#project radius

I spoke with a lecturer that morning, who showed me the spray paint booth, and it really got the gears going. Instead of trying to include on the entire landscape, I'm going to completely focus on the graffiti silhouette. I was actually thinking of making this an interactive art piece where the viewer can stand at the feet of the silhouette and get their picture taken with it.

There was a lot of figuring out I had to do, which I brain stormed in my sketch book.

When it came to drawing my silhouette, I had to do a bit of experimentation. I tried two different methods; tracing my silhouette, and a grid method.

Tracing my silhouette and using a torch:

The closer the light source was, the more condensed my shadow was. But I thought about how our shadows look when the sun is against our backs, so we tried getting the light source as far and as high as possible to get the desired result.

It resulted in a very organic humanoid shape.

Grid method:

I drew the figure I wanted onto a small piece of paper and copied it onto my huge page. I didn't use this method in the end because I felt it looked too clean, and that the more organic one suited the messiness of graffiti more.

Cutting it out:

I cut it out with a box knife and nailed it into the wall for the time being, I had someone take my picture next to it, for scale refence I am 5ft 5"/ 165cm tall.

Excuse my lack of ability to pose.

So I made my little wire frame a base woth some playdo and card board, and I shined a torch on it from different angles, tracing each different shadow in a different colour. I did 7 different angles and I thought the outcome was really cool, I was very pleased with it.

I was experimenting in the clay room but I was redirected to focus on the shadow aspect of my project, so I then focused my efforts on creating wire frames that I'm going to use to use to capture different shadows.

My first attempt, I used a thick wire and I reused the grid I experimented with while trying to get the original shadow for my graffiti piece, and used it for making a wire frame. I ran out of wire and thought it was too plain. My first attempt was a failure.

My second attempt was much more successful, I once again used a thick wire for the main frame. I stood in front of my graffiti piece and tried using eye to hand coordination to get my wire frame, which resulted in a much more organic shaped frame. I then tried to recreate the main bits of graffiti on my huge piece using thinner more moldable wire. It looks like pencil scribbles and it gives it a more chaotic energy, so I'm really happy with how it turned out.

I held it up against the projector light which resulted in some very clean and interesting shadows.

I bought spray paint this morning, and got to play around and experiment with it for the first time in my life, and I must say it was a fun and educational experience. One of the technicians gave me a few tips and it was very helpful. When I started I was spraying too close to the surface, which made the paint pool up on the page, I was informed by the technician that I had to be spraying farther away or be very fast. By doing so I noticed a big improvement. By experimenting I've figured out that having the spray can pointed downwards makes the paint bubble up, and how to make gradients or "blend" the colours a bit.

When my pieces dried I tried experimenting with different mediums on top of the spray paint. First I tried posca pens which resulted with very bold smooth lines, and then with crayons which provided a nice textured gradient and wasn't as obvious unlike the posca. I learned that the wall was giving it most of the nice texture.

I did some experiments while messing about. I sprayed spray paint on my and and stamped it onto the page, the rubber texture of the glove created a cool effect. I also tried placing my hand down on the page and sprayed around my hand on the page. I also tried dragging my fingers through the paint.

Weekend work (22-24/9/2023)

I decided that the 3rd thumbnail from last weeks progress would suit my idea the most. I decided to create rough idea of what I'm visualizing on a larger scale using water based markers.

Project: Radius.

Our project was to pick an area in Limerick city and focus on one or multiple aspects of the chosen area.

WEEK 1:

(I just figured out how to add multiple images. )

My group walked along the river and ended up deciding on the skate park as our area. We liked the area due to its urban setting and unique colourful graffiti plastered all over its surfaces.

We visited the skatepark twice, the first as are primary walk looking for a location to choose and the second to gain a better insight of the skatepark and to gather further inspiration.