In the last unit of our art class we had to make a kinetic sculpture relating to our power animals and our elements. For me, my power animal is a spider and my element is wind. Knowing that we had to start making a blue print. The blueprint consists of drawings or sketches of what we want to build and how the sculpture will move. It asks to list two different ways that your natural element has been/currently is being used as natural energy. Through my research I found that wind is used to power windmills and for moving sailboats through water. We also had to list the materials used, for me those materials were one tin tub, tissue paper, popsicle sticks, hot glue gun, coffee cup holder, and piece of styrofoam.
WHO, WHAT, WHEN:
Name: BR
Date of Completion: Oct 2012
Title of the Piece: Sail On
Materials Used: Tissue paper, Starbucks cup holder, Hot glue, Wood, Tin tub, and Paint.
Size (Width, Length, Height) in Inches:
The concept behind this piece was to get a better understanding of what kinetic sculptures are and how they move only using a natural element such as wind, earth, fire, and water. This piece is supposed to represent my natural element; wind, and how it can move a sailboat through water depending on which way the wind is coming from. First I looked at what kinds of movements my power animal (spider) makes when they are designing webs; sort of a zig zag kind of movement. From that I decided I wanted to make a little sailboat that could follow a zig-zag pathway using only wind to propel it forward. The boat is what is being moved and the tub full of water represents the element making it so that the boat can move, and the pathway is there to guide the boat in the right direction. I knew that I wanted my sailboat to be the size of a child’s toy boat; big enough to glide and function, small enough to fit in a tin tub. The first model I made was too big so I had to start over. I used a coffee cup holder as the walls of the boat, then I cut a styrofoam base and built the sail out of popsicle sticks. I had to use a lot of hot glue to make sure no water could get in the boat and sink it. The tin tub was pretty simple except I had to make a zig-zag pathway out of wood pieces that were glued to the bottom of the tub.