When I was assigned to make a material strain that looked like an experiment gone wrong, I started to think of viruses, mold, a snowflake, and an explosion. Making a ten-foot long organism going along the wall of DAAP gave me many ideas. Since we had to have five different mutations, I started thinking of the materials that I could use. Straws, bottle caps, paper plates, and plastic wrap were the things that came to mind. I knew I couldn’t start without having the material right in front of me to experiment. I then went out and bought some dixie cups. It took about and hour to realize what I finally wanted to do with the dixie cups so I knew I had to get the other materials soon to start experimenting. I went home the following weekend and scrounged around the house for materials. I found hemp, straws, an old deck of cards, and clothespins. After finishing the first strand of mutation, I began working on the next one. My sisters and I have always used hemp to make bracelets, so I decided to use my hemp bracelet skills to good use. I was making these hemp bracelets while being forced to watch the Justin Bieber movie when I babysat. Turns out I was working a lot faster then I thought I was because I made ten long strands. After I connected the hemp to the cups I began to make a snake looking head out of cut up straws. I was scared to use the straws because I thought it would make the mutation look crappy but once it was connected it worked out. Once I finished first three mutations, I then went back to add a smooth transition between them. A mutation can’t just appear it has to form. After those three mutations were done I started to work on the final mutations. I started with the last one first because I wanted to connect both materials before I connected them to the other three. When I started to work with the clothespins, I wanted it to look like a twisted DNA strand. Since I already did that with the hemp someone gave me the idea to make it look like a spinal cord by adding cardboard to it. It was hard to keep it altogether so I had to put hemp through the holes. That still wouldn’t hold it together so out came the hot glue. After I got them all connected I started working on my fourth mutation; a deck of cards. I first painted them with a light brown coating of paint to make them look older. Then I decided to just curve them and glue them together. The way I hung the cards gave them a floating effect. Once I got the last two mutations finished I could connect them to the other mutations and give them all transitions. After I was finished one of my friends wanted to mutate with mine so my hemp mutated with her hair. She worked on the transition for that because I didn't want to touch her hair!
When hanging the project on the wall, I had to be mindful of the restrictions. I couldn’t be more than sixteen inches from the wall because people had to be able to walk through the hallway. I also wasn’t allowed to hot glue anything to the wall. However, both of these restrictions had to be broken. I had to move my strain many times to find the right spot for it on the wall. Once I found the right spot, the straw part of my mutation was jutting out more than sixteen inches. I decided since it looked good that way, it was ok to break the rules. When sticking the mutation to the wall, tacs, didn’t hold everything up so I had to bring out the hot glue and stick it to the wall. Hot glue became my best friend for this project.
Altogether, I feel proud of what I accomplished in this project and how fast I accomplished it. I was one of the firsts ones to get finished because I managed my time wisely. This assignment helped me branch out with materials and my ideas. Now I am ready to work more in 3-D.
Here is a slide show of the pictures! Click!
On the left is the drawing he drew of my niece. On the right was my attempt of drawing on the spot the next day. This drawing is of my sister and her husband relaxing at the pool.
Then I tried drawing my baby nephew who kept on moving! After drawing observationally, I started drawing whatever was on my mind. Below is a drawing of a girl lying on the beach not noticing the sand made hand reaching out to her
(left)When I didn't have anything on my mind to draw, I looked up at the clouds and drew what I saw in the clouds. On the right are more drawings from my imagination.
