Experimenting with materials for collar piece..

Like I have said previously I find it hard to vision what a design looks like until I start it in 3D first, so I have started to try out options for the mask and collar piece. This is mainly to work out sizes and wondered whether garden wire would work or not. In our workshop on the Kinetika weekend they showed us this wire bicycle collar which I thought would be great for my design and would be really effective to add to in order to create tentacles coming off of the collar which creates height behind the childs head and frames their face...

<< This collar was created using garden wire from Wilkinsons, I am so glad I tried it out because it actually was far too flimsy for my design and I dont think it would withstand children playing around with it or the wind during the actual carnival....                                                            

I tried using a different type of wire >> which is called galvenised        
wire which can be purchased from B&Q this was a lot thicker and hard to bend however so much more sturdy than the one I had used previously. This is the wire which I will use to make the collars for the lessons, and hopefully be able to use the spot welding machine in the workshop so that I can mass produce them which will be less time consuming (considering I have to make 30!!) in terms of bending the wire around itself to stay in place the spot welder will clamp the metal together and melt it so it is one complete structure...




One section of one of the lessons for the children will be to paper mache these collars with yellow tissue paper. Experimenting with this prototyping has really helped me understand how long things actually take and predict how long they will take the children to do. I feel that I take for granted how quickly I can make things, but understand that they may not be able to do it as quickly as me, so whilst doing this prototyping have taken note of timings and in what order everything has to be done and what needs to be planned before. For example, the best way I have realised to paper mache this collar is to rip up quite large strips prior to the lessons and then they have to paper mache the collar in sections and wrap around each part to make it stronger..  I am really pleased I have started doing this before collating the lesson plans... 


These are the plasterzote tentacles that I have made using the Vac form machine. First of all I did a clay sculpt of them and then Vac Formed these using plastic and then made Plaster mould of the tenticles so they will be able to go in the Vac forming machine over and over again. On Each collar there will be 4 tenticles meaning I have to create 120!!!! Before the lesson, this again, has been beneficial in curating lesson plans, as I know that this will have to be a later session in the month so I have enough time to make all of these before they decorate them...




This photo is an example of how the the face will be framed by the tentacles around it, I feel that the structure I have created with wire is not wide enough yet and doesn't rest on the shoulders correctly, so may have to alter the pattern of the collar so that I get the shape I want...