I traced a rectangular grid over the cartoon and drew-in the zig-zag LEGO blockiness, allowing me to have a schematic, of sorts, that I could build from.

The sculpture is built true to the LEGO system, with every piece connecting to each other.   It was actually built UNGLUED first, and after it was finished I glued it from behind to make it permanent.  I used a lot of advanced building techniques to get the look that I needed, by connecting LEGO pieces sideways and upside-down to get the right kinds of shapes and curves.

It was important to me that my linework was preserved and that the final result still felt very “handmade”, squashy, and imperfect.

The sculpture is over 6 feet wide and is mounted to an acrylic backing that allows it to “float” an inch or so from the wall.