Chapter 12 the proposal

Many thanks to all those who contributed to the last post, your comments helped me a lot, when making my decision as to which design I will take forward for the final 3D project, it's going to be the wishing flags. I think that it will be more appropriate to refer to it as a wishing piece (later it will have a title) as the word prayer feels rather presumptive.

As this is to be a 3D functional item I have decided to make it inter-reactive.

I would like to produce this piece to be exhibited and thereby seen and used by members of the public. My plan is to use some of the flags as purely decorative and then those that people can write their wishes on.

Equally this piece could be used in the home by a single user or others, on a daily/weekly basis.



In the LHS of my sketch book entry I've made a couple of ideas as to how the flags could be supported and the top one would have holes drilled in the driftwood, with a little decorative pot by the side for people to write a small message on. I would have to consider the safety aspect of the flag supports and make sure they were not dangerous.

The second option may be better with wooden supports as in my trial piece.

The flags that are in situ will be highly decorative and I'm planning to use the Designer Plus software to create more fills that will catch the light and give a more 3d appearance.

I am keen to work with a friend who works with glass fusion pieces and as you will see from the RHS page I could have her make me a base using glass frit, which gives a lovely lace like finish. This is quite fragile and would mean allowing people to write their wishes on the flags and I would place them if the piece was on exhibition.

Another idea is to fuse embroidered piece in the glass and we have tried one sample so far, but as I'd used polyester thread on a base of nylon sheer the whole piece disappeared before her eyes as she started the firing.
But we plan to do more samples using copper mesh with silver wire as a stitching medium. I'm also going to try stitching silver thread on gold leaf, which doesn't melt but leaves a black outline.



I'm very keen to see if we can make this work as there doesn't seem to be anything like it other than laminated glass where the fabric is trapped between two pieces of glass.

You may also have noticed that I've simplified the flag design to make writing on it easier and also the glass experiments need to be a simple shape, but this will probably change of course as I progress through the process.

Chapter 12 on to 3D

I have to say I've been procrastinating about getting into this next chapter as I couldn't see how it could work, but how wrong I was once I got started.

The first task was to 'build' a BG that could be used for cutting out selected shapes. I chose to use a mixture of nylon sheers, coloured cellophane, soft papers, silk and some sparkly fabrics. All the pieces were bonded using Supermend granules just to hold them lightly in place. The whole piece was then bonded to a medium weight Vilene.

The BG was then FME'd roughly to to hold the layers together. Finally the shapes were marked and machined from the the back with a double row of stitches.


1/12/1


1/12/2

The shapes were then cut out (cutting between the 2 rows of stitching). As you can see I've used 2 shapes that have become favourites as I've worked through the module.


1/12/3

I then started looking at how the negative and positive shapes might relate to each other.


1/12/4

As I was lining up the positive shapes on their own I wondered if they might make a collar, as I'd already been brainstorming about what the final piece might be.


1/12/5


1/12/6

And then I took a look at the negative shapes again, this time on their own and looking at a possible idea of using them over this piece of devoré velevt.


1/12/7

I was now ready to think about an overall shape that I might be able to use for it. So I took the shape of a previously worked piece of paperwork.


1/12/8

And fitted it onto the dummy.


1/12/9

Having satisfied myself that it had the makings of a good shape I laid my worked shapes over the pattern and pinned them in place.


1/12/10

Now I was ready to see how this would look on the dummy.


1/12/11

The arrows point to shapes that were worked in Bernina Designer Plus 6 software using a lace fill and a wave fill.


1/12/12

The inspiration for this piece came from a shoulder ornament that I saw in a gallery in Arundel, unfortunately I was so preoccupied with not being too obvious when I took my pic that I forgot to record the designer's name, big mistake!!


1/12/13


1/12/14

When I first approached this 3D project I had thoughts of using the abstract shapes I'd created in this design to make a sculpture.


1/12/15

But as this chapter was designed to take a more convoluted route I shelved the idea. However having completed my investigations I decided to drop back to the sculpture idea. I took my inspiration from this experimental piece from the book Basic Design, The dynamics of visual form by Maurice de Sausmarez. The chapter is headed 'The two dimensional field and space frame' and it examines amongst other things, how different planes react with each other, I think! It's the sort of book you'd need to read a lot of times to fully understand the concepts.


1/12/16

Finally I decided to have a go using my instincts as to how the various elements worked with each other.


1/12/17


1/12/18


1/12/19

I really liked the way the shadows were showing in these two shots.

It somehow reminds me of a boat with many flags/sails and if I used this, I think I would make them into preyer flags, sailing in the wind offering up your thoughts to whichever Higher power you believe in.

I don't think I would use the shells, they are really there to cover up the wood and are a bit predictable. I think a beautiful piece of driftwood would be better.

So now I have a dilemma as to which idea to use, maybe you have a favourite..........