This week

So I have survived another week at university!  Last week we were out and about drawing and photographing bits of architecture around Wrexham, and I did a bit of drawing at home as well.  This week we have been abstracting parts of our drawings  and then 'drawing' in 3 dimensions with wire.  The brief was to create a form from wire and tissue paper which would work well when lit.

The piece of 'architecture' I decided to use as a starting point was a bridge in my local park. I really like the curves, especially from this angle where they look like they are one inside another.

I have to say I really struggled at first with 'drawing' freehand with the wire.  I love the loose scribbley style that some people achieve doing this but it just doesn't seem to work for me.





After several false starts I started to form some nice smooth(ish) curves around a mandrel, and the taper of the mandrel enabled me to make each one smaller than the last - a bit like a tapering slinky!  Fixing these together on one side let me fan them out.

And then on to the tissue paper - here I was in my element - well, it's practically fabric, isn't it?  I decided I had 2 choices, cover between the rings to end up with something like a snail shell, or cover across the flat of each ring.  So I did both.















I made several units and put them together.  In fact I had a bit of a production line going and ended up with three pieces instead of one.  And here they are with the light - it's all about the shadows really.