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More photos of the 3D final sculpture

I took a few more photos of the piece, this time not hanging.

The Outcome

This is just an idea of how much paper was scattered around my room by the time I had finished the final piece!

Overall, I think that if I had another chance to do this project, I would expand the final structure further and use different types and coloured paper, just to make it more interesting. I would also use stronger paper so that I could expand the piece at the front also, without it making it off balance with weight.
I am happy with the outcome of the piece, it reflects paper sculpting well enough and does relate to the inspiration of shells. I would have liked more time to space out making different types, because by the end I was getting very annoyed with the paper, and manipulating it. I think this was just because I had been doing it for quite a while without breaking from it.

I enjoyed creating the poster a lot more than the 3D piece. But I did enjoy the photography aspect, and recording my progress in that way.

Final piece Photoshoot

I hung the piece to my ceiling, and here are a few photos that I captured.

Finished

After hours of scoring, folding and getting annoyed, several paper cuts and a whole load of staples later the final piece was made. The piece fans out in different angles so I wasn't sure where to attach the string to hang it, so I tied it around the middle and testing which ways it hung best.

Progressing with the final structure

My flatmate took an interest in what I had been making the past few days, and took this photo of me working. I had been getting annoyed with the paper and forming it into the shape that I wanted which means that I'm not quite sure how big the final piece will turn out.

Disaster

Half way through the final piece, I realised that by adding the pattern to the front as well as expanding outwards was going to make it too heavy at the front. Therefore some of the pieces I had to remove and place elsewhere, I hope that this doesn't effect the overall look of the final piece of work!

Making the Final piece

I thought that this method was now producing nice enough forms to create the final piece in this way too. So I made lots of repeats of the pattern, and began joining them together.

Joining them together Part 2

The pieces were expanding well, so I then tried joining them at different edges to see what forms this created.

Joining them together

I think I am happy with the way the forms are turning out using this method now. Therefore I made several more and started stapling them together to repeat the pattern and form bigger pieces.

Back to square one

I decided to scrap the idea of the cut out strips, it wasn't going in the desired direction. The method of scoring curves and then pleating them seemed to be the best option at this point. So, I repeated this but started to fold them in different ways.

Whereas before I started scoring from the corner and expanded outwards. In this test I started scoring from the centre and then folded it in this position too.

Experimenting with 3D - A different route....progression

I liked the turn out of the previous method, but the overall strength of the paper once parts had been cut out was quite weak. Therefore I tried this way again, but instead of cutting actual strips out, I just cut lines into the paper, with different widths in-between each section. This produced an overall stronger form but when the paper was bent into its final shape, the spread of the spirals wasn't as effective.

Experimenting with 3D - A different route

I thought about how I could create spiral patterns in a different way and came up with the idea of bending separate strips of paper. To do this, I drawn out parallel lines onto an A3 piece of card, and then cut out individual various strips, leaving some paper still attached, but some cut out. Then by bending this into different shapes, the strips of paper that were left in could freely move and created these spirals and curved forms. I tried to bend and staple the sheet into a shell type form, but it was very flimsy.

Experimenting with 3D shell forms

Taking into account that my inspiration is coming mainly from shells and spiralling patterns, I began making pleated curved pieces by scoring curved lines and spirals into paper and then folding along the creases, similar to a pleat.

I preferred this outcome most, the structure was more solid but still could be manipulated easily by joining them together at different places in order to create various final shapes. 

Primary Research Part 4

I decided that using the pleat as the repeated pattern within forms that were also spiral, would be the best idea for a final piece. I am yet to test this out in 3D, but first I wanted to get some initial spiral patterns and shape ideas down, so that I know exactly how to manipulate the paper.

Here are a few quick sketch ideas I did in my sketchbook using chalk.

Secondary Research Part 4

In relation to some of the patterns that I had been creating in my sketchbook I began realising more places where the same spiralling patterns are found.
Examples include; Stairwells

Architecture, such as London's Gherkin.

Natural formations, such as DNA

Secondary Research Part 3

After investigating further into spiral patterns, and such patterns that occur both naturally in nature and in man made structures such as buildings I came across a lot to do with the Fibonacci sequencing. 


The Fibonacci sequence is a common rule within a set of numbers. 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, ... This produces a pattern which completes a golden ratio. This ratio appears in biological settings, such as branching in trees, arrangement of leaves, and pine cones etc., and is also produced in man made structures. 

This could help me in the final assembly of my sculpture.

Secondary Research Part 2

After the pleating experiments I wanted to try to find another pattern form to take inspiration from. Therefore, still looking at shells, I realised the repeating pattern that I could use is the spiral. 

This would create much more elegant forms which would solve the problems I faced with the initial pleating outcomes.

Primary Research Part 3

So, beginning to focus on shells in particular, and the typical pattern included within them is a repeated set of lines, much similar to a pleated pattern. I did a couple of pleat forms to test out where this kind of structure could go.

I chose this particular light setting because the lamp also had a pleated design. To create a pleat pattern in a rounded form like this lamp shade would be ideal. To recreate a natural shell shape, aswell as use the shell pattern.

However, I found that after folding the paper several times to create the pleat, it's overall structure became very stiff, and once manipulate to create rounder forms, it tended to lose such a perfect defined pleat. This only thing I seemed to do was create fan shapes, but I was expecting to make something more elegant. I need to look at shapes to now bend the pleats into and experiment with applying this pattern to more designs. Such as recreating some of the forms that I already have, but pleating the paper first.