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This was a collaborative
project between myself the practitioner, North Somercotes Birkbeck School
and Community Art College, Key Stage 4 students and CfBT Education Trust.
The project was to
deliver the following research question: How can be used the industrial
metal processes, reflecting figurative studies based around the school
ethos, using stylised figures to create a simple interactive permanent
sculptured partition as a main feature for an outdoor viewing area.
Targeting a small group of key stage 4 students. (GCSE).
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The students future
interaction with the pieces will be through new design and colour
schemes and adding pieces to the existing fabrications or perhaps even
adding new figures.
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Figure One: Academia |
Figure Two: The Arts |
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Figure Three: Mathematics and the
Sciences, |
Figure Four: Sports |
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At the top
can be seen the entire finished project, the individual figures
can be seen directly above and to
the right is the roundabout at the entrance to the school where they
will be situated prior to commencement.
Below broken down into sessions is how
the process and stages of production was introduced to the students, and
the relevance of each stage. |
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Session One
and Two: To start the project and help develop the idea of
seeing the figure in action before starting the drawing stages, a
technique I discovered during research on the South African artist
William Kentridge was used. The students were encouraged to look for dynamic
figures built from torn pieces of paper. The paper can be
readjusted easily and so the figures can be altered many times
until the brain recognises a realistic action in the
depiction. At this stage proportion and shape are irrelevant,
the students are asked to find motion and position that is credible to the
brain. To the right can be seen the example of a the correct
position found for the overhead smash in tennis. The first
example below shows how the paper is moved to find other
correct positions.
The changed positions recorded were
then used to make small animations one
of which can be seen on You tube. To view the short piece go to
http://uk.youtube.com/results?search_query=Man+draging+left+leg&search=Search
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Sessions Three and Four: Taking this
recognition process into completing abstract figure drawings. Below are
some example of the process in arriving at the figure with simple
shapes. One aim of the project was to construct pieces that the students
could revisit as often as they wanted to alter and change the work,
whether by changing the colour scheme or adding extra pieces to the
work. The simplicity of the shapes will make it easier for the students
to carry on the process and as skills are developed add more complex
pieces. |
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Sessions Five and Six:
Making Mock-ups of the work before actual
construction commences. These are the figure made from preliminary
drawings, they are made out of card and string on a
wooden frame. This process was quite difficult as the materials
used lacked the rigidity of the mild steel that we would eventually use,
but the benefits of using the Marquette was seen.
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1/4 Life size. |
1/4 Life size. |
1/4 Life size. |
Life size. |
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Sessions Seven Eight and Nine: Welding
and Scaling Up Drawings.
Once the Marquette's were made it was
time to introduce the students to the industrial process of welding
in parallel with and using the computer programme Photoshop to scale the
pieces up to size and be measured accurately to be cut by a local
engineering firm.
For safety welding groups were limited to
four students at a time, we started with the curved grid that would hold
the metal shapes that would make up the figures. For the outside we were
using 30mm square box section and the grid was made up of 6mm
rods. The thickness of these components are easier to weld and so gave
the students practice before moving on to the thinner 1.5mm steel of the
shapes which can be easy to burn holes in.
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One of the students
welding. |
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Whilst welding the
frames commenced the pieces for the figures were ordered.
The diagram right
shows how the sports figure was
accurately built in Photoshop each shape being defined by shade and then angles
measured to 1/10th of a degree and
lengths in millimetres. The measurements for
the shapes which make up the sports
figure are shown on the table to
the far right.
The pieces were
then cut by a commercial engineer, and then the figures were
fabricated by the students and myself. |
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Shape No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
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Angle
48.2
22.0
18.1
18.2
21.5
17.6
19.8
15.6
20.8
16.7
16.4
47.1
116.4
24.1
21.4
15.2
16.2
141.6
32.1
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Side 12
328
366
357
257
459
449
430
371
471
438
430
332
298
412
370
534
447
170
255 |
Side 2
200
371
366
363
444
442
405
358
453
412
420
280
366
444
536
459
498
247
256 |
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