Paper Engineering

For the one week applied design workshop we were given a paper engineering task in order to explore and experiment with ways of manipulating and exploiting paper.  Being interesting in furniture and interior design I chose to create a lighting piece, I was also interested to see how I could combine paper with light in an aesthetically pleasing way and using the qualities which paper has to my advantage.

I was first inspired by Ron Resch’s paper folding because of the geometric patterns he created, making me want to create a contemporary looking piece by using similar geometric forms.  This then lead me onto James Patmore’s work, an artist who created furniture and lighting himself.  I liked his NaCI installation light shade in particular as it’s made up of a cluster of geometric shapes.  I experimented with trying to create similar, almost cube like, forms from paper but found this difficult as they needed to be properly measured nets for the sides to fold correctly and match up.  After trying to use a ready made geometric net but finding it too limited, as well as the fact it wasn’t creating the kind of shape I wanted, I played around with plain pieces of paper to try to and create more simple, individual shapes that fitted together to create a bigger piece.

I used a red thread to join the forms together, creating a contrast against the pure white of the paper.

I experimented with putting my piece onto the light box in the dark room, which gave the piece a nice orange, almost fiery, glow.

I also tried putting LED lights in the center of the piece and inside each segment.  Putting them in each segment gave an interesting effect and a different burst of light was projected from each one.

As well as experimenting with light behind it and amongst it, I projected light onto it to try and create some interesting photographs of the forms and delicate, time consuming, joining method. 

Projecting light onto the piece also created some interesting shadows.

Mark Making

We begun the Graphics workshop by experimenting with mark making using a variety of dry materials, starting off with pencil and then moving onto things like chalk, grafite and charcoal.

My favourite process was the dye and bleach because of the contrasting negative and positive colours they created when added together.  I like that I was able to achieve an almost glowing effect by lightly painting streams of bleach onto the dye.  Using the powdered dye on wet paper also gave an effective reaction, reminding me of the shots you see of galaxies in space because of the way the dye bled outwards, leaving specks of the powder in the center.

                                          Charcoal and ink

            

Masking tape, ink and acrylic paint

    Acrylic paint        -       Ink dragged down the paper using a piece of cardboard        -         Ink and acrylic paint

The three pieces I chose to frame were the ones which I felt had worked the most successfully, but also the ones which complemented each other, mainly because of the similarity of the vertical wavy lines each of the three pieces had.  The techniques and materials I used were all very different, which I think makes the pieces more interesting.  For the first piece of mark making I squeezed UHU glue in wavy lines, almost like tree branches, and then grated a piece of black chalk on top of the glue, giving it a soft black texture.  I tried to make the bottom half very black and blended the chalk upwards so that it gradually became more subtle.  I then used a straw to dip into black and white acrylic paint and created small circles around the lines, once again making the bottom half darker than the top.  I created all three marks in this way, using the materials to make a gradual transition from dark to light, with dye, bleach and acrylic paint for my second piece, and acrylic and black chalk dusk for the third.

Ceramic Towers

Top                        -                        Middle                       -                        Bottom


After being set the task of creating a ceramic tower in groups of six we chose to focus on texture, by imprinting as many different objects, materials and surfaces into the clay as possible.  We used blue and red slip in order to add colour to the piece, as well as dark coloured oxides to contrast these two colours and to help bring out the different textures.

A variety of different shells pressed into the clay and highlighted with red and blue slip to bring out their texture .

Footprint with grog to add a gravely texture.

Shell imprints with coloured slip over the top to highlight texture and add interest, as well as dripped colour oxide to give a watery effect.

A range of different tools such as Lego and patterned rollers to add as many different textures to the clay as possible in one small space.











The structure we chose for our piece was; one large component for the base of the tower, four for the middle section, and four slightly smaller ones for the top.  One of the advantages to having the design of our piece based around texture was that each pair within the group could use their imagination to create something different and individual as our design wasn't restricting.  This then meant that the final outcome would be much more visually interesting because of the variety of tools, methods and mark makings.  However, one thing which we did keep the same was the use of red and blue slip, which each pair incorporated into their section in order to bring them all together.