Wire Sculpture

Materials needed:

*Various types and colors of bendable wire

*Needle nose pliers (with cutting ability)

In this project only wire and pliers was used. The theme for this project is ‘At the Circus.’ Thinking about things/people that are at the circus, I immediately thought of an elephant. I had never attempted to create an elephant in art with any medium before, so I thought I would give it a try, and elephants are fun anyway. Then came the hard part after deciding on the subject. This is where I spent a lot of time thinking, preparing, planning, and processing how I would execute a sculpture of an elephant using wire. By using only wire, an expressive three dimensional drawing is created. This project is an exercise of drawing in space with line, helping the mind leave the two-dimensional world of traditional drawing.

*For a tutorial on this project, visit It's a Love Hate Kind of Thing*
I began with a thicker, more rigid wire for the body. (please keep in mind I used one continuous piece of wire for the whole body) I decided to start with the tail, knowing that it would be easy to play with the wire on the tail to get a feel for how the wire bends before moving on to the rest of the body. After giving tight bends representing the hair at the end of the tail and then a bend in the actual tail before connecting with the body, I tightened the bends that I wanted with the pliers – using them to clamp hard onto the fold I had already made in the wire. This allowed the fold to then become much tighter than it was. After creating the tail, I then started to slowly bend little by little working my way down the wire to create a spiral, which began the back or behind of the elephant. This process is much like creating a spring, but making the spring increase in diameter as I move along. Once I had a very small part of the back section done, I moved on to the back legs before continuing the torso of the animal. I also created a spring-like structure for the legs. For this part, I wrapped the wire around my index finger to create a more consistent coil, and then pulled at each end of the coil to loosen it up and make the coil longer, and repeated the process with the other legs as well. After finishing the second hind leg, I then continued the larger coil/spiral process of the rest of the torso. I used a photograph of an elephant as a reference to the shape of the body as I went to make sure that my bends were representing the shape of an elephant to the best of my ability. Once I had completed the torso, I then created the front two legs the same way I created the back ones. The amount of wire I used was perfect (approximately 3-4 yards).

For the rest of the elephant (the head and trunk, also another piece of continuous wire) I used a more flimsy wire that was much more difficult to control and bend to a shape that would stay in the shape I put it in. this was the most time consuming part for that reason, but I wanted the head to have movement to it, and by having thinner wire, it allowed the head structure to move more freely and less bouncy as the more rigidly built body. I began with the tip of the trunk, wrapping it again around my finger. This worked pretty well as far as keeping its shape. Once I had finished the trunk, I then created a small tusk next to it by bending it into a sharp shape, much like a trunk and using the pliers to make the bend tighter. Once I got the shape I wanted, I wrapped a small piece of the wire around itself at the base of the tusk to create a connection or a sort of tie to hold the wire to that shape. After the first tusk was done, I then moved over to the other tusk and repeated the process, also attaching the tusks to the trunk so the structure was more stable and in the positions I wanted them in.

Next came the rest of the head. I mimicked the same spiral/spring structure of the body in the head. I again looked at a picture of an elephant to get the shape of the face and head right. Once I got the shape I wanted, I created another tie at the top of the spring structure, and then moving along with the wire, I ran it down on the inside of the front of the face of the elephant to add support to the shape of the elephant’s face. Once I put the support there, I then wrapped some wire around the base of the head for a strong connection. I ran more wire up one side of the face to create one of the eyes. I simply created a small loop where I wanted the eye to be, and then connected the remaining wire up at the top of the head and then went back down creating the other eye on the other side of the face and connecting the wire at the bottom again. I cut a small separate piece of wire from the end of my continuous piece of wire. I used this piece to wrap around the bottom of the face, connecting all the wires together (including the bottom of the spring shape of the head, the wire leading to the tusks, and the base of the start of the trunk as well). I used the pliers to get a tight wrap to ensure that the piece does not come apart. To finish off the head, I shaped an ear, connected the ear at the top of the head, and then shaped the other ear and connected down at the bottom again. I then cut the remaining amount of wire off.

After finishing the head, it was time to attach it to the body. I cut three more pieces of wire from the remaining bit that I had. One piece, I used at the top of the head, attaching it on the head using the connecting wrapping method. Once attached to the top of the head, I then attached the other end of this connecting wire to the top of the elephant’s body, using the same wrapping attaching method. I repeated the process with the remaining two pieces of wire at the bottom of the head and bent the wire to match the shape of the body of the elephant and to give the wire extra support. Once the head was attached, I then went back over the whole structure and bent wire and springs into shapes and angles that I wanted. For example, I bent parts of the trunk to give the trunk character and to make it look like it is raising up and bending in different directions much like real elephant trunks do. I also bent the legs in a necessary direction for the elephant to stand on its own. I also shaped the body back to a shape that I had wanted, because some of the wire got bent out of place when working on the rest of the piece.

Once everything was in place and shaped how I wanted, I was all finished! The thing I learned the most was analyzing the various kinds of wire and deciding where that wire should be used, considering how well it will support the overall structure and how easy it is to work with. I have decided that I don’t like the finer wire. It is difficult to shape and hold the shape, whereas the more rigid wire held its shape as soon as I bent it and offered more structure and stability so that the piece could stand on its own. I thought for sure that finer wire would be easier to handle, but it turned out to be quite opposite. I love how this project turned out. I really enjoyed myself and learned many techniques and planning strategies along the way.