3D Mnemosyne Scent

Standard

When I heard of the task, I was weirded out. thinking of the different scents I had was a challenge? The two scents i had in my mind was my salonpas spray and my linen spray (basically a perfume thing that you spray on clothes instead of on skin. sensitive skin problems.)

My bad scent is the salonpas spray, and it has a very sharp and intensely medical scent. This reminds me of the fact that my dad is not with me (i stay in hall) as i have to use it to get rid of my many aches and pains. My aches and pains are very often overlooked by other people, thus I chose to use a more transparent plastic bottle for the sculpture. I deliberately chose to slice the plastic bottle to sharper edges to resemble the sharpness of the scent, and the immediate cooling yet painful feeling that you get with spraying the salonpas spray (usually i use it on my bunions, and it is extremely sensitive to the temperature change.)

The plastic bottle i sliced into two parts, and the top part i purposefully made to lean towards the side/back, and it is a more floppy structure because it is joined at one spot. This is to show the movement that i sort of make when i cringe when i spray the salonpas spray because of the pain that it inflicts. the twisted nature of the different surfaces is also for this purpose.

bad scent front view

 

bad scent side view

bad scent top view

My good scent is my linen spray that i started using when i was working at my old workplace, an after school care at a local primary school. the scent reminded me of the simpler times with less stress, and the kids wanting to spray it on themselves when me and my colleagues sprayed it before leaving work. it is a simple scent which smells slightly floral and fresh. many people i asked said it reminded them of freshly sunned clothes. so i went with the two points for this scent. i decided to explore different plastic materials because i felt that the plastic bottles were abit restrictive in terms of the malleability and the colours. I used a thin plastic bag to form a flower shape, and an old food wrapper because it’s yellow! Yellow is a very cheery colour that i thought would be appropriate for this scent.

 

good scent

good scent top view

For both of the sculptures I warped the plastic over an open flame in my room. I got blackout candles from the supermarket and decided to use them for heating it up, because I felt that the heat gun from the 3d room was way too strong for the delicate nature of the plastic bags/wrappers, and would burn through them. I later found out that the open flame is also not fantastic at controlling the temperature, but is definitely the better choice for me as i was still able to take it off the flame and use my pliers to manoeuvre the shape of the plastic (instead of using a heat gun and risk burning myself and someone else because i’m clumsy like that)

For both of the works I decided to use the bottle flipped upside down as the base, and have the top bits flowing out of it because to me, scents emerge out, and slowly crawls out.

Gaia Ikebana Final

Standard

SOooooooOOoo we need to have a twig, a sphere, a cone, a cylinder and another random object. (when Cheryl first talked about the cone thing I immediately thought of an ice cream cone which I eventually used in my final!)

When I researched about ikebana, the first article i found was on the principles of Ikebana

  1. Silence
  2. Minimalism
  3. Shape and line
  4. Form
  5. Humanity
  6. Aesthetics
  7. Structure

The principles that stood out to me were MINIMALISM and HUMANITY. I wanted to insert my own story when it came to my final work, which was what I think I struggled with the most (that and finding the perfect branch. More on that later.) The aesthetic point was easier to deal with once I got my concept down.

My theme was WINTER and the first word that comes into my mind is COLD. I was wondering who I could relate this season to… I looked through old photos at home to get inspiration :’)

I had photos of my many family trips overseas over the years, and one of them was a trip to Australia Gold Coast during one of my June holidays. My maternal grandparents were with us on the trip (they were in their late 70s, early 80s at the time) and my grandfather doted on me (I am the 3rd youngest grandchild in the myriad of grandchildren that he has). However he thought it was a good idea to eat most of my ice cream cone????? So I was very heartbroken after that as a result. and that event has stuck in my mind ever since.

Another thing that stuck in my mind is my yearly tradition during 冬至 of making 汤圆 with the aunt who has taken care of me since I was born. It started off with me thinking it was playdoh, then realising that I could make SNOWMEN with the glutinous rice flour. My snowmen never really cooked evenly, but it was a fun childhood memory. My mom never failed to pack a container of the 汤圆 for my grandparents, mainly my grandfather. Even though he doesn’t have any more teeth, he still takes the effort to thank me for the 汤圆 every year, and tries his best to finish the bowl of it. Here’s a video of my tangyuan that i made in 2016!

So these are the reasons behind choosing the individual elements, and now comes putting it together!

One of the problems I found was finding a suitable/appropriate twig/stick for this project. I was restricted to the grounds in NTU since I stay in hall, but since NTU is a forest there are plenty of sticks. This particular one called out to me because it has a algae/fungus thing growing on it that makes it have a white tinge, which I thought was appropriate since it is WINTER! I abandoned all other sticks after finding this one.

