3 D Design         Unit 5               Nancy Munier                                        23 April 2021

Going from a drawing on 8 by 10 inch paper to 5 foot high and about 4 foot wide sculpture was a challenge.   The original idea of using chicken wire, 16 g rebar tie wire and plywood quickly morphed to using drip irrigation tubing, fabric strapping, table cloths, fabric, foam insulation board and a camera tripod. 

Challenges were to construct a moveable sculpture that was larger than my 5’2” frame.  The ability to transport the artwork turned out to be the hardest challenge.

Process:

 1. Scale up the drawing and find materials. I used my logo chicken that Torrie created for my model.

 2. Assemble the tubing into circles of graduated sizes. I had a bunch of drip line tubing so I used that and used wooden clothes pins to connect the ends of the tubes.

 3. Figure out, and cut fabric strapping to support hoops. I took a page from old time crinolines and how they were assembled and able to squinch up on one side to pass thru doors.

 4. Sew hoops together while maintain about a 12 inch spacing between hoops and keeping the strapping equally tensioned around the row of hoop. This was probably the most time consuming step in the assembly.

 5. Using the tripod to support the hoops I then had to figure out how to shape the top 24 inches of the head.  This was done using the foam board and cutting it into graduating shapes, then gluing them together.  I did discover that the purple foam insulation board is hard to cut with a hand saw and it was too tall to use with the band saw.

6.  Cut and sew fabric for “skirt” and head.  Discovered that the yellow fabric let too much light thru so I added black table cloths as a liner. This added to the weight but helped hold her shape. (Thanks Joanne Rice for the yellow fabric.)

 7. Using a length of board – 8 foot 1 by 2 cut in half- I set the wood on cardboard and sprayed “crack filler foam insulation” on for legs.  This required a 48 hour cure and painting with spray paint. I also used the spray paint on three shorter boards to make a tail.  All boards were hinged with bolts and wing nuts at untreated end to allow for transport and adjustment. 

8. The arms/wings were created using pvc pipe (1/5 inch) and covered with fabric.  The hand parts were spray foam.

 9. Her top knot was made from twisted 16 g. wire and felt, hot glued onto the wire. 

Transporting from my house in my Subaru was done by collapsing the tripod, folding up hoops and shoving her in.  I had to finish the feet (added plastic straw toes) and attach her skirt in the lab.  Then we moved her to the photo site in the back of a small pickup truck which was quite funny.

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