Charlie Brooks
This week, I made substantial progress fleshing out the logistics of my project. The major milestones that I reached included deciding what image I will create with my light painting, how I will shape my acrylic pieces, where I will install my piece, the scale of the finished work, and sourcing all of my materials.
I decided to create an ocean/beach scene with my light painting. The finished image will (hopefully) have a sandy beach in the forefront with a single palm tree, a sun setting over an ocean in the middle ground, and a red-yellow sky over the water.
I received all of my acrylic samples at the end of last week. I have 6 4″x4″ colored acrylic pieces, and 6 5.5″x3.75″ colored pieces. These should be enough to create my finished work, as I currently plan to use less than half of the total acrylic I have.
To shape my acrylic, I had intended to use a scoring tool to precisely break and shape the sheets. This tool doesn’t work as I hoped, as it takes 10-15 passes and a lot of pressure to make a single break. Instead, I am going to laser cut my samples into precise shapes. This method will allow me to make more curved edges, which should create a better final image. Also, I can cut the holes for the fishing line at the same time, saving prep time. I have all of the shapes created and ready for laser cutting, and I have time on the Laser Cutter scheduled for 4pm today (4/19).
The final scale of my image will be ~ 4″ x 4″, with the shapes distributed over 4-6″ of depth. With a light source positioned behind, this size should create a large image projected onto a wall 8-10′ away.
Finally, I solidified where I will be installing my work. After last week’s class, Prof. Rosenstock showed me the room in Fuller’s basement and I found a small corner to install my work. It should work well for what I need to do.
The only things that I have left to do in this final week are pick a light source and a base for my work, and then assemble the final image. I believe that a strong flashlight will be sufficient, and I plan to use a plastic stand with a grid of holes drilled in the top to secure my hanging acrylic pieces. This should give me an easy way to quickly secure the shapes, as I intend to use small binder clips to attach the fishing line. I will tape/secure the stand to the floor, and precisely locate the light source. I believe that it will take 5-10 hours of assembly once I have all of my acrylic cut, which I can spread over the coming week to get as crisp of a final image as I can.