DANIEL KORNRUMPF

Another artist I found on Mrs Textiles- This guy's work is so amazing! The intricacy of his work is just stunning- his threads look like brush strokes almost.

LOUISE RILEY

I found this artist on Mrs Textiles blog. Riley's work is done on discarded mattresses on which she embroiders people in sleeping positions. Her work is fhaaabulas and if I could embroider I would totally do this. But I cannot.

MAURIZIO ANZERI: Symmographed Photographs

This guy uses vintage photographs he finds at secondhand markets and then sews into them to create these bizarre 'sculpted photographs'. I rather blummin like them.

Brass vs Copper

Malcolm gave me the choice of either Brass or Copper to use as the base and ring shaft so have decided to weigh up the pros and cons of each metal.
After some research into the metals, they are pretty much the same- they both have a relatively high melting point which is good as I cannot fire the solder onto them if they're liquid. They are both very soft metals which makes them good for manipulating and bending.
When choosing, it really came down to aesthetics- I loved the way the copper came out of the Pickle all salmon coloured and it looked really good behind my acrylic cut out. So copper it was.

Making the Mould

I went down to ceramics today to see if I could make a mould from my acrylic cutting and Andy suggested that I first re-do the cutting on a thicker bit of acrylic so that we could do a silicon mould around the outside and then pour molten pewter onto it.

Laser Cutting

Wanted to make the middle window of the Notre Dame into jewelery- because I'd never done anything like this before so went down to the Metal workshop to see what Malcolm (the jewelery dude) said about it all. He gave me a few ideas on what I could do with the design- one being to pierce each individual hole and then saw the pieces out...and the other to go to the laser cutter and make a mould. I went for the laser cutter option.
Turns out, you need to have an illustrator file in order to print so used my new knowledge of Illustrator to really showcase my talents.
Only awkward moment was when Matt looked at my finished file and said 'I really hate live trace- just look what it's done to your work.'

I had not used live trace.

Awkward. Very awkward.

Anyway, tidied it up a little and then it was all a go on the cutting.
 These are the stages Matt went through to cut my pattern on the machine:

• Import Illustrator file (saved as a CS3 type) onto the device software. 
• When the file has loaded the programme automatically converts your drawing into vectored lines.
• You then select the correct material in 'Material Manager’ from a list of presets. This will determine the strength of the laser and make sure it cuts at its best given the material.
• Then stick the paper, acrylic etc in the machine and adjust the laser optic leaving a 3mm gap between the lens and the material being used.
• Once your material is in place, close the lid, press 'Online' then 'Media' and then select the area where the machine will cut. You select the bottom left corner and then the top right of the material and the cutter will know to cut within this area. You have to remember to leave a small margin though. Lastly press the 'Enter' key and its ready to cut.
• With everything  in order and selected correctly you 'Send the Job' from the software to the laser cutter.

Did a paper trial first, and then I did two acrylic pieces which turned out marvellous.

Illustrating the Window

 

I started by putting my original image as a background layer, making it invisible by 50% and then locking it. I added a new layer over the top and used the pen tool to slowly, very slowly, draw around the edges. After I had drawn one I realised that the lines I had drawn weren't really there. With the help of an IT technician we figured out that I had my line point as 0.01. Totally ridiculous setting. Changed that to 1 point and then continued on my journey.

Used the rotation tool after that so I did not have to draw every single window pane- but couldn't work out how to do any other rotation than 90 degrees. The IT man definitely thought I was retarded.

 

This was my finished drawing, which looks fantastic if you don't mind me saying.

 

Turns out though, most of what I'd done was wrong as when the laser cutter cut out a trial version, the circles and wiggly bits I'd added in would be completely lost and my design would just fall out of the outer circle. So had to delete the bits I didn't need.