Category: Process

Wearable Triangles Progress

Up until recently I got a little sidetracked by working on my website rather than in the studio. But last week I made some major progress on the triangle wearable. The photo above is of the first version from a few weeks ago, and the second photo (positioned in a spiral) was after I added more material. I kept looking at this second version and felt it needed even more.

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I cut an additional eighty triangles (twenty of each colour), and added them to the piece. There are six strands measuring roughly sixteenish inches long. I improvised a makeshift clasp so I could try it on and get a sense for how it should hang on a body. It’s working very well, but I still feel it needs a bit more material added to it because I want it to be denser.

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My next steps are figuring out how to make a proper clasp and attachment from wire. I’m hoping to get this and two other pieces finished in time for the beginning of July because photos are due then of the work.

Work in Progress: Wearable Paper Art Part 2

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These lovely red things are what I started working on after I set aside the cut paper strips. I love these so much, but it may be the colour, because red is my favourite. I started by cutting about twelve or so, and then cut another bunch to bring the number up to thirty. It’s hard to tell in the first two photos but some of the paper is in two different shades of orange and not red. They range in size from an inch in diameter to two and a half (I think).

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Work in progress, cut paper pieces

These will all come together into a wearable piece, when I finally figure out what shape and size of base I want to attach them to. I’ve been prototyping these but haven’t yet settled on one I’m satisfied with.

Work in progress, cut paper pieces

This will end up as a ridiculously elaborate paper wearable, but I wanted to make something spectacular for the show in September.

Work In Progress: Wearable Paper Art

With the tyvek installation completed, last week I launched into prototyping ideas for some of the other work I need to create for the same show. I’ve agreed to make wearable pieces from paper for Hammer Cut Stitch Repeat in September. The show is organized by jewellery designers, Patsy Kay Kolesar and Simone Richmond, around the common theme of pattern and repetitive work.

The photos pictured here are from last week when I was exploring an idea around making an elaborate collar piece from strips of cut paper. It didn’t work out so well, so I played around with curling the paper and seeing what happens. I did not come up with an idea I am happy with so I’ve set this one aside for now.

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I do like the organic forms I can create this way, and of course the shadows. I set this idea aside this week to forge ahead on something else that is actually going well so far. More on that in another blog post.

Repetitive Drawings

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Two weeks ago I set aside the tyvek installation because it was feeling stale to work on, and did a little side trip into drawing again. I decided to do a series of repetitive drawings using metallic gel pen on black paper. To date I’ve made three of these on 12″ x 12″ black paper, and I have plans to do one or two more.

I experimented with shooting short process videos using my iPhone while working on two of the three pieces. For the top one I held the phone in my left hand while I drew with my right. That was awkward and felt unnatural because I normally use my left hand to rotate the paper as I draw. With the video below I used the Hyperlapse app to do a timelapse version of me drawing, and attached it to a lamp instead of trying to hand hold and shoot. Both videos are mesmerizing to watch because I love the smooth motion of pen on paper.

I’ll share the drawings themselves in another post.

Flying Over Four Feet of Tyvek

On Wednesday I managed to make it past the four foot mark with the tyvek piece. To document this progress I took a video with my phone and shared it on Instagram. It’s impossible to fit it into the frame of one photo, so this works rather well.

I think of this as a “fly over” video, similar to filming while flying over the earth in a plane.

Succulent Growth

How many different titles can I come up with to include the word succulent, is something I wonder every time I write a new blog post about the project. I think I made ten more last week, as I switched between working on the growing cluster of paper plants and the giant piece of tyvek I am cutting.

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They have started taking over the top of my paper drawer because there are twenty-five of them now. I love how they look, with all that repeating shape, texture, and delicious colour.

Work In Progress: Returning to a Neglected Tyvek Project

Looking through old blog posts, I was happy to realize it hasn’t yet been a year since I first started working on my second installation piece cut from tyvek. I set it aside in May shortly after I started my artist residency at The Leeway Studio, and have worked on it very little since then.

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But I’m back at it with the goal of trying to finish it in the spring, maybe even the end of March. The piece is hand cut from a roll of tyvek that is roughly seven feet long and eighteen inches wide. The design is composed of a series of circles intricately cut with my favourite freehand pattern of crescent shapes (I really should come up with a name for it…)

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I was surprised to realize at the end of last week that I’ve cut close to three feet of the piece already. I felt like I’d barely made much progress on it, but I’m close to halfway.

This is the second of three installation pieces from tyvek I eventually plan to create. You can view the first one here.

Off-Cut Pieces and Finished Succulents

I make the succulents from strips of paper about 1.5 inches wide by 20 inches long, and what is left behind is a very interesting off-cut. I’ve been saving some of these as I go and there’s now a small pile of them at the side of my desk. I may do nothing with them, or I may turn them into an interesting collage at some point. I don’t often do anything with these leftover pieces, but I like to give them careful consideration before they end up in the recycling bin.

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This is the new cluster of succulents I worked on last week. I made sixteen of them in various shades of reds and greens. I’m going to keep making more until I have enough to fill a few shadowbox frames.

Paper Succulents

Last week in the studio I spend time on making tiny succulents. I bought new paper to work with and made a few in green. A day later while looking through Instagram I suddenly realized how “on trend” succulents are at the moment, especially paper ones. Ugh.

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Now I’m not sure where to go with this. I don’t want to be part of a trend, but maybe I am getting sidetracked anyway. I set out wanting to explore organic plant-like shapes and forms, but not create literal versions of anything specific.

But I do love how succulents look when there is a huge cluster of them. Oh the repetition!

Prototypes and Sketches in Paper

On my days working in the studio this week I’ve continued to work on a variety of paper prototypes. I’m trying to explore different forms, and how to shape them. I am impatient to finish something, so I decided to play around with some of them in a shadow box frame to get a sense of how to bring them all together. These are some of the sketches I made.

Paper sketches

Paper sketches

Paper sketches

They’re ending up more pretty and flowery than I’d intended, but it’s still early days. There are some rounded three dimensional shapes I have no idea how to make so far, and I feel this is the key to making pieces for this series. I hope I can figure it out.