Experiment: Owl box
While I'm quite busy with several assignments I manage to make some time for special projects for myself too! In this case it's making a tiny painting on a small box. For my birthday I got a gift voucher from dear friends, it was for a tiny shop with all kinds of craft supplies. There I found wonderful boxes made of some kind of dark paper and bought one. I had it standing on my desk for quite some time because I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do with it. But then I had it! I decided to paint an owl on it. I made an illustration of a cool one some time ago (even if I say so myself) and decided to try to get it on. The drawing was quite big (A4 size) and the box was only 10x10cm. So I downsized the whole thing and got it on the box. I still have this old fashioned way of doing so; I have the drawing I want on a piece of paper, then I make the back of the paper grey with soft pencil. I put it on the box and then I retrace the lines with a fineline hard pencil so that the pencil from the back will be pushed onto the box!
Time to start painting! I got all my painting gear out of the closet, wiped the dust off and got going. Just as in school I put on all the colors I had on small glass plates. After finishing the first strokes I already realized that that was a total waste of paint. You don't use all the colors and even the ones you do use dry up before you get to them.. Anyways, back to the painting. I took some pics during the process to show you how it went. Did you know how hard it is to get a bright orange onto a dirty paper color?
When the owl was finished I felt there was something missing, on the original drawing there was an hourglass under the owl. There is obviously no place for an hourglass on this box, so I decided I would put the owl on a branch.
When the branch was finished it looked quite dark, the whole picture I mean. At first I drew some flowers for in the tree, but it just didn't seem right. In the end I decided to just put buds in it, which gave it just the right amount of 'brightness' I wanted.
As I gave it a place in my sewing drawer my cat couldn't stay away.. as usual! Now I only have to find something to put into it!
Maquette no. 3, still Audrey though
For my graduation in 2008 I made an exposition about Audrey Hepburn. I love her.
I had the great luck that at the same time I started working on the assignment, Jan van Toorn and Els Kuijpers gave guestlessons on how to make a good exhibition. It wasn't my year, but I could join in. It made a huge difference. Somehow I was tempted to make some kind of time line thing out of it, it does sound logical at first doesn't it. You would be walking around in Audrey's life as if you were living it. It can be nice, if its a reasoned choice. I learned to look at what is the essence of the subject. The subject and goal of the exhibition became to show her as a woman and as an icon.
Eventually my scheme looked like this:
The most important aspect of the exhibition is A, the ones after that are B, you can also have C's, but I didn't. In this case the A was about the passions that Audrey Hepburn had. (Note: all of these things are as I interpreted them after reading about her, unfortunately (and of course) I never met her). Those passions were her family, children, friends, husband(s) and pets. I felt like they were closest to her, the most important thing in her life and it should have the most prominent spot in the exhibition.
The B's were divided into two themes: work and her private life, there were two rooms so I put each in a room. In there I made another division. The part about Audrey's private life consists of her youth and of her work for Unicef. Even though her work for Unicef was not something extremely private -actually that was not the goal of it either- the reason why it was so important to her, was. The part about her work/career is divided into two parts as well. One is about her love for dance and the other is about her movie career, for which she is best known.
So to come back to the number of maquettes I made... Of course there was quite a lot of sketching involved before I started no. 1, although most of the actual shapes come as I start working, the idea was worked out in advance. The picture is up side down if you compare it to the scheme, but you get the idea. It was to get an idea of how big things were going to be and what was going to be where and how.
After this I started working on the actual maquette for my exams. This all sounds like a piece of cake when I write it down like this. And for the most part it all went pretty smooth. There are three things that make it less easy than it seemed at first. First of all, I have a slight case of perfectionism, which in my case means that I want everything to look as perfect as I can get it. No matter how much time it costs me. The second problem is that nice blue/white thing in the middle. It is the passion part that I was talking about earlier. I wanted it to symbolize Audrey Hepburn the best I could think of. It's like a heart in which she closes all her loved ones (on the inside are huge pictures). And it's made of rough diamond like shapes, none of them are the same. All paper. Ye, it was a lot of work. Then the third lovely problem.. This darling: 
You can see she loves the diamond shapes just as much as I do!
The big maquette, no. 2, was actually 90.7 cm by 67 cm. In this one I worked everything out into detail. I cut out little movie posters, and put them -all in the right order- on the wall. I put in a mirror. I made screenshots of her movies and put them in the cinema part, etc. And of course the very important center piece. This was not a sketch, this was for real. Serious business. So I felt like it had to be complete. I learned that the first part of the bowl (as I called it while working on it), was actually the easiest part. When the time comes to close it up on top, it gets harder as well. Stubborn as I am in my perfectionism, it got done. I don't even remember how many hours I put in it, don't think I want to either.
