Ideas off at a tangent

Following on from my last post I started working on Jenn's idea of making a hole in the bottom of the sphere big enough to put my hand through and fix the last panel in place.

I measured the size hole I needed and then cut it away.

I then put the panel in place, still quite an awkward job to glue it in position and hold it long enough to set.

Once that was done I closed the hole partially with an extra ring of paper, leaving enough of a gap to put the battery back through that powers the fairy lights.

I did the same with the top, only this time making a smaller hole just big enough to get my finger through to fix the paper plate in place. This time I used some of the offcuts of the panel embroidery to fill in the hole.

I thought this might be a better way to finish the top than have all the ribs coming together in the centre, but I don't like it.

All together it was a very fiddly job and my thoughts turned to an earlier idea in this project which was to lace the ribs to the embroidery. I chose to attach them with an overcast stitch as I think the lacing would be too much pulling on the paper panels.

For this experiment I used the original panels that I'd made for the first mock-up.

At this point I'd run out of water soluble medium so had to resort to a spare piece in oder to stitch a second rib in place.

In doing this I realised that I quite liked the addition of this odd off cut, it seemed to have a sculptural feel about it, so you've probably guessed, this is where the tangent bit in the post title comes in.

I played around with this new shape in my sketchbook and then just left the idea to germinate.

In the meantime I went to the seaside and found this on the beach.

It is such a beautiful piece of metal, it's probably the end of a very large chain. I liked the shape so much that I stood it on its' side with my favourite stone for support and began to play.

This then lead to more sketching.......

In the sketch on the right I'm looking for ways to connect to the two elements of the sheer weight and power of the ring and the stone with the fine wispy filaments of the machine embroidery.

And this is just a very quick oil pastel sketch to try and free up and get the rhythm of the composition, where the embroidery has been forced through the hole in the ring.

Lastly this is a pastel and charcoal study of the ring and the stone, done to try and become familiar with the shape and the properties of the ring and how they relate to the stone, which I know very well.

This is just another avenue of my current studies, which really came about with supply problems for my water soluble medium, so when that arrives it'll be all systems go with the light installation.