Experimenting with the Prototype

And the wood block vessel project returns...in full force. I'm sorry for the recent distractions of creativity tips and illustration postings, but not to worry, I have gladly returned to my design project. In case any of you have forgotten, we have been working these past couple weeks on building a vessel out of wood that holds an object of special meaning. My object (or objects) is a Crayola crayon. Not having a lot of knowledge on three-dimensional design or wood working, I had a lot to learn (and I still have a lot to learn) but as usual, I dove right into it.

After my foam core prototype, I moved to building a quick prototype out of wood. I chose to work with popler because of the beautiful green grain streaks within the wood. Crayola has recently been working to make their factories more "green" so I thought this wood choice was appropriate.

Yes, yes I know. It's rough, very very rough. But this was a great way to allow me to experiment with a lot of elements that I was going to use for the final. For example, I wasn't sure what kind of pattern I wanted for the holes to go in. I wasn't sure if an orderly hole pattern compared to a miscellaneous pattern would effect the feeling and shape of the vessel.

With this prototype, I continued my methods of alternating seams to give it a diagonal end (see previous blog post if you're confused). But that idea went down that tubes when I moved with wood. When I cut the wood with the band saw, even though I used a guide, my cuts weren't perfectly straight so when I went to go glue them back together, no matter how much I sanded, I couldn't get them to fit perfectly together. This lead to many gluing problems, leading to gap problems, which just became a headache.

With my object being a crayon, I also started experimenting with what I could do on the outer surface. My first idea was melting crayons (I've seen it everywhere on Pinterest). So me and my friend Subha, took a lazy Friday afternoon and did some experimenting.

I also experimented with drawing on the surface with crayon....

I'm not quite sure if I'll use either of these techniques, but this entire prototype allowed me to work out some kinks to problems I'm sure I'm bound to encounter on the final project. With all this working in the wood shop, I've yet to cut of a limb, so I'm thinking I am well on my way as of now.