The Technical Stuff

For this, my final, blog, I will be discussing materials I would use to make the sculpture I showed you in my last blog should I construct it, as well as how the entire mechanism of the sculpture will work for the spiral to turn and the shell to open and close on its own simultaneously.

The mechanism will be housed in the base of the sculpture which will be constructed out of wood. It will mainly be a plain wooden box, except for a 20cm diameter turntable in the centre. The turntable will have three small wheels attached to the bottom to help it turn. Attached to the underside of the turntable will be a simple model train set’s motor. This motor will turn the overhead turntable slowly as well as the coil on top of that.

The coil will be made out of copper as it is an easily pliable material and is still very sturdy, even after being bent in such a way. The plates at the top and bottom will also be made out of copper and they will be soldered onto the coil.

The seashell will be made out of clay and the top and bottom will be held together by a using a small hinge. To have the mermaid bend and fit inside the shell when it’s closed, I will draw it on paper in two pieces. The tail and the body will be drawn onto two separate pieces of paper and then attached onto two small pieces of plywood cut out in the same shape as the mermaid. They will be held together again using a small hinge and will be placed at an angle so that both the top and bottom can be seen. At the back of the vertical piece of wood will be another piece of wood attached to it which will hold it to the inside of the shell, this will help to push the mermaid down as the shell closes and pull it as the shell opens.

 

 

 

 

 

Now on to, perhaps, the most important part of the sculpture and the main part of the mechanism. How the shell will open and close. The rod will be glued to the inside of the shell and go through the bottom of the shell, the top plate, the bottom plate and the turntable through a small drilled hole in each of them. Inside the base the rod will go down straight to the bottom, where a wheel will be attached to help the rod move smoothly in a circle inside the base. Along the moving perimeter of the rod will be a small slope made out of wood. The rod will move along the bottom climbing up the slope and pushing the shell upwards as it moves.

So that is my final concept and how it works, I hope you like it. J

My Final Concept

So, FINALLY, this is my final concept:

This is my concept idea for a sculpture. I got the idea for the spiral shape from the basic shape of ‘The Monument to the Third International.’  The idea for the wave came from the Japanese wood-block printing of ‘The Great Wave of Kanagawa’ which admittedly reminded me of a sideways coil, so rather than transforming it into just a coil I turned it vertical to make the ‘storm’ depicted in the print much more menacing.

On the top plate I put a seashell which will open up (due to a mechanism very similar to a cam) to reveal Ariel, the mermaid (the main character in the movie I chose), sitting down in the seashell. Rather than menacing this detail makes it more whimsical. 

So, that’s my final concept. In my next (and final) blog I will be discussing, in detail, how the mechanism will work and what materials I would be using for the sculpture.



The Little Mermaid

 A few weeks ago I was carrying out some research on different decades in film and I came across something called the Disney Renaissance - since I had never heard about it before, I decided to look it up.

The Disney renaissance was a period between the 1980s and 2000 when Walt Disney Studios went back to producing animated movie musicals which remains, to this day, the type of movie that the studio is most known for.  During this period Disney produced works such as Mulan, Hercules and The Little Mermaid.

As I was reading this, a million ideas started going through my head for my final concept. Since it was my favourite Disney movie when I was younger, I looked into how I could use the Little Mermaid for my final concept.

This is perhaps the most iconic picture of Ariel:

and this is my most favourite scene in the whole movie:

Part of Your World

Another reason why I decided to use the Little Mermaid is my chosen theme. I chose transformation and the Little Mermaid is a story about how a mermaid is transformed into a human girl to go on shore and find the prince she loves (the usual Disney recycled plot). The evil witch, also half octopus, transforms herself into a human to stop Ariel from meeting the prince.

I have now changed my idea for my final concept completely but I feel more confident in the idea I have now. In my next blog I will be showing you my final sketch.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2013. Disney Renaissance. [ONLINE] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_Renaissance. [Accessed 11 January 2013].

 Disney, W. (1989) Ariel in a seashell. [image online] Available at: http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/30300000/ariel-little-mermaid-msyugioh123-30356694-1024-1314.jpg  [Accessed: 11th January 2013].

RainybopStarWars, 2007. Part of Your World (English). [video online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS8C92Yi7Zo [Accessed: 11th January 2013]

The Monument to the Third International

Last week I was going through my design notes to see if I had written down anything on De Stijl and I came across a note for 'The Monument to the Third International' and since I had no picture of it in my notes I went and looked it up.

The Monument to the Third International

Also called Tatlin's Tower (after Vladimir Tatlin who designed it), it was designed as a monumental building, planned to be buil in St.Petersburg as the headquarters and monument of the Comintern which is also known as the Third International. It was designed in 1919 after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 and it was to stand higher than the Eiffel Tower, however it was never built and the only memory of it is a model.

Personally it reminds me  a bit of a pen coil, and it has also given me a new idea for my final concept.

References:

Tatlin, V. (1919) The Monument to the Third International. [image online] Available at: http://files.archinect.com/uploads/ai/aiu_ground_up_from_ground_zero_01x.jpg [Accessed: 11th January 2013].

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2013. Tatlin's Tower. [ONLINE] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatlin%27s_Tower. [Accessed 11 January 2013].

Concept Idea No. 2

After some time thinking about my final concept piece, I went back to my last development and changed it a bit. This is how it looks now.




It's A Strange World.

 I prefer it to the first one seeing as the De Stijl 'window' didn't turn out as I had originally intended. In the original movie screenshot the moon and Jack Skellington were the focus of the picture. After my initial changes it was the wave that pulled the most focus. After the new changes, it is once again the moon and skeleton that pull focus.

Also the colourful moon make the view seem stranger and creepier than it really is. I'm still not convinced that this will be my final concept however I think I have finally settled on one combination of art, design and film.


References:
Since the above artwork is a change of an already original idea I had, i did not feel the need to add any references in this blog. 

Concept Idea No. 1

Looking Through the Window (Climbing The Waves)

This is a personal response to the three aspects which I chose. I took a scene from the movie where Jack Skellington (the protagonist of the movie) is climbing the movie’s iconic swirly hill (seen in y last blog) and set that picture as the background of my development.  Next I took ‘The Great Wave’ and inverted it horizontally to get roughly the same shape of the hill in the movie. I digitally copied the inverted wave 5 times to completely cover the foreground of the hill and the cemetery on the movie still. I then placed these five copies as best I could to cover the foreground and still let it look natural.

I blended the ends of each layer together to make it look more whole rather than placed and pieced together. I would have liked to cut out the boats on the wave however when I tried that the wave didn’t look as natural and menacing as it had before. I was very pleased with the final result of this step and would have liked for it to be the very end result, however seeing as I still needed to incorporate design into the piece I took one final step. I took a copy of Piet Mondrian’s ‘Composition II in Red, Blue and Yellow’ and placed it foremost on the picture so that it completely covered the picture of the man climbing the waves. I turned on the Overlay option for this layer and played with the opacity until I was happy with the final look. I did this to make it look like a Chinese screen window with a light in front of it therefore making it more see-through than a screen would usually be. (This aspect was inspired from a scene from the movie Mulan after having watched it last week).

I could have decided to say it was stained glass however I decided to keep the aspect of oriental culture (woodblock printing as very popular in Japan and the great wave is made using this technique) and say that it was a Chinese coloured screen window instead. Even though it wasn’t my first choice for the finished piece I am quite pleased with the end result – had I not needed to incorporate all three areas I would have left out the De Stijl composition and let it be just a man walking on a monstrous wave rather than the same thing being seen through a window.

Although I know this will definitely not be my final concept – I feel that I’m on the right track when it comes to combining the three elements.

References:

These are the pictures I used to create my final piece:

Hokusai, K. (1829) The Great Wave off Kanagawa. [image online] Available at: http://www.wallsoc.com/images/2000x1379/2012/09/01/paintings-waves-japanese-boats-vehicles-the-great-wave-off-kanagawa-katsushika-hokusai-thirty-six-views-of-mount-fuji-620740.jpg  [Accessed: 15th December 2012].

Mondrian, P. (1930) Composition II in Red, Blue and Yellow. [image online] Available at: http://www.pasunautre.com/2010/12/22/de-stijl-here-neoplasticism-and-the-20th-century/  [Accessed: 15th December 2012].

