second paper workshop.

In the second paper workshop we used slightly bigger sized pieces of paper, half of an a2 sheet I believe.

We cut a2 sheets into two, vertically, so that we had two long and thin pieces of paper to work with; we then proceeded to draw a 1cm border around the long pieces of paper we had..

After we had done this, we cut 1cm long slats into the space within the border; and then we could play!

I found it a bit overwhelming at first as I didnt know where to start, but in the end I managed to make a few models. Unfortunately the photographs aren't amazing because I didnt have a functioning camera at the time and only had the camera on my BlackBerry at the time; I'd planned to take some better photos at a later date but due to horrifyingly strong winds on the way home, my models are pretty much ruined! :(

Above is the first sculpture I made in the session, it's quite an organic sculpture, flowing nicely and is aesthetically pleasing.

I used glue to fix one of the edges to another to create the sculpture's shape.


The other sculpture I made using this format of paper is very different to the organic looking one above, it's more geometric...

I started off by making a fold in the length of the template, then I either pushed or pulled every other slat in or out to give the texture of a sort of tube; then I was playing around with shapes and found I could make a sort of heart shape. However, it doesnt look like a heart shape from every angle, I like this about the sculpture!

I experimented slightly more with folding too, but I havent had the chance to photograph the examples I made yet, so they'll be up soon!

laine. x

secondary research - noteable paper artists

So far we have seen the work of Richard Sweeney, however he is not the only paper artist out there, there are loads of paper artists, all specialising in different types of paper sculpting..

Last year, during my art foundation course, I came across many inspirational paper artists during our Sculpture module; artists such as:


Bert Simons

Simons realised in the mid 2000s, that there wasnt much of himself that could be left behind; and so he decided to 'clone' himself using paper. Sounds strange, yes, but his idea was actually ingenius.

Simons first sculpted his head using clay, then used photographs of his own skin to texturise the model.

I do not own this picture; taken from Bert Simons' website.

Then, using 3D computer software, he 'flattened out' the skin into pieces of paper which could be printed out and then glued together to make the final 'Bert'.

I do not own this picture; taken from Bert Simons' website.

 Final 'Bert':

I do not own this picture; taken from Bert Simons' website.

You can see Simons' work on his website, here.

Peter Callesen

Peter Callesen is another highly inspirational paper artist, he really brings paper to life, mainly by bringing it literally out of the page. He works using a4 paper a lot of the time as he claims that "it is probably the most common and consumed media and format for carrying information today, and in that sense it is something very loaded" and that "we rarely notice the actual materiality of the A4 paper".

I do not own this picture; taken from Peter Callesen's website.

The photograph shown above is of 'White Hand' by Callesen from 2007, and I think it's incredible! I love how the cut out is of a normal hand, whereas the actual pop-out piece is the skeleton hand; it's sort of the wrong way round, as usually the skeleton is encased inside your hand.

I do not own this picture; taken from Peter Callesen's website.

This piece shows the same concept as the 'White Hand', however it is half of a skeleton leaving the page.. the bottom half actually drawn out as a body. This piece is from 2006, and is called 'Half Way Through'.

I do not own this picture; taken from Peter Callesen's website.

The above work is called 'Down the River' and it's from 2005; it's amazingly intricate, and you can only really see by viewing a zoomed in picture of the sculpture that  there is in fact, a boat floating down the beautifully sculpted river..

I do not own this picture; taken from Peter Callesen's website.

You can see more of Callesen's work on his website, here.

first paper workshop.

We were lucky enough to have paper artist Richard Sweeney lead our first workshop; Sweeney is a leading paper artist who has single-handedly created some amazing sculptures using only one medium... paper!

Richard Sweeney with one of his pieces.  © Luke Hayes

In this workshop, we were given multiple sheets of a5 paper, and asked to create some basic paper sculptures using some of the techniques shown to us by Richard at the beginning of the session; cutting, scoring, tearing & folding.

These are the first sculptures I created in the workshop session:

This one was made by cutting an a5 piece of paper from top to bottom, then bottom to top in an alternating fashion. I've drawn out an explanitory illustration:

The dashed lines are where I cut the paper, using a scalpel.

After I did this, I cut horizontal slots in the strips that were created, and looped each strip back on itself:

My other experimental a5 piece is shown below:

I created this piece by cutting lines outwards from the centre of the a5 sheet, and then cutting a slot to loop the created sections on themselves. At first I wasn't very happy with this piece, but when I started to photograph it, I discovered that using different camera angles can really make something look different:

I really like how the sculpture looks here, because it actually looks like a sculpture!

Next we explored a bit further and I decided to make some more complicated pieces involving folding techniques:

I made this one by cutting the a5 sheet into a square, then folding it so that there was a point in the middle, then refining the lines so that the above model was created.

Pictured here is the same model from above, with a variation of it.. we had to focus on variations of the same type of model. So basically I had chosen to make models that are folded differently to each other.

I decided next to make lots of this particular variation, using different sizes of square paper (but all under a5 of course); 15cm, 12.5cm, 10cm, 7.5cm and 5cm.


Then I stacked them up, biggest on the bottom and smallest on the top:

 

And then again, with the smallest on the bottom and the largest on the top:

 

So that's what went down in the first workshop.

I've had some difficulty with my camera over the past few weeks and had to actually buy a new one in order to take some of these pictures, so my progress has been hindered, but hopefully now I can get a move on and put some more content in my blog!

Oh and one last picture of my coursemates working nice and hard in the first workshop ;)

hahah :) 

laine. x