Surface Pattern: Spiral Art Jewellery

As I said in the previous "Spiral Art" post, I tried making this pattern as a piece of jewellery and this is the result.

First, I tried making a wire outline of the pattern (using the lines instead of the coloured parts as the design). This was VERY fiddly as I had to get tiny rings of the wire around some of the intersections because the design wouldn't stay flat, it kept springing into a more 3D form. I did manage to sort it out though and this is what it looks like:

I then carefully cut out a copy of the coloured design which I stuck to some thick paper. however, because the crossover part of the loops, it was very flimsy so I used my glue gun and some jewellery wire, on the back, to strengthen the design.

I am really pleased with these but I am not sure yet if I will continue with this idea for my final piece for this unit.

Surface Pattern: Spiral Art

Further to my previous blog on Alexander Rodchenko, I was so happy when I found the "Spiral Art" set at home and I started experimenting with the different cogs. I wanted to have a record of which hole made which pattern so I ended up going through all of them. The largest cog had 76 holes in it - both my arm and pens were exhausted by the end.

Here are some of my favourites:

Holes in largest cog

After deciding which of the patterns I liked, I chose a few to try adding colour to...

 

I am really pleased with these designs and will try to take the last design further, by attempting to make it into an item of jewellery.

Paul Schick

"Paul Schick’s twig constructions began in 1987, after five mind-expanding years at Otis College of Art and Design. Inspired by such artists as Charles Arnoldi, Deborah Butterfield and Andy Goldsworthy, Schick has evolved and advanced his style through natural media. His creations have been featured in some of the finest hotels, spas and designer homes across North America. "

 

I really like Schick's use of natural objects to create such simple but beautiful artwork. I particularly love the different colours in the top picture - I think it adds even more interest to the piece.

 

I would really like to try this myself at some point but I'm not sure how I would join the sticks together. It might work weaving the branches or it may require something stronger such as glue.

 

If you have any ideas, please comment below.

 

 

Surface Pattern: Marbling Ink

Marbling ink is one of the first materials we used to create surface patterns on paper. This was a lot of fun to do. We used a deep plastic tray, filled about an inch deep with water. Then we used a few different coloured marbling inks (a few drops of each) and the end of a pencil to mix/marble the inks on the surface of the water. We then carefully put a sheet of paper on the surface and lifted it up to reveal the ink patterns which had stuck to the paper.

Here are some of mine:

 

 

 I really enjoyed experimenting with this technique and also tried just dipping the edges into the tray to create a colourful border. My first attempt went a bit squint because I was trying to get a bigger border by putting the paper at an angle and it slipped a little in the water.

 

I also tried hole-punching the border:

 

 

I think combining the ink border and the hole-punching makes a very interesting pattern.

Hopefully I will be able to use the marbling ink technique in more of my work as I really liked using this method.

Papermaking part 4

I have also been experimenting a bit with using stamps for the printmaking part of this unit and I think some of them have worked quite well.

Close-up of left image

Close-up of left image

Close-up of left image

 

Close-up of left image

I also tried using a stencil and a spray bottle with ink.

I think these work well and I really like the simple leaf design. I think the cog experiment worked ok but the pulp paper is very absorbent so the ink bled a little bit.

I am still really enjoying this unit as I like experimenting with using different media to create different paper effects. I plan to develop this further by making paper at home using paper pieces from our shredder for the pulps.

Alexander Rodchenko

In 1924, Alexander Rodchenko designed "Textile Design".  The design uses concentric circles and overlapping circular patterns to create an interesting surface pattern.

I think this is an effective repeat pattern and I like the colour combination within the design. The orange and green make each other stand out more against the dark circles and pale background. I also like the darker orange where the circles overlap and the calm of the plain diamond shapes created by the negative space in the pattern. The different rings are particularly interesting because on closer inspection there are further shapes and patterns, even more so when the rings overlap.

I like this design because as soon as I saw it, I remembered using a "Spiral Art" set as a kid making a range of different patterns by using the various holes in the cogs, sometimes overlapping multiple patterns.


While doing research for this post I also found another piece of work by Rodchenko called "Hanging Construction" which he made in 1920. This piece is a sculpture with interlinking circles again creating a spiral effect.

I really like the idea of movement created by this sculpture and the way the circular rings overlap from different angles to make more geometric shapes in the negative space. I also like how the shadows create an interesting pattern on the surface of the wall.