3D design day 3

Our third day of 3D design, we continued to focus on balance and constructions as we were asked to make a structure that could hold three plastic balls in different places, not touching and securely standing, out of spaghetti. We were given time to design the structure, a handful of spaghetti and a glue gun to glue it all together. This was quite hard as the pasta is very brittle and brakes easily, therefore to glue it and hold it together without it braking and without burning yourself, was a task in itself. I had a few ideas jotted down in my sketchbook, though when it came to creating the structure, it became much harder than it looked. I mixed together a few of my ideas and came up with a formation that ticked all the boxes, yet could have looked more professional. The balls were light so it did not need to be very supported, though the parts that held the balls had to be the correct size. 

After seeing all the structures together in a blur of pasta and coloured balls, we were asked to make the structure stronger to make it withstand a basketball hitting it from directly above. Seen as my structure was already made with singular pieces of spaghetti as support, this seemed impossible. Even so, I gave it a go! To do this I rolled paper round the spaghetti as support on the legs and piled up scrunched pieces in the tunnel of the structure. 

Very few of the classes protection structures worked... mine certainly did not! 

3D design day 2

For the second day of the 3D design week, we focussed on bridges and started off by creating small paper bridges of which had to get from a few inches across the table. We were asked to use our imagination and be unique in these five examples. I varied my bridges in shape and size and used techniques such as folding, rolling and scrunching to make them look more interesting. I focussed more on the way they looked rather than the convenient side of it. My decorated bridges looked like this:

For the second part of the day, we were put in groups and told to create a large bridge, of which a remote control car was to go across without falling off or the bridge collapsing. We were given large sheets of cardboard, 30 bamboo sticks, rubber bands and lots of tape. The bridge could touch the ground in two different place in between the two tables it had to get across. First we brainstormed some ideas and made some sketches as a group until we found a design that would be secure enough to hold the car, looked good and was relatively easy to make. Our design was simple, but worked and was very secure and sturdy. We decorated it by cutting into the cardboard and creating sides so that the car could not fall off the side. The car drove smoothly across our bridge and it did not collapse or brake! 

3D design day 1

On the first day of our 3D design week, we started the day by being given a shape or form by Geoff of which we had to create something out of. The first thing we were told to do, was to draw a squiggle and then create a piece of furniture that sits two people and a cat out of this simple shape. We had little time to do this and out of instinct I decided to make a breakfast bar out of my squiggle with a cat bed at one end. 

We continued this exercise using different drawings, the next one was to make a rabbit cage out of my favourite fruit, which is raspberries. This was a bit of a challenge, seen as we were not told what we are supposed to make out of the drawing before we draw it on a page, it was hard. This caused me to get in touch with the deepest depths of my imagination, creating things I had never thought up before. 

The next drawing we had to do was a lamp or light out of a favourite piece of clothing. I made a lamp out of a shirt.

I also creates a ring out of the pattern on the sole of my shoes:

We continued to do 10 of these drawings, the next was a bus stop out of my house number.

We continued the day by being given a few sheets of paper and being asked to create an object that can hold a full bottle of water. This encouraged us to experiment with shapes and think about angles and weight in our work. I tested out a few different arrangements of the paper and saw which ones seemed the strongest and best to hold something up. I ended up making several different triangles and sticking them together with masking tape. I then folded another piece of paper to create a secure seat for the bottle to balance on and stuck that on top. After a little coloured decoration, I photographed the holder, it looked like this:

The bottle was dropped from a little above the holder, full of water, the idea was that the paper construction did not collapse. My work of art stayed in one piece! It was secure and could hold the full bottle of water without collapsing.

