Studio: Further Designs

Reflective Log: Peer Feedback/ Peer Crit and Self Reflection

Key points & Reflections:

• The group said they liked the burn marks on the stainless steel cut outs over the aluminium material. This is something I could continue (cutting out sections of metal). 
• I am more inclined to use stainless steel anyway due to the connection that I feel with this material, which is perhaps due to its polished surface, but also due to its desirability within the commercial art markets as 'luxury'. 
• Making my art more succinct and complete. 
• Test black underneath the cut-outs on the aluminium. Place a black canvas or wall behind. 
• If you're going to cut so much out of the material, does it even have to be stainless steel? As you're cutting a lot of the material away it seems like a waste. 

Further Development:

• I want to make my work more commercial and perhaps I could figure out a way of creating the metal to look more like a Canvas - taking inspiration from Louise's paintings, and also Marina's metal canvas style wraps I saw at the Chelsea College of Art show. 

Placing black board behind the cut out after feedback:

• The black and silver combination does work really well, and if I chose to continue with silver I would place it on a black wall. 

Further Designs & Development:

Example of mild steel metal tubing for frame. 

• My new idea is to create a metal wall piece which has a frame, and can resembles the canvas style painting. 
• After speaking to Rob, he suggested that we have a go at using mild steel first, and using box tubes for the frame, and then welding the sheet metal on afterwards. As the uni doesn't have the facilities for box folding, which is what I would need to do if I wanted this edge on the metal. 
• He also suggested researching powder coating which you can put on top of the mild steel and comes in a variety of colours. This powder coating idea seems to be opposing to my practice at the moment which is monochrome, but I am actually quite excited about the use of colour and think I want to start incorporating it. 

Reflection/ revelation: 

• I think my work is quite conceptual at the moment and I want this to change, to become more commercial. 
• I want to create something that is a whole thing - whether that is a whole complete sculpture or a wall piece, and I think its more likely to be a mixture of the both. This sculptural wall piece idea (that still incorporates all the textural details I have learned throughout the course so far) seems to be the answer, and including colour is fine as long as the surface still looks polished. Anish Kapoor still uses colour and as he has said previously, it's the surface that inspires. 
• If I can somehow create this frame structure I think I will be more content with my work, as at the moment everything is just incomplete or sheet metal or texture experimentation. 
• Also Rob told me I can't weld with aluminium, therefore, I will leave this material alone for now.  

Powder Coating Research:

https://www.redcarpetfx.com/products/mehron-metallic-powder-paint-silver?utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=googlepla&variant=9574560261&gclid=CKPh1tuj5dQCFcyT7QodefMNqQ 

• Available in a range of bright colours.
• Available in chrome, which could be a cheaper way of getting a bright reflecitve finish equivalent to stainlesss steel but using mild steel. 
• £9.99 covers 4 square meters. 
"All of our powders are Polyester, which provides great resistance to the outdoor elements. Electrostatic Magic's 'High Chrome' is manufactured from high quality pigments you can be rest assured your project will look fantastic for many years to come."

• The black and white gloss effect coatings also could look quite effective. 

Studio: Testing Designs / Cutting Metals and Testing Placement

First idea/ Test: 

• Going off from one of my designs - I arranged a series of similar sized square pieces of metal on the floor, mainly stainless steel but one aluminium. Each piece is unique and displays a different way of manipulating the material. I think this worked effectively and could develop by being placed on a wall, or doing a lot more of them. If they could become slightly more sculptural I think this series could work better. 
• I am starting to like the way the aluminium looks in contrast to the subtleness of the stainless steel, and perhaps aluminium is something I could go back to. 

• Next I tested out the placement of two opposing pieces of my crushed aluminium, face to face, after inspiration from Anish Kapoor's Double Mirror Works. 

• I wanted to test out cutting the aluminium, so I used a sample piece first. The lines were slightly rough and this was because of the speed I was cutting at (using the heat cutting tool in robs workshop). 
• Overall I like the holes in the material, and think on a larger scale piece it would look more effective. 

Cutting Large Sheet of Aluminium: 

The back - rougher edges. 