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Since our final piece has to incorporate art, design and film all together, and I already had design and art down I was looking for a film to inspire me to actually do something based on one of the characters etc. I was stuck until my sister came into the room and started singing (ironically) ‘This is Halloween’ from The Nightmare Before Christmas.  I had finally found my movie and then I started looking up images from the movie (Thanks to my good friend, Google). Obviously the first image to come up was this:

And immediately I thought of ‘The Great Wave’ which is what made me think – this little fact might just make my merging the three together slightly more simple (I still have no idea what I’m gonna do but, this should only help me more). I might just have another Eureka moment at 4 a.m. – hopefully not but the greatest ideas do start off at the worst times.

References:

Burton, T. (1993) The Nightmare Before Christmas. [image online] Available at: http://www.wallchan.com/images/thumbs/6988.jpg [Accessed 10th December 2012]

De Stijl

Composition I in Red, Blue and Yellow

De stijl has to be one of my most favorite movements in design. I particularly like it because of the geometry and the colours which is strange because I don’t usually like the colours red and yellow – but this is one of my most favorite compositions because it has no subject, and makes the viewer use their imagination. It can evoke many different emotions and memories. I will definitely be using this as the design part for my final concept.

References:

Mondrian, P. (1930) Composition II in Red, Blue and Yellow. [image online] Available at: http://www.pasunautre.com/2010/12/22/de-stijl-here-neoplasticism-and-the-20th-century/  [Accessed: 10th December 2012].

Guinness Surfer Ad

I found this video on Youtube as I was searching for wave scenes to tie in with the two artworks in my last two blogs and I found this one – I feel it incorporates them both very well – especially the second one.

Guinness Surfer Ad.

 

Guinness has always been known for its iconic advertisements – and this was an award winning one back in 1998. It was part of the “Good things come to those who wait” campaign during that year. It shows that a surfer waiting for the perfect wave and a person waiting for the perfect pint of Guinness are the same. The anticipation and feeling of reward are the same. One could argue that they are depicting the perfect pint of Guinness as a natural occurrence like a wave and just as frothy. I don’t know how this could be helpful in my design for my final concept but I just thought it was a really good adaptation of ‘The Great Wave off Kanagawa’ and ‘The Horses of Neptune’ from two static images to two moving ones.

References:

Alltmor, 2008. Guinness Surfer Ad (with Horses) 1998. [Video online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9znA_dwjHw [Accessed 8^th December 2012]

 

The Horses of Neptune

The Horses of Neptune

I found this painting which reminded me of the one I wrote about in my last blog. However in this painting the froth of the sea has been transformed into horses – The Horses of Neptune actually. I guess you could call this an adaptation of ‘The Great Wave’ except that the colour scheme is based more on neutral tones such as yellows and browns rather than shades of blue. I think the most appealing aspect of this painting is the horses. I do love a good painting of a horse – perhaps because they’re such beautiful creatures, even when they are stationary. Maybe I’ll replace the first painting with this one and use this in my concept rather than the first because I feel it has been used too much before.

References:

Crane, W. (1892) The Horses of Neptune. [image online] Available at: http://www.artmagick.com/pictures/picture.aspx?id=5986&name=the-horses-of-neptune  [Accessed: 6th December 2012].

The Great Wave off Kanagawa

The Great Wave off Kanagawa

  
The teacher showed us this artwork last week and the moment I saw it I immediately knew I wanted to do something with it. I mostly like it because whereas usually for stormy seascapes artists use darker and grayed out blues, Hokusai used clear blues and white. I have also always been a fan of oriental cultures and wood block prints but I’ve never seen this one until recently. It reminds me of Hawaii, it looks more like one of those waves people surf on rather than a wave in a storm. This is something I will definitely be incorporating in some way or another in my final concept, I’m still not 100% sure how as I have many ideas how this can be adapted, but I will definitely be using this.

References:

 Hokusai, K. (1829) The Great Wave off Kanagawa. [image online] Available at: http://www.wallsoc.com/images/2000x1379/2012/09/01/paintings-waves-japanese-boats-vehicles-the-great-wave-off-kanagawa-katsushika-hokusai-thirty-six-views-of-mount-fuji-620740.jpg  [Accessed: 5th December 2012].