The next task was to create the same construction but make it so that it could hold my own weight. This was a little more difficult as again we only had minimum materials. This time we were given pieces of card board to do what we wanted to create 'an object that can hold a person's weight'. The idea was to make this structure unique and something that has not been seen before. I decided to take my previous smaller model as a starting point and used triangles as a theme. I started off by folding the big pieces of card board into different sized triangles and putting one inside the other. Three of the pieces folded inside each other made a pretty secure hold. I made a top for it in a triangular shape and tested it out, this was comfortable as it was a supporting shape for my bottom. With time to spare I decorated the seat by cutting out triangular shapes in the cardboard layers creating three dimensional triangles sticking out of the front. I took to it with a coloured pen and gave it a try. The seat was quite comfortable and secure considering it was made completely from cardboard and masking tape. 

After everyone had finished we put all the classes seats together and tested them out. Mine seemed so secure that I was asked if I could stand on it without it collapsing, I tried it with some help up and succeeded! I did not collapse having held my whole weight. After contemplating keeping it for an extra seat on the tube, it was destroyed and recycled. Everyone's seats looked good together and people came up with a range of ideas. 

Working with Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign.

For the third day of this week, we worked in a computer room discovering new ways of formatting photographs and transforming them into posters. We were told to concentrate on what we imagined ourselves doing in 10 years time. I chose to focus on my ambition to ride an elephant in Thailand. I put my face onto people's faces of pictures I found on the internet. I wrote a few words explaining why this is what I want to do in the future. 

Tate Modern

For the first day of concepts and processes, we visited the Tate modern. We were given a guide of rooms and exhibitions to visit during our trip. I took some photographs of things I saw that interested me. 

This was a wall of the Russian poster room. The posters where taken from the Russian revolution. 

Article

Review: Energy and Process - Arte Povera and Anti-form

Today I visited an exhibition held in the Tate Modern, newly discovering sculptural artists such as Lynda Benglis, Gilberto Zorio and several other new names. I enjoyed the layout, which is spacious and simple yet creative using spread out sculptures around the side and two in the centre, complimenting each other. To walk around the room, you are taken through a journey of natural and man-made forms mostly organic. One of these unique sculptures caught my eye from afar, the piece was called ‘Quartered Meteor’ by Lynda Benglis originally created from lead, yet repeated in polyurethane for this particular exhibition. The piece distinguishes a pile of sludge, conveniently placed in the corner of the exhibition room creating a melting effect in a triangular composition. The shiny metal grey surface catches the light as if it has been vanished or finished with a patina. The texture of the piece appears smooth other than some crinkle marks on some parts and the layers creating shadows from the polyurethane poured directly onto the gallery floor. The sculpture has an organic, flowing composition, which creates noise and texture in one’s imagination. For me I an image of liquid metal pouring down, much like a volcano appeared in my mind. Despite the dull colour, the sludge's shape and form can reference laver, it is impressive that such a simple piece can lead one's mind to such a elaborate natural disaster. From afar the piece simply looks like a pile of sludge, yet up close one can appreciate the texture of it. In my opinion, the best part of the piece is the way it causes your mind to travel through a journey of it's own, creating images and movement. ‘Benglis wanted to suggest bodily and geological flows.’ This is a quote from the caption in the gallery, flows are definitely suggested, the dynamic composition of the piece relates to human bodily forms as the shapes of the surge of gunk fall down towards the gallery floor. Although the sculpture has no evidence of person such as human features, Benglis succeeded in involving a dynamic atmosphere in her work. 

FASHION day 3

On the third day of the fashion taster week, we transformed the designs into real garments using only paper. I started by cutting a variation of different sized circles out of brown paper. I roughly measured my model Alice, which gave me an idea of how many circles I needed and what size to make them. 

Throughout the day I gradually put the large collection of circles together in the design I had drawn before, this was useful as I had something to follow. The design changed slightly at the back as it worked out better the new way, I discovered this only by making it. I created a separate skirt and top style garments, gluing together a selection of different sized circles, using a glue gun. Alice posed for me on every floor of the building, finding different backgrounds and relevant surroundings in contrast or comparison to the outfit.