[FINAL MODEL] SPRINGTIME FOR GAIA’S IKEBANA

Here is the final model! I feel a bit bad that I didn’t manage to follow any of the sketch models that I had made earlier, but it was really hard having to hunt for food that matched the sizes of the models while keeping the theme in mind.

THE SPHERE

However, when I was finding cabbage for the model in line with my research, I found a really really spherical cabbage at Prime!! I was so excited that I impulse bought it and then after that I got upset because I realised it didn’t match any of the spheres for my sketch models. And I couldn’t make a sphere that was so big also. 🙁

But I decided to put the cabbage to use anyway, and thought it would be a good dominant subject for my final model. I peeled open the leaves of the cabbage to give it a ‘flowering’ effect that I thought would go well with my theme of spring.

THE CONE

At the same time, I decided to use seaweed as ingredient for the cone! At first I was planning to simply fold it into a cone shape like a temaki roll like this one:

(Wah I really getting damn hungry no joke)

But I thought that was too easy and aesthetically boring, so I decided to fashion the seaweed sheet into a spiral, which was actually tough as hell.

At first I wrapped a dampened seaweed sheet around a paper cone and blowdried it, thinking it would stiffen into a proper cone shape. It did, and when I cut it into a spiral it worked as well! I was really happy until I carried my branch (which the seaweed was wrapped around) out of the room and it starting drooping oh my gad. I realised that the seaweed maintained its shape because I handled it in a cold environment, but once it was exposed to the humidity it just fell apart oh no.

So the next morning I decided to try again without all the blow drying nonsense, and it did manage to hold shape, but it was still very limp and weak-looking. 🙁 Then I suddenly realised I could use bendable wire to support my seaweed spiral and then everything fell into place. 🙂 I decided to wrap it around a branch to show interaction with the branch as well as the cabbage sphere.

THE CYLINDER

The cylinder was probably the hardest for me to figure out where to place in the whole model. Initially I had planned for the cylinder to pierce through the sphere similar to how it pierced the cone in Sketch Model A. However, my long radish cylinder just didn’t look harmonious or contributory to the entire model that way. In the end, I thought of making its role as the subordinate obvious by making it ultra small and placing it at the end of a branch to signify the last snow of winter. (I can’t believe I wasted an entire radish for that tiny bit of it.)

THE BRANCH

I picked up the branch the day before and thought that curving motions of the branch were very pretty, so I decided to use it. I dampened the branch with a wet cloth and used a hairdryer to heat up the branch and bend it to curve downwards over the cabbage to create a sense of a balanced void, and to match, I bent another branch to curve in the same direction as the others to give a more obvious sense of direction. I also painted it gold to give it a more interesting look as I thought the plain branch was pretty boring.

ONE LAST ELEMENT

My last element was a flower that I bought as I thought it would be weird if I didn’t have flowers as an element of springtime, seeing how they were representative of the season in Japan. Although I wanted to get a sakura flower to represent the cherry blossom season in Japan, I couldn’t find any (zzz) so I decided to pick up a white chrysanthemum look-alike to match the green – white theme of the model.

THE BOARD

Okay I have to admit that I didn’t think my model was all that great looking so I decided to do up the board for my model to give it a more cheery spring time feel!! I bought a wooden (chopping) board and acrylic paint to paint sakura flowers and the Japanese kanji for ‘spring’ on the board. I thought I could rely on the board to boost my model for aesthetic points but apparently it backfired as Cheryl commented that the board was kind of distracting and that my model was actually great on its own. HAHAHAHA OH WELL.

So Cheryl suggested for me to remove the board (I had superglued my cabbage to it ha ha ha ha so think about the fear in my heart of breaking my cabbage when I pried them apart) for the model. I did agree in the end as the revised model has a cleaner, fresher spring mood. Here are some pictures of the revised model!

 

FINAL REFLECTION

Ultimately, to be very honest, I was very lost throughout the entire project. A large part of that was because I didn’t manage to stay throughout the first lesson for this project as I had to leave halfway from falling sick. >:( Then the following week I also had an event so I had to miss the second lesson TOO where a lot of information was disseminated. Although I got a lot of information from my classmates, I didn’t manage to find time to consult Cheryl and I made my sketch models at a really late time, and basically I didn’t really have a solid direction to follow. Even having sketch models didn’t help, so I was quite frazzled about what to do. Only when I saw my cabbage did I start getting inspired and truly started planning out how to create my model properly around the dominant cabbage. Thank you cabbage. :’) But this project was ultimately really fun! Especially on the last day when everyone laid out their models and you could see that while everyone was so stressed out about it, our models all turned out great hehe. And all that eating in class LOL.

Finally starting to feel a bit better at 3D! :’) Ok that’s enough from me. See y’all next post!!!

• Niki