Cardboard City

Following our trip to London (http://amberatlantis.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/london-trip.html) we were given the task of creating a giant city out of cardboard in our collage’s theatre. In preparation of this, we individually produced small scale models – I decided to make Tower Bridge as I have memories of visiting it as a child, and I also wanted to focus on other aspects  of cities (e.g. bridges) as opposed to just buildings.

We then teamed up to create slightly larger models before attempting the final city. We were encouraged to steer away from our views of what a city does or should look like, and instead create organic shapes and forms. My group based our building around a triangular structure, like ‘The Shard’.

Making the final city was very tiring but great fun. Here’s a video of us in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gf_o3uEE7M4

During the first two days of construction, I worked with my group to make what we called ‘The Rocket’. Originally this was going to be pyramid shaped, but my friend had the idea of suspending it upside down from the ceiling, and then various elements were gradually added such as the cut out shapes, string fringing and pipework.

    

On the last 2 days of construction I took an individual approach to put my own spin on the city. I wanted to create a giant hamster ball that would also be suspended from the ceiling, but I had difficultly trying to maintain a spherical shape, so I simply ‘went with the flow’ and ended up creating a piece that resembled a clove of garlic.

  

Lastly, here’s some photos I took of the whole city and a few close-ups:

       

(for anyone wondering I use a Nikon D3100)

London Trip

Our first college project is titled ‘Transformations: Cities within Cities’ and so we went to London around the St Paul’s and the South Bank area. We stopped at several locations to draw buildings in various materials on mixed media backgrounds that we had previously prepared. Here are some pages from my sketchbook:

Drawing whilst standing up was definitely a challenge for me, as was drawing buildings since I’d never really done that before. However, I enjoyed the experience and I’m excited to see how the project will develop as we will be creating our own cities.

Whilst in London we visited the Tate Modern and Tate Britain. I was amazed by the featured Phyllida Barlow exhibition – I was visually drawn to the hanging boxes as they reminded me of the Silent Hill movies where the siren goes off and everything starts to ‘decay’. The wooden frame / support also reminded me of the scene with the mannequins in ‘Revelation’ (pictured below).