Skip to main content

Laser cutting

I feel like I've turned the corner with CAD..at last... It doesn't come naturally and like everything else it needs practice and patience neither of which I have had in any generous measure to date, but I will not admit defeat and finally think I'm getting somewhere.  I've had a lot of help from fellow students (infinite patience) and now the pressure is off i.e. I don't have work to hand in that relies on the process, I have a more relaxed attitude to learning the actual programme and it is starting to sink in.  I was very excited last week to spend the whole day (completely of my own violation!) playing with Adobe Illustrator - doing extremely basic and simple things but keeping doing them until they felt 'natural' and easy and extremely basic and simple... now time to move onto something harder!!! I find Youtube tutorials very varied but on the whole useful, easier in the long run then being in a noisy crowded CAD suite with too many people asking too many questions... distracting confusing and destroys confidence!!

Part of the reason I feel better is my laser cutting project came back and I was very pleased with the results.  My samples had been very disappointing so when I finally submitted my finished artwork to be laser cut I wasn't really expecting any great shakes and in fact was trying to work out how I was going to make it work - maybe adding ribbons, any embellishments to disguise what I fully expected to be not particularly attractive outcome.

So imagine my surprise when it landed on my desk and to a large degree it had worked out!!! In fact it was pretty much what I had envisioned in my fantasy world of actually being able to make it work! Shock and awe and a very pleasing morning spent building up the final artwork using all the little bits and pieces, finally using hands to fashion final boards for submission... It didn't go unnoticed, even my tutor commented on how happy I was to be making something rather than being on the computer.

The photos posted here are not the best quality as the conditions for taking them were rushed and not ideal but it gives an idea... Also very strange to be working with very little colour, so much so I had to add brown paper to lift the cut away bits, but I liked the 3d effect again not really evident in these illustrations.

While I was pleased at what I had achieved, some of the work of the other students was totally amazing.  I think they had a better understanding of not just the process to get the artwork sorted but also a better idea of how to engineer the actual content and use it to the best advantage.  This coupled with obvious talent and fantastic skills produced some extremely complicated and beautiful designs. Inspiring and motivating..... I'm starting to have lots of ideas about how I can incorporate these lovely clean cut designs into future constructive work!

I have bitten the bullet and taken the leap of faith and purchased the Adobe programmes needed to continue my practice and I intend to look at how I can use these newly acquired skills (as hopefully I continue to acquire them) - after all doing this degree is about learning and applying new skills, I've been able to knit, weave, embroider for a long time and now I have an opportunity to learn contemporary methods which hopefully I can use to enhance future work.  It's all very exciting!!!!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Almost last chapter... In which our Go Stargazing team watch Astonishing Aurora Borealis seen from the deck of the Astonishing Borealis!!!

The weather brightened considerably and the snowy peaks lining our sail down the fjiords  looked glorious and sparkly in the sunshine against a (mainly) blue sky back drop.   More awesome scenary.... the Go Stargazing team wrapt up their lectures ... only searching for the illusive Northern Lights remained.  The tension from the night before dissolved in the sunshine the forecast for Aurora borealis was looking fairly positive - it was the captains farewell cocktsil party so everyone had their gladrags on.. We ate dinner and sky remained clear so we headed back to our room and donned as many layers as we could move in and proceeded to deck 10 in anticipation of stars and northern lights..... it did not dissappiont - just we got there as the bridge announced that the lights could be seen on the starboard side of the ship. It was stunning. Slowly the intensity built. The auroral green became brighter and bigger areas appe...

Vigo

We left the ship to explore Vigo. Its a much larger place then we expected... although tbh I hadn't given ut a lot of thought. Its a real mish mash of old and new and having got a map from tourist info we decided to follow the walking trail to the Monte Castro... the highest point of the town.  Most of the town was pretty much as everywhere else... lots of traffic... lots of people... one or two interesting buildings and a lot of shopping. We headed to the art gallery - this has been a year of gallery visits so we we seen o reason to change now.  The Museo de Marco is housed in the towns ex prison building and its very grand. In fact, I think that on this occaision the building might have been more interesting than the art....  Although the visiting exhibition by Susanne S D Themlitz was strangely compelling. It was a huge varied collection of eclectic items... found, salavaged, manipulated and arranged in lots of ways - weirdly inspiring - and mostly enjoyable to look at...

verdant lushness

Its a never ending island hop... today we hopped of the boat at Kingstown, on the island St. Vincents and Grenadine. Once through the usual port duty free - cheap booze and diamonds to go milarkey we were straight into the town... crazy noisy smelly chaos... refreshingly no tat shops for tourists, just local markets and street traders all vying for local sales.  Music blasting from everywhere, cars (very battered and often very pimped) all over the roads - parked in the middle of the street, loading, unloading, chatting seemingly oblivious to the total traffic jam caused behind them...  We walked through this mayhem - the temperatures were rising probably about 30 degrees - tourists evident by trying to walk on the shady side of the street - even when we turned off the main drag and there were less people it was still like carnival time with music blasting everywhere. Its very atmospheric and mostly promotes a good vibe although I have heard '3 little birds' everywhich way a...