Laser Cuts - First Attempts...

So at the moment I'm sat in the interior design suite in the Laser cutting room, waiting for some stuff to finish being cut. From the crit yesterday when I showed the little strawbs I had tried to cut, it clarrified that there was too much detail to be but so small, and I ended up with little holes and gaps everywhere:

FAIL

So today I have opted for bigger repeats, this meant that the detail has all stayed in, although I'm not sure whether it still looks too crowded and to much. I think the big strawberry on it's own is looking okay though...

Laser cutter, doing it thing...

I'm going to try and use all the off-cuts I produce...

I cut the big strawberry out of two different colours... they both work well, maybe the brighter red is better suited to what the image really is, also tried to do it in repeat, my time ran out and couldn't finish it though...

Then with the Burgandy colour, I tried some red gingham fabric behind it, that I'd bought from the market...

Because I can't get to the laser cutter until next wednesday now, I have decided to create another design but a little simpler and try and cut it out by hand, this could give it a more personal touch as well.

For next wednesday I want to make sure all the files are working properly, because when I seem to open them in the laser cutting program there are always bits missing from the design and I have to construct the whole image again, or like today, I couldn't cut the birds and bikes, which I'm most excited about because lots of the image was missing! I will sort this problem before next wednesday and also I want to have some wood ready to engrave and cut through, I think this will look interesting, as I did a tiny tester on the idea of engraving and the burning on the wood looks ever so pretty!

It's time to make all the decisions an make sure I am really well prepared for next wednesday, I want to plan all my timings as well, estimating an average time that each cut might take, so that I can fit it all in, as I know that wood takes quite a while to cut through with it being so thick.

PLAN:

STRAWBERRIES - Cut through: four strawbs on red,

one strawberry in thin wood.

Engraved: into wood

BIRDS AND BIKE - Engraved: into wood

Cut through: dark blue paper,

white paper,

black paper,

one bike and birds in thin wood.

Final Crit.

Today I had my last crit, which was actually the first 'group' crit that I'd had throughout this project, it was really good to see where everybody else was and what they'd been up to. It seemed that people were doing competition briefs and also work to contribute to their practice in general.

My goal now, is to get work to 'On The Wall' before this brief is over and get feed-back on my work from Simon who works there. To give an idea of what I wanted to submit, I felt that I needed to show my laser cut final ideas as well as the design work I'd been doing for it, this then giving the idea of what I wanted to submit. I went to use the laser cutter very quickly, before my crit, but unfortunately, the design was too detailed for the size that I was cutting it, so bits fell through, although I was suprised that any of it cut out okay when watching the laser cutter at work:

It still gave them an idea of what I wanted, and they seemed to like to image and the idea, the like the birds and bikes, even more so and so I'm excited to get this cut next week. It's a real shame that the laser cutters are so busy and fully booked all over the college, because this means I only have 1 more session to get stuff cut and then take it too Simon next friday hopefully?

This means I need to do a lot of planning and plan timings for the next time I go to the laser cutter, making sure that I get everything cut possible. I was going to do some more design work for it the laser cutter, but I think with the time I have left with the laser cutter and next friday as my deadline, I'm going to leave it and make sure I get the strawberry one and the birds and bikes cut nicely and out of every material that I wanted to cut from - wood takes slightly longer to cut...

Another Design for the Laser...

This is another design I did for the laser cutter...

Although I want to think of something interesting to do with them after, making them 3D or layering them up in an interesting way, although I want to see how the images laser cut first.

Birds and Bikes:

Rob Ryan.

Mmmmm yummy!

Borrowed my friends coy of Rob Ryans book today! All the laser cutting inspiration you could ever need and beautiful, cut images.

I almost had a little cry...

READ IT, if you havn't already! http://www.misterrob.co.uk/

I'd love to get work experience with him, however I believe this would never happen! But... you don't get if you don't ask? It's worth just emailing him right?

Laser Cutter Booked.

Well today I took a trip down to wood-work in the hope of booking the laser cutter to show some work at my final crit of images I might take to 'On The Wall'.

I wasn't too shocked to find out that the laser cutter was fully booked out for 3 weeks and past our deadline, so he told me that I could be cheeky and go and ask the Interior design building if I could use their laser cutter as they don't use it as much, went down there and spoke to Micheal who gave me a two hour slot, although this runs into my crit so I might have to just do an hour and then go back again, hopefully with more designs.

Hopefully what I show tomorrow will give an idea of what I want to do...

Here are some of the Designs, I hope to get cut...

It was a pretty long and tedious process putting all my drawings together in photoshop and then through to illustrator...

The drawings were sometimes pretty bad quality once I'd scanned them and so I had to redraw a lot of them, and I used the outline of a strawberry I had drawn as a guide when placing the 'un-outlined' pattern/shape strawberries onto the page...

After all this, I realised that I had done it wrong and the birdcage in the middle needed to be the negative, so I spent bloody ages re-doing it... I hope it's all worth it....

We're Going On A Picnic...

Today I went to collect some photos of a little picnic with some friends that I had In loughborough... The grass was pretty damp so we didn't get to have the 'traditional' on the floor picnic, but reading up about picnics, a picnic on a table is just as much a picnic if you're in great company, have yummy food and are having fun!

...and how about that, the park looks like the perfect place to host a picnic! (Disposable cameras are yummy!)

'Cute' Wallpaper.

Met up with Paul today, to show him some stuff, get his opinions and now I'm working towards final bits...