Introduction
For this final project I wanted to use what I learned in the class and my own experimenting, particularly being a bit more artsy and creative. I wanted to a create large art piece portraying something unique. I was inspired by various shaped textures with different angles, which we learned about using the techniques of slicing and gCode development. I was also inspired by using my clear glass PLA and PLA carrying light that I’ve found on Amazon. I wanted it to look a bit glass-like and smooth. Initially I was envisioning it as more artistic than practical and quite large. I wanted to adhere the shapes to large canvas and the shapes being colorful with many angles, but still in somewhat lattice pattern.
I was able to achieve somewhat of what I envisioned and I was very happy with the way the shapes turned out. I wish I had a few more shapes to fill in the gaps more tightly, however.
Background Research
I was very inspired by Herschel Shapiro’s work, which is absolutely beautiful and incredibly visually pleasing. His website can be found HERE. I particularly enjoy his patterns and lattice designs with simple color scheme, yet with deep detail and gradient.
I was very happy finding his work and seeing his art, because his work most resembles what I wanted to achieve with my final project. When I was initially envisioning what I wanted to do, his worked matched my visions perfectly and even beyond. Although his project seems on much larger scale than I could have achieved in the timeframe given, I still wanted something similar. His work has given me and idea of using a different shades, and perhaps using colors of the same color family.
You can see his Instagram account: Herschel Shapiro’s Instagram
Another artist is Celia from WhiteHaus Living. Her primary medium is moss, but I though more about the texture and different colors of her work. I am not sure if there is a filament with various grades of green, pink, etc. to recreate the shaded versions of moss and flowers. You can find her work HERE.
I find her work incredibly inspiring based on the textures and beautiful vibrant colors.
Both of these artists have inspired me to create something unique and I wanted to implement both styles to some extent. I was able to use some of the texture approach using GCode and turtles and created some “funky” textures resembling trees (or spiky jelly fish, or perhaps alien eggs).
Process
I started by looking at my previous shapes with our GCode project, although I wanted the loops to be a bit tighter, so I could fit the shapes together. I was playing around with my Python code and adding/removing loops of steps and varying the size of randomness. I think I was able to achieve what I wanted and then I changed the number of facets to make the shapes more lattice applicable.
The biggest challenges were of technical nature, such as printer’s nozzle getting clogged, PLA tangling and snapping. Figuring out how to fix stuck PLA … it took me an entire last weekend to get on track and thanks to the professor Leah’s kindness I was able to switch my 3D printer and finish some of the shapes, although I was not able to do the size of the canvas as filled and as big as I envisioned (I lost 2 full days of printing), I think the final product came fairly close what I wanted to achieve.
The computational aspect of my project was not too complicated, because I used what we learned in class, but due to the size of my Grasshopper file, the program kept freezing my computer, which added some frustration and so I did not do as many variants as I wanted, particularly with the size of the objects. I wanted them to be more varying in size. Like going from largest to smallest diagonally across the canvas.
Outcome
Future Work & Reflection
- Future Work: I would definitely like to redo my project with the exact ideas as I initially envisioned, given the lack of time constraint. I think having my family full of artists, they would enjoy the art aspect and I would enjoy the computational, coding aspect. I would do the sizes as I initially wanted, more of a cascading style with perhaps more dramatic texture changes. I would also like to try different materials. I wonder how it would come as an assembly with “glass” filament or perhaps more clay-focused materials.
- Reflection: I learned quite a bit in this class and I think I picked up a new hobby. I really enjoyed “playing” around with the mathematical component of the project and different angles and the possibilities the physics that allowed for such shapes. Also learning Rhino and Grasshopper has been super fun for me. I really like how you can do so much with the fabrication processes. I did not consider myself very artsy, as, I guess, I see myself more of a left-brain type of a person, but I think with the right inspiration, anything can be art. Math is art, structured, beautiful art and this has allowed me to see that.
Presentation Slides
Slides for the presentation can be found HERE: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1kcEDEECyzMCN22Kdehc7R7uISNiFbEKqy80zL8IZoTA/edit#slide=id.g2a355dd3c0b_1_102
Thank you!
