How about a giant strawberry?
So, one of the reasons I'm feeling massively accomplished this week is that I finally got my welding project done for the sculpture class.
The assignment was to make a welded sculpture out of 1/4" steel rod that was at least 4" high. We could reproduce a small object at a larger size, but not make a big object smaller.
So I made a really big strawberry. I'm thinking I can put it out in the garden this summer. Maybe trellis vines on it or something.
I don't really have any pictures of the early stages of the project. Here it is before I painted it:
The leaves before they were welded. I originally had a single leaf on it (you can sort of see it in the picture above this one) but it looked nothing at all like a strawberry leaf; it just made the whole thing look like an apple, which meant I ended up cutting it off and fabricating a new leaf the weekend before the project was due. Sigh.
Painting the strawberry. It was well below freezing outside, so I'd schlep it outside for 15 minutes or so, paint for a while and then take it back into the sculpture studio before the metal got so cold that the paint wouldn't adhere. I got really good at hauling that damned unwieldy thing around; it had to be rotated very carefully in order to fit through doors, which was especially interesting when half of it was covered with damp paint.
Another angle on the painting process; spray can for scale.
It was difficult to get far enough back to photograph it. I think at this point it still needed a couple of trips outside to touch up the paint. Adding to the difficulty of painting it, the light outside wasn't good enough to easily distinguish between the dark-ish color of the unpainted metal and the paint, which were similar in value if not in hue. This meant that I kept hauling it back into the brightly lit studio only to find that I'd either missed some of the metal with the spray paint, or accidentally sprayed red onto the green areas or vice versa. (The wind didn't help either, blowing my paint around. SIGH.)
And this is where it's currently dwelling ... in our living room. (This shot is over the railing of my computer nook, down to the floor of the main room below me.) I still need to grind down a few awkward bits and repaint them, but I'm overall pretty happy with it. And it's by far the biggest project we're doing this semester, so it ought to be a cakewalk from here.
(This entry is also posted at http://layla.dreamwidth.org/169034.html.)
The assignment was to make a welded sculpture out of 1/4" steel rod that was at least 4" high. We could reproduce a small object at a larger size, but not make a big object smaller.
So I made a really big strawberry. I'm thinking I can put it out in the garden this summer. Maybe trellis vines on it or something.
I don't really have any pictures of the early stages of the project. Here it is before I painted it:
The leaves before they were welded. I originally had a single leaf on it (you can sort of see it in the picture above this one) but it looked nothing at all like a strawberry leaf; it just made the whole thing look like an apple, which meant I ended up cutting it off and fabricating a new leaf the weekend before the project was due. Sigh.
Painting the strawberry. It was well below freezing outside, so I'd schlep it outside for 15 minutes or so, paint for a while and then take it back into the sculpture studio before the metal got so cold that the paint wouldn't adhere. I got really good at hauling that damned unwieldy thing around; it had to be rotated very carefully in order to fit through doors, which was especially interesting when half of it was covered with damp paint.
Another angle on the painting process; spray can for scale.
It was difficult to get far enough back to photograph it. I think at this point it still needed a couple of trips outside to touch up the paint. Adding to the difficulty of painting it, the light outside wasn't good enough to easily distinguish between the dark-ish color of the unpainted metal and the paint, which were similar in value if not in hue. This meant that I kept hauling it back into the brightly lit studio only to find that I'd either missed some of the metal with the spray paint, or accidentally sprayed red onto the green areas or vice versa. (The wind didn't help either, blowing my paint around. SIGH.)
And this is where it's currently dwelling ... in our living room. (This shot is over the railing of my computer nook, down to the floor of the main room below me.) I still need to grind down a few awkward bits and repaint them, but I'm overall pretty happy with it. And it's by far the biggest project we're doing this semester, so it ought to be a cakewalk from here.
(This entry is also posted at http://layla.dreamwidth.org/169034.html.)