• I have began to file some of these edges down to create  a smoother look. Overall I'm pleased with the way this piece turned out, and the cutting works better on aluminium than it does on stainless steel. 

Testing Placement:

• This first test I put the two sheets of aluminium side by side, and they compliment each other. They are almost a surreal, inverted mirror image of one another, one has voids and the other fills those voids. 

• Testing it folded and put in a corner. This was initially inspired by Marina's work from Chelsea College of Arts Summer show, with the way she used the floor and walls in terms of placement, leaning some of her metal sculptures against the wall.
• I folded my aluminium and leant it against the wall, but this would need tacking to the wall with something to hold it in place as it flops down (being a thin metal). 
• I really like the way it sits in the corner between the floor and the wall and think this could be developed. 

• Adding in some aluminium wire, I scrunched up some wire and formed a sculptural object as a reaction to the aluminium sheet metal, and they look like they are in conversation when placed like this. 

• Putting the aluminium on the plinths side by side. The wire worked really well on the white plinth and stood out more than I expected it to. 

• Testing the placement of the metals, the sheet definitely looks better on the floor while the wire sculpture is lifted on a plinth. The plinth allows the wire to become a sculpture, whereas the sheet metal cannot hold its own and therefore needs to lean against something. 

Testing Placement of Smaller Cubes in Installation Style Setting

• Testing the smaller cubes in the corner of a room - from a design I did yesterday. I really like the way this sits in the corner and compliments the installation rather than being a self standing sculpture on a plinth. I think this is something I'd like to work with more. 
• This way I'd also be able to hide the construction of the cubes on the inside - facing the wall. 

• Testing three cubes on top of one another. This experiment has sparked further design ideas in creating something similar to this, going back to the de-constructed cube idea, and making a massive version all joined together, however, I would need to consider joining methods to make it secure and look good. 

Further Development:

• Buying a thicker sheet metal, especially if I want to weld or use the heat cutter tool. I need to investigate buying 3mm thick stainless steel if I want to construct proper sculpture. 
• Decide whether to continue work with aluminium as well as stainless steel.
• Decide which form and idea I prefer and want to continue developing.

Studio: Plasma Cutting Experiments After London Inspiration

The off cuts could be filed down and made into work. 

Reflections:

• After being inspired by Misbah Siddique's hanging sculptural metal wall pieces, I was eager to try out the technique for myself. 
• Testing the settings out, I used the tool on a lower power setting the second time and it created a smoother edge, which I prefer. This can also be filed down and polished if I wanted, though I do quite like the rougher edges and the discolouration it leaves. 
• On this test piece, I created a pattern that followed the lines of light and reflections in the steel at that moment in time, which is something I have been liking the idea of within my work, and making the work about the reflections more, and also the process, making it more process-led. 
• As for the discolouration, I quite like the effect it produces and it turns slightly gold toned, though this can be polished out, I don't think I would want to get rid of it all as I really like the multicolour edge details within the material that it creates. 

Developments

• A thicker metal would make more distortion and could work more effectively, but this would be out of my price range for stainless steel, I could use mild steel though but this would not be shiny as stainless steel, and the shiny surface is a key element to my practice. 
• Further developments with this could end up changing the forms of my outcomes, rather than it being a cube form it could go back to a material outcome, or I could add this texture detail to the form of a cube. 
• As the material and processes develop, so does its form, so it will have to all evolve alongside each other.
• The next step would be to experiment with more of this cutting and welding, and then polishing and filing the metal. Perhaps I could go back to my texture research or 'detail within material/ plinth research' where I looked at paint cracks, and instead of go down that route, this method of creating detail within the material works better. 

Further development: Filing and polishing:

• I have filed the upper edge of the lower curved line in this image. This is also the line that I created using the lower power setting on the welding tool. This worked well to create a smoother edge which was easier to file down, and when I polished it it did remove some of the discolouration. If I could get the lines smother during welding, and file it down after, I could get some neat cuts out of the metal. 

Further Designs:

Perhaps I could weld around the shape of a previous piece of work such as this:

Or there is possibilities to go back to my aluminium pieces and cut sections out of that: