Project 5: CONNECTING FLOCKS I.

Welcome to my new project. After having fun with 'the cubes' I decided to go back to the basic idea with connecting bird flocks. I did not really know where to start, so I started with drawing. Here are few first sketches...

... and then the idea started to emerge...

... a bit of colour...

... and this is the final drawing before I started 'the hard work' on the final piece:

Then I made frames for my flocks. The shapes are made of cable covers (thank you, DIY Wick's!)...

...I stretched a fine net over the frames and pined up 'birds' made of slightly reflective green fabric and kitchen foil (thank you Guiney's!)...

... finally the 'flocks'. I decided to go with two shapes:

Now there was time to give my flocks a bit of life. But before the installation I came with an idea of reflecting the 'shapes' in a mirror. I was a bit greedy I suppose. I just wanted more flocks with no work! Well, mirror is a bit expensive and would not fit with the security arrangements at our school, so I choose kitchen foil instead. Here is my 'box' covered in silver:

Few attempts with the 'flocks' reflecting in the foil...

...with a spot light in dark:

The outcome was not too bad but I was not particularly happy with it. The 'flocks' were not visible on the foil. Well, more precisely, the only thing that was reflecting was the light! No wonder, the greed is a deadly sin... I had to admit that the idea with foil did not work and there was time to go back to basics with plain white background:

Now it looked much better, but there was still something missing. Maybe the spot light? Again??? Yes, again... the light with the shadows make the difference:

If you were able to read this post down to this point - then I would like to thank you for your patience. For better images and a video of this project, please have a look at my later post.