Friday 4 December 2009

3d monster lights (samples)

i have not been idle with my 3D samples and at last i feel i am getting somewhere,or at least I am happy, i will see what Sian says! anyway to recap, the proposal is to make a series of small/life size 'cans' that can hold LED tea lights. i have been thinking along the lines of 3 or 5, no reason for the numbers although i think 5 would make a good line up.
initially i started by getting the lid shape i wanted; the ears will slot in along the top seam.
it took quite a long time to get the shape i was happy with, firstly working out with paper and then using a foam shape for stability.
the actual lid/head will i hope be made from various layers of plastic stitched together with a metallic thread to indicate lines taken by graffiti artists. the seam was sewn with a clear nylon thread, over sewn and then the seam flattened out. the ends will have 'tags' attached to them. above on the left side the ends have been dipped in silver sealing wax.
on the other side above i have dipped the ends in paper pulp.
for the mouth and eyes i have done some samples of free machining on soluble fabric. the mouth is about 3cm wide.
for the main body my plan was to impregnate cotton organdie with a paper pulp. the pulp was made using recycled paper. my initial samples were on white organdie which i wasn't happy with. so i decided to stencil the organdie first.
first sample above i was not happy with as the pulp was too thick.
next sample i was a bit happier with as the pulp was nearer to how i wanted it. however i was still not 100% happy and the pulp had a tendency to peel off the organdie.
i then started out on a tangent! which i am really pleased with. one of the reasons i like graffiti is the lace like quality of various tags so i started experimenting with knitted and melted plastic bags.
this has given me a perfect substrate for my paper pulp and although the holes are quite structured they are random enough.
my plan is to start with a complete substrate on the first light and gradually i will remove areas based on a stencilled tag. when i dipped the plastic in the pulp and turned it over i had placed it on a plastic surface which when i pulled it off the pulp pulled upwards from the knitting. this was originally the reverse but i love the way this gives a raised surface to the pulp. i tried colouring an area but felt that i liked the white surface which will have glitter in the pulp, like a wall surface ready for spraying.
finally going back to an earlier sample of a paint streak i have applied a similar 'streak' to the sample. it curves beautifully around a can. i intend to add the paint streak to each 'can' so when they stand together it appears as one streak! i am hoping i can go ahead and make them up, my husband would like the paper pulp out of the fridge by Christmas?!

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