Inflatables? I know, I thought the same thing when I first seen that word on my calendar. It turned out that we would be making our own inflatables over the week.
Like last week with the manifestos, we were put into groups- my group included me, Ella, Alan and Kieron.
Our first course of action was to pause and think about the task we were given- make an inflatable. We had no idea where to begin. We all thought quietly for a couple of minutes and we all pitched our ideas. We picked Alan's idea as we all agreed that was the best and most realistic (the plan is in my sketchbook). Basically, we thought we could use three different shapes and have the pop out of a container, kind of like a confetti cannon but with an inflatable instead!
Once the plan had been discussed we spilt off into two groups of two. One group focusing on sewing the inflatables (which is not my job as I cannot sow to save my life) and the other group focusing on making the containers to hold the inflatables but also where the air would be blown through- that was mine and Alan's job.
We found an old ink container which we used last week when we experimented with the qualities of ink. It was the perfect size so we rummage around in the recycling to see if there were any more- luckily we found the exact number of bottles we needed which was three!
We cut the bottom of the bottles out and used sandpaper to smooth the sides so the inflatable wouldn't get caught on it. We wanted to paint the bottles black so they wouldn't distract from the material colour of the inflatables (also we had an idea of dripping paint down the inflatables while they were inflating but we didn't end up doing that- as I will explain at the end). However, we quickly realised if we wanted to paint the plastic bottles we would have to sand the whole bottle and get some primer and all that jazz. It would of taken took long for the little time we had to make and document the project. In the end we decided to use the tape we used in the first few weeks to cover the bottle. We started to just wrap the bottles with black tape and we quickly ran out. When I was looking for more tape I found a reflective roll of tape which matched the material of our inflatables perfectly, so we used it!
We put the reflective tape on the bottles vertically so it would subconsciously guide the eyes up like a leading line. Also because the inflatables were going to be blown up so the tape was also mimicking that.
These are the final products:
With the middle one, we added three paper cups to the bottle as the middle inflatable was bigger than all the others so it need more room to move.
When inflating them we put the machine at the bottom so the the inflatables would rise up. These were the outcomes:
The first one is my favourite the first one due to the movement of it and how it inflates- it's quite mesmerising as it flops down and goes back up and then flops down again. We tried using the same technique for the other ones however they were top heavy and the air machine we were using wasn't strong enough to get the whole shape go up so we had to improvise and to it upside down to give the air a little push with gravity. The concept was there but we didn't have the right materials.
We did plan to paint on top of the inflatables so while it expands the paint would drip down creating an unique pattern on the plain material. However, after blowing up the shapes once to see if they work we realised that it wouldn't work like we wanted it too because the shapes move around a lot and go sideways before going straight up. The paint would get everywhere and not create the atmosphere we were looking for.
I think overall our inflables were good