Printmaking

Various lino cut experiments 

This week we were tasked with making prints along the theme of light. I made this concentric circle pattern which is inspired by waves of light rippling outward.
I chose this pattern, though, with the intention of printing it twice over itself to replicate light interference.

'Interference of waves from two point sources' -Wikipedia

Double prints of varying divergence.

I really liked these, they turned out pretty much exactly how I pictured them in my mind.
A similar effect can be observed with ripples in water caused by ducks or raindrops.

My favorite print of the series and a colourful variation.

The famous double slit experiment that proves that light can behave like a wave and a particle.

We will be developing our techniques and concepts in the coming weeks. I am excited to see where this goes!

Light Painting

Lena and myself discovering the wonders of light painting.

I went to a light painting workshop about four years ago and had a blast. It involves setting up a camera on a tripod set to a long exposure. You then have to use a torch or preferred light source to draw in space. Your movements over time with the light are then captured by the camera and turned into an image.

An animation of a classmate, scott, electrocuting Iona. You can see the blur that is me in the background.

So at college, you can imagine I was excited to hear I would have the opportunity to experiment with long exposure light drawing once again. We have five weeks to develop our ideas like in the 3D rotation.

A 'failed' and 'successful' long exposure photograph. This depends on your oppinion, though.
This is art, of course!

So our class was divided into groups and our photography teacher, Richard, walked us through the settings needed to obtain a good light painting image. This required the camera in Manual mode so that we could change the shutter speed (1s-30s) and the Aperture (~F4.0) independently. The iso was at 100 and the lens was set to manual focus.
By fiddling around with these you can get different outcomes. In the above image, the top photo was out of focus and had too low an F number. You can see how much better the second image was after we rectified these issues.

So then we experimented, of course! The light in these images was from an iPhone torch shining through come coloured cellophane. The camera speed was set to about 7 seconds; enough time to walk quickly around your subject, wobbling a light about.
I really love the way these three photos turned out! The colour is vibrant and the long exposure gives a kinda creepy feeling to the images. A friend of mine said these look like an alien abduction, I like that!

I made an animation out of multiple photos of this pose with the line different in each of them. You can see that at the beginning of this blog post.
I am excited to see where how we can develop this technique further and will discuss those outcomes in the future.

Mood Board

We were tasked with creating a mood board out of images that we find inspirational and related to light.
After about an hour of foundering, not sure what to put onto my board, I realised I wanted to make mine digitally, like this blog.
So next I needed to source images. I found plenty of photographs of my own on my computer related to light as it is something I like photographing a lot myself.
I had quite a few images picked out but had an issue; there was no unifying colour theme, or really, any kind of theme (other than light, of course).
So I moved the images around until I found two colour schemes;
ice white and rainbow. All with black backgrounds
First I sorted the images into Light backgrounded ones and dark backgrounded ones. I developed the Light board first finding examples of sculpture, costume, photography and installations.

I also decided to put in images from my artist research; gladiola window by Mariah Roberson and Chromosaturation by Carloz Cruz Diez.

Through the Looking Glass- My Completed Project

 So the five weeks of this project are up. I had planned to make an installation / sculpture incorporating these lenses I made. Was I successful? Did I actually make something?
Yes! Here it is:

The main frame (which is literally holding everything together) is made from a test-tube stand and clamps that the lovely science technicians at college lent to me. I modified it slightly by using a long steel rod with grooves filed in to hang the lenses from. You may notice that it is in four different permutations in the above images. This is a property of my peice I really like and didn't really intend to happen.

The rustic aesthetic of the old science clamps worked very well with the lenses.

I used the science clamps to hold and position the lenses, giving the sculpture an infinite amount of variations and angles and combinations. This lets the 'user' position the sculpture in any way they want, enabling them to play and experiment with light (If someone were to buy this, I would like them to position it how they want to). Depending on how the components are arranged, different outcomes can be explored; Projection of light and shadows, movement, inversion, magnification and focusing of space & light.

Clockwise from top: coursemate, Jamie, interacting with my sculpture. Strip-lighting being focused onto the paper by the lens and warped by the swinging crystal. Lace projection viewed through the lenses.

I hope the sculpture makes viewers feel inclined to interact with it. And if they were to interact with it I'm sure they'd instantly start discovering the fascinating properties of light like some of my coursemates did. This is exactly what I had wanted to make; a device that allows people to easily and intuatively interact with and interpret light, this should give the user a huge insight into the properties of light as they can interact with it directly.

Light can be such a passive thing, we can't really interact with it. I am providing a way to bend and control it like a sixth sense.

Classmate, Minnie, having a look to see what she thinks.

I am communicating my own fascination and enjoyment when experimenting with light. I want the audience to view the world through the perspective of my piece and they can do this quite literally by simply looking through it an observing it's effects. This means that the surroundings of the sculpture are just as important as itself.

A first person perspective of the view from my sculpture

Overall, I am hugely pleased with my outcome. I feel that I have built something 'that could be seen in a gallery'. I feel that I have built something that communicates my perspective on light and I feel I have learnt a lot through the planning (or not planning),  experimentation and building of my piece.

Wooden lens disc frame

So for this installation I'm making I wanted a way to suspend some large glass lenses of mine. I consulted a tutor I've mentioned quite a few times on this blog, Young. We sat down with a pencil and a scrap of tracing paper and discussed and sketched how we could create a frame to sandwich the glass and could be suspended.

I love technical drawings.

We agreed that this would probably be the quickest and easiest way to construct a frame. By laser cutting, we could make the whole process precise, easily reproduced and even quicker. So I whipped out a ruler and started measuring the lenses then drew up some scale plans:

I then replicated this on Adobe Illustrator plus the 4mm bolt holes.

I use illustrator quite a lot. I enjoy the capabilities of vector graphics.

About ten minutes later and I had my first prototype! Let's try it on the lens!
Oh.. it just doesn't fit.
Damn.
Ten minutes and a few remeasurements and adjustments later and BAM:

Mmmm..  that crisp, burnt edge of laser cut wood. If there was one piece of machinery I could take home, it would have to be the laser cutter.

Wow! From conception to creation in under three hours! (Including breaks) This is what I love about computers and laser cutters. Time to try and construct it round the bolts using wing nuts.

Holy moly! I think this looks really sweet. The circular frame and wing nuts make the lens look like a port hole to another world.. like Alice theough the looking glass. The lens fits very snugly between the bolts and wood, the frame is perfect! I then threaded it up and hung it by my window. I think the frame has been a success, it has fulfilled my requitements and I think it actually adds to the lens by framing the view.