making our paper shrine: continued

making our paper shrine

After our recent tutorial we realised that we needed to go back in the direction of paper cutting. I found this to begin with extremely difficult and felt like everything I did was a stab in the dark. Since paper cutting wasn't my thing I found it challenging to know what to create without reference. I asked Katie if she had any books that we could look at and push paper saved the day. Within the book we focused on an artist called Yulia Brodskaya, with her work featured above. The 3D aspect of her design would create not only a beautiful pattern but equally beautiful shadows to match. We decided to use a technique similar to hers to create our paper cutting part of our shrine. After spending around 5 hours we realised this wouldn't be finished in a short amount of time. We are going to continue on with this on monday as we believe that it has been extremely successful due to who intricate it appears.

last lecture

At the end of our lecture series for our first term I wanted to reflect on what we've done so far. My lectures at foundation were very different to how they have been on my degree course so far. We were there to absorb information and learn but never put it into practice through any means, they were just notes for ourselves. This time around, the lecture are much more engaging and come with projects of their own. Arguably you could say I prefer how it was before as all I had to do was turn up so to speak. However I have really enjoyed the projects set and feel that they challenged me from a different angle. The focus was more on our research and how we justified decisions made. It was't about what looked pretty, it was looking for the deeper meaning. We pushed ourselves to learn about the context of the works instead of just face value. Further to this we have presented presentations which although terrify me every time are worthwhile. The experience will be helpful for pitching within a future career within graphics.

photography: final outcome

Its been a long wait to receive our images back and as soon as I got mine back I set about editing. Its no secret that I'm a complete novice at photoshop and previously just being able to delete a background was a massive achievement. In the short space on this course I can see already just how far I have come with my photoshop skills alone. When they say practice makes perfect that is definitely the case, before I would ignore photoshop and now I happily accept the challenge. 




When I looked back at the images it became clear that my body position was nowhere near where it should be, what I had feared. I hoped for simply overlaying my body on top of the women's and job done, however it was much more complex. Since my body was not in the correct position I have to separate up several parts of my body and align them correctly, completely faking the lean. I didn't realise at the time that I wasn't leaning over a much as I should of, some more art direction probably would of helped. Finally my decision over whether to keep the Alpen box is still undecided. As much as I want to create a perfect match I can appreciate the comedic value seeing if people notice the switch or lack of switch.

shrine to the spoon: making

From this simple experiment we realised that within the time frame left, paper would be more appropriate. Although we have already ordered and planned how we would go about making the metal case we have to face the time constraints. I would rather do something well instead of rushing a complicated idea that involves metal work skills which we don't have. Our next move is to create samples of patterns and from there ultimately build up a structure that would hold my spoon. The bright sliver shining from within the delicate white paper design.

shrine to the spoon

We looked back at some of our favourite images from the V&A museum and thought about how we could use the first image as inspiration. We thought that we could replace the hand with a spoon or even the hand holding a spoon as representing through Katie's illustration above. From here we then thought about famous figures or even famous statues holding the spoon. I manipulated the statue of liberty so that the statue was holding a spoon, however this fails to communicate on the intricate paper half of our brief. Although we enjoyed the playfulness of this idea it wasn't one that we wanted to continue with. We then decided to head in the direction of making something similar to the sketch but in paper. 

designing the case #2

From here we decided that making a case for our spoon would one of our main ideas however we knew very little about what would be possible. We took a trip to the metal workshop and after presenting them with a rough idea of what we hoped for they were extremely helpful. From our discussion we set about measuring my favourite spoon and finding spoons that were slightly larger. We were advised that using a spoon for the base and the lid would make life a lot easier considering we wanted to achieve something very complex. We were also made aware of thin aluminium that can be cut with scissors which would help us greatly. According to the internet and I do hope this is correct 0.016in thickness of aluminium can be cut through so thats what we ordered. The edges of the case would be made of this thin aluminium making it easy to bend into place. Further to this we would also be able to create the decorative features out of this material with more ease than if it were thicker. We hope to have these by the weekend so we can get to work on them through next week.

designing the case

As we went about designing how our case would look we took inspiration from objects similar to what we found at the V&A. We also looked at beautifully designed spoons and how we could incorporate all these ideas together. I started with a simple silhouette of a spoon with an interesting shape and filled it with decorative patterns (below). I admired the ones with perfect symmetry and decided from here to make my own illustrations. I placed paper over the top of the spoons and used some of their lines and ignored others, manipulating their design. I then found two favourites and further explored adaptations of each. From here we need to see what it possible within the metal workshop to see if this is possible.

 

initial shrine ideas

I began by looking at placing my spoon within a spoon shaped case instead of a squarer design. As my spoon is very plain and lacks detail I felt that the case should be the opposite and be highly decorative and even change the shape slightly. I then decided to draw my favourite spoon on top of a decorative spoon to show how it would fit within, however it didn't fit leaving behind overlapping lines. From here it gave me the idea of laying the spoons, all 12 in total on top of each other. I then ended up with the illustrations above, from manipulating the hand drawn version with photoshop. I wanted to create the illusion of symmetry and feel that repition and pattern is an area we should further explore. At this stage I am looking forward to see what Katie has come up with tomorrow and how we will further collaborate our ideas together.

case it

After looking closer at the displays we began to notice a theme of cases proudly displaying spoons. They started off like a plain box and then as we exploded further their creativity came to life. As we read about the history of the items we found out that in the 17th century it was customary to have your own personal cutlery, which you would take to wherever you ate. This reminded us of my own personal favourite spoon and that if given the choice I would take with me wherever I ate. From here we thought about our shrine being a case for my spoon complete with all the delicate details paper cutting would imply.

spoons spoons spoons

Now onto the real reason that we first decided to go to the V&A, spoons, spoons and more spoons.  We could not believe the quantity of cutlery let alone the amount of spoons that were on show. We were extremely inspired by our surroundings, especially being able to learn about the making process, as an idea mentioned by our tutor was about making our own spoon. From here we looked closer to see how we would be able to incorporate the decorative elements from the sacred silver collection further with the spoon.