All went well, I graduated. The huge maquette is still stored at my parents house. The other part of my exams, the Hanzelijn was actually a huge project as well. With huge outcome. But somehow I did not have so much trouble with parting with those objects as with this piece. It holds a place in my heart. And my parents house!
Then comes the time after school. I think everybody who's been there knows what I mean. The time to find a job, or start your own business like I did. Either way you have to show people your work. I have this A3 size portfolio, pretty nifty thing. When we were advised to get portfolios some people got a huge-ass A2 one, I must admit that my choice was partly out of easiness. It is easier (and cheaper) to print for an A3 portfolio and a whole lot less work to carry around! But whether I would have gotten the A2 one, or the one I did, in neither one of them fits this marvelous maquette. The sketch version was transportable. But it wasn't very representative. Plus it was partly killed by my darling Lodi (see image 3). I took some good pictures of the big one, I have some drawings of how things work but its just not the same as something spacious. Something that you can get to nose-height so you can actually look through windows.
The whole maquette is based on a real museum. When I started the project I asked a few museums if I could get a map of the museum so I could compare. They were the only one to actually reply, and I got it! The good thing was that the rooms were perfect for my plan. It's been quite a while since a graduated, but I recently contacted them to ask if I could present my exhibition idea to them. I could! So I really look forward to that. Still haven't been there though. You can all guess why! I had the dilemma; do I take my parents car, park it as close as possible with the risk that I have to drag the huge and heavy maquette through the rain and trip so ALL my work is for nothing? I wasn't sure about it. I had to but I didn't really want to. Then I talked to an old teacher of mine and told him about my problem. He came with the smartest and easiest (?) solution. Why not make another maquette? Why didn't I think of this?
So now I'm working on no. 3. It might be the size or the fact that its the third time I'm making it, but it goes quite fast actually. I finished the whole base in a day, now I'm working on the interior. You understand that I will find a solution for the passion bowl. No way I'm going to make that thing again, and then twice as small. In my head there is a discussion going: I was going to type that it would be impossible. But it wouldn't of course, it would just be crazy. I'm tempted to try now. NO! Stop!
I'll keep you posted on whether the bowl will come or not... This is how far I got so far:
O yeah, I have another cat now. She loves the exhibit as well!
Stunned artwork
I recently finished a piece of art that I made for my dear neighbors of Stunned. They asked me to make something, I was actually completely free to make whatever I wanted!
I knew that I wanted to make something with paper, but I wasn't sure what it would be. It had to have the name Stunned in it, but there had to be more than that. At first I thought of scenery with the name incorporated. It would be like a show-box or a panorama. I figured it would be a private object though, something you would only see if you knew it was there, or if someone told you to look at it. I love show-boxes but I wanted to make something that would be 'out there'.
I remembered that they have one of those IKEA cupboards with the record size squares. It is placed near the entrance of their office. If you were to build something into one of the openings, it would give the same idea as a show-box. The dilemma was to keep the back open or to close it. Eventually I decided it would be best if it was see through.
The whole idea formed into my head at once, not piece by piece. All of a sudden I knew exactly what I wanted to make. Mind you, this took me a little while of letting it sink in. Somehow being able to make whatever you want does not make an assignment easier. It took me a while to figure out how to limit and guide myself.
The plan was to make four sides of a cube, no back and front. It would slide right into one of the openings of the cupboard. Then I would plate the sides with mirrors. Inside it I wanted to make an explosion. At first I thought of all kinds of objects; spiked, clouds, cubes. Somehow I ended up making it with all cubes. The name would be the center of attention.
I wanted to make a sketch, but I realized it was going to be a A LOT of work. I tried to do it in paper first, but was wondering if I could do it more effectively. I tried SketchUp. Well, I can tell you that if you want to learn a whole program to make something complicated.. doesn't work! So eventually I gave up and returned to my paper sketch. It came down to me making that thing twice! Although the paper was easier than the cardboard that I picked for theeventual piece. If you want to make a perfect cube, you need to cut the edges into 45° angles. So that's what I did.
When I finally finished all the cubes and was ready to glue them in, I felt the colors were quite boring. It needed a real bang! I decided to make the bottoms of all the cubes red, with red chromolux paper. The contrast between the cardboard and the shiny chromolux is special.
Eventually it took me about 90 hours to finish this baby. I don't mind though, I'm quite happy with how it turned out. I took quite a lot of pictures, they will never show the real deal. That's what you get with 3D objects. They do give an impression though.
This is the front and the back of the piece:
Detail of the name:
This is one of the views you see when looking into a mirror:
In its new spot:
Apparently they were so happy with what I made that they made a post about it on their website too!
I want to thank Erwin and Stunned for working with me!
hello world!
first blog post. whooyeah! yippakayee!
someone sure owes gerrie a nice BIG cup of coffee ^^