The next part was the 汤圆.

the flour I bought to use!

the 汤圆 that I steamed in my portable steamer in hall. don’t have a pot to cook 汤圆 the regular way

I experimented with cooked 汤圆 vs uncooked 汤圆. I soon realised that uncooked 汤圆 was very veryyyyyy fragile, because once it dried it was prone to falling apart. I realised it was a metaphor for my grandfather, because my grandparents were headed to rural China (they are currently there now) against doctor’s advice because my grandfather wanted to visit one last time before he passed on. The cooked 汤圆 is for all the times he has been able to enjoy, and the uncooked one is for the times that he may not be able to enjoy anymore. The fragility of life with my grandfather could be reflected in the uncooked 汤圆. He may wither away in China for all I know, and I won’t have the chance to give him my 汤圆 this 冬至 (which is a sad thought to think about).

 

Top view of final

There is a slight circular direction that I was going with, kinda with the circle of life concept.

front view of final

side view of final

I was going for the minimal look. The clean lines, the uncluttered look that guides the eye through the work. The colours were kept monochrome to depict my solemn view towards my uncertainty of grandfather’s life. (Winter is also the end of the year… when everything is dead. Reflects my mood perfectly.) Even though my ikebana doesn’t have a pot like most are supposed to, after all winter is dead so theres no need for the soil to sustain life anywayyyyy.

Overall, after seeing everyone’s work I did feel abit demoralised because everyone’s were so out there and vying for attention, whereas mine was simple and minimal which I thought it was supposed to be. Looking back, I do think that minimalism is more my style, just that my works will always pale in comparison with others (which sucks.) I’m just not sure whether I should continue with my minimal style or try doing more crazy stuff like other people. Oh well.

3D Assignment 1: Pandora’s Box

Standard

Hello. So the word I got was WEIGHT/MASS, and I interpreted in a way so that it can also mean WEIGHTLESSNESS

and here is my final! (before the edit)

Front view of original final

side view of original final

top view of original final

So this is how it looked before I had to change it! (sorry the photos look abit wonky because I placed it on the top, so the shadows are in the opposite direction)

The problem with it is that the Sub-dominant (the long piece on the bottom) is longer than the Dominant (clearly the bulky piece on top), so it sort of fights for attention with the D to be more dominant. So prof suggested for the SD to be made transparent so that SD will show the weightlessness more, and for it to be shortened (to be 2/3 of the current length). Unfortunately, I measured all the pieces to to 2/3 of each other already, (D to be 2/3 length of SD, SO to be 2/3 length of D) so to adjust to 2/3 length of SD would mean that it would be the same length as D. and my wood piece for D is restricted to that height/length because of the wooden block I bought, so I decided that photoshopping it would be that best option to reflect the new change!

Front view of edited final

Side view of edited final

bottom view of edited

The bottom piece I replaced with a box like structure I made from an acrylic board. Because of physical restriction aka I-don’t-have-acrylic-glue, I used clear tape to put it together? and it wasn’t stable enough so I placed another acrylic piece in the center running through the box so that it adds stability (initially it was supposed to be an X running through the box but when I was trying to saw a slot for it, it broke into two so I needed to come up with a back up plan)

Colour coded sketch model Yellow: Dominant Blue: Sub-dominant Red: Sub-ordinate

Thoughts: the struggle was mainly with the material itself? Not too familiar using such materials (ie wood and acrylic),  the last time using these were at least 4/5 years ago. It was pushing me out of my comfort zone, having to think about the physics of things (also haven’t touched physics since 4/5 years ago :’) )

Here are some of the fails!

My makeshift clamp system. My mom found it very amusing. (it took a full hour for me to get through it)

So I managed to saw it through, but managed to make it super uneven :’) alot of sandpapering was required

gif <- click to see my unsuccessful attempts to make the Sub-ordinate out of shiny paper to make it look like its floating!

oh well. Guess this project is over. Onto the next one, hopefully I don’t screw up! :’)

Pandora’s Box (lesson 1 followup)

Standard

Soooo here is what I did for my 3D interesting object.I chose a facial sunscreen from Innisfree, mainly because of the very streamline and aesthetically pleasing bottle. There are lines of symmetry, and the combination of warm yellow and white chosen for the bottle makes it easy on the eye. I also like the small groove at the bottle of the cap, as it is both functional (easier to grip the cover to open) and is made to look streamline as well. Another thing I noticed is that the white cover is roughly  1/3 of the entire bottle, so it goes by the rule of thirds?

2D sketch of the bottle

 Moving on to Pandora’s Box! I got the phrase ‘Weight/Mass’ and I assumed that it could also mean the lack of weight and mass, which is something I took into consideration when creating the 3 structures.

2D sketch for structure 1

2D sketch for structure 2

2D sketch for structure 3

For all 3 of my structures, I decided to position the boxes so that only one box would need to be in contact with the table, and the other two sort of ‘float’ above the box, so that the structure can show the weightlessness. I found it interesting that I needed to take into account the width of the boxes when trying to put them together, if not I wouldn’t be able to achieve the D-SD-SO combination. Not sure whether my 3 structures have achieved it but I tried!!!

Yup. What else do I say.

Oh. I haven’t done technical drawings in a while so my lines are perpendicular with each other so forgive me, I’ll work on it!!!! :’) Oh well.