The hardest part of my project so far has been the scaling up of the small aluminum foil tree from last week to a larger tree that will allow for softer bends on the EL Wire, and space for multiple colors to be run alongside.
After reading the comments on my previous post, I decided that I would go ahead with aluminum foil as the reflective medium for the tree sculpture that would hold up the EL wire in my project. Anyone who was in the break-out group with me last class would know that aluminum foil gave me some trouble as a medium because I was not super familiar with using it as a sculpting material. I was able to overcome this for the small scaled down model but as I attempted to craft the larger tree, I ran into difficulties. I would frequently find unintended differences between the density of folds in between branch and root sections. Certain parts were significantly more reflective than others and the tree ended up looking somewhat “pieced together”. Additionally I had issues with tin toil pieces coming apart as I worked on other parts despite the hot glue holding it together.
To overcome these challenges, I searched the internet for professional tin foil artists and was happily surprised to find someone named..
Toshihiko MitsuyaThis artist has worked with normal kitchen tin foil extensively and through my research I learned a few techniques…
Instead of fighting with different densities of folds on aluminum foil pieces, I should embrace this unique quality of the medium to provide contrast for different parts of the sculpture. For example, in this Mitsuya piece he uses heavy wrinkles in the foil to create a look of older bones for the skull, and new armor with foil with less folds. This will also allow for more light to be reflected off of pieces with less folds and less light with more folds, creating additional contrast
Additionally, Mitsuya used small aluminum foil “nails” to hold his pieces together. I will have to investigate using this strategy further as my scaled up tree becomes more complicated.
