Tuesday, October 5, 2010

12 sticks?

This project felt like it left off right where the last one ended.  The task was to incorporate 12 sticks and some paper product into a design.  For me, the most logical thing to do was to start with the prototype from the leaf assignment (right). I had rolled several paper skewers and lodged them in cardboard with the intention that they would hold the leaf in place.  Unfortunately however, due to the prohibition of certain materials, that model wasn't allowed to progress any further.  Luckily, with the twig assignment, I had only to replace the skewers with sticks.  The twigs had a very dynamic look but, I felt it was lacking something.  The upper portion of the prongs felt naked.  I knew some kind of form had to be placed up there.  That is when I saw Alexis' prototype with the stacked cardboard circles; I adopted this idea.  But instead, I cut the cardboard into shaped so when glued together, they would form varying 3 dimensional shapes.  These would hold the twigs together, but only at different heights and depths.  In retrospect, my final piece is still only passable as a prototype.  The corrugation in each piece of cardboard clashed with the others because, for the most part, they lined up at the wrong angles.   Had I invested more time in creating and learning more from the process, I would have been able to create a much stronger piece.





Leaf sketch


 When I went looking for a leaf, I really wanted something different.  I found the one above.  I appreciated the weathered and aged look it had.  I tried drawing it, but found it very difficult to do the wrinkles and micro-tears along the surface any justice.  I resorted to a rough hatching technique but looking back, I feel that it clashes with the length and smoothness of my lines on the lower left portion of the drawing.  In the end, the sketch took on a look that didn't have the roughness I was hoping for.  Initially, I may have captured that but continuous shading has hidden it.  Also, there should be much more delicacy about the northern edge of the leaf.  Ideally, I would have included so much more fraying along this torn edge.  Overall however, I feel that this sketch was important; I experimented with several new techniques, failed with them, and learned.

Friday, October 1, 2010

Place for a Leaf

From the first time I read the prompt, the word 'belong' really stood out to me.  Everyone ended up taking that in a positive direction, for lack of a better word.  I decided to interpret the prompt differently by incorporating the idea of 'detainment'.  In the end, detainment is really another take on belonging.  For my project, I wanted to make some sort of structure that would appear to be holding the leaf in place, but with a certain violence about the action. The first model featured matboard, rolled up as thinly as I could manage.  Then, at differing heights, I stuck them into cardboard as if they were spines protruding from the ground.   The leaf was then pierced into the upper prongs.  Unfortunately, the leaf was vastly overshadowed by the massive paper structure.  I decided to go back to a form which would focus on displaying the leaf, rather than overbearing it.  My second model was a simple leaf with strips of paper woven in.  The weaving had a good look so I ended up incorporating it into my final design.  In this design, I wanted to bring back the idea of detainment.  I took a strip of paper about 6 inches wide and on one end, cut parallel strips extending about 4 inches into the paper.  These strips were woven into the leaf.  At this point, the model was still a 2D object; I preferred to make it a 3D one.  I lined up the intact edge of the paper with a pencil and rolled it until the paper would retain its shape on its own.  In its final form, my design had a spiral shape in which the leaf was detained.  I say detained because, the form of the leaf yielded to the form of the paper.
Final design.