14th February 2011

So, a bit more on what I've been doing recently.

Ive done a bit of drawing but certainly not as much as I should have. Here's my left hand holding the pad I was drawing on. I guess next time I should try and do my right hand....

Then there was the postcard project. This was a way of using different materials to represent my chosen theme of 'travel'. Instead of having postcards or photographs of destinations, the aim was to use textures and everyday objects, and present them in a similar way as photographs would be displayed.


These are a variety of objects such as tickets, receipts and labels, with some modelled representations of sand, road surfaces, train windows etc

The third project I'll briefly describe today is the 'rocket' sculpture. This is a sculpture that is supposed to represent acceleration and change. Change in speed and technogology.
This is a series of models suspended above each other - working from a heavy solid lump of stone at the bottom through increasingly aerodynamic and lighter materials and shapes to carbon fibre reinforced plastic at the top.
This was the first time I'd worked in most of these materials. The stone was an old piece of Caen stone left over from work on Canterbury Cathedral - very easy to work with. The wood was from a short length of 9" x 2" wood recovered from a building site. The steel was made from a chocolate tin, cut and bolted together with Meccano bolts, and then rusted using vinegar and bleach. The aluminium one was made from an old camping saucepan cut and riveted. And the carbon fibre one was made following a complex process starting with a coffee cup, to form a negative from low-melt regid plastic, which was then used to create a positive out of Polyfilla, and that was used to make a soft vinyl mould for the carbon-fibre and resin.

I also plan to make a bronze - or brass - model. So far I have built a small 'foundry' out of a cylinder of metal (two side panels from an old computer), lined with special refractory cement, with a hole in the side to blow some air (from a leaf-blower). I have lit and tested the foundry - and managed to get a crucible (a bit of blanked off old gas main) red-hot. So that should be hot enough to melt brass when I can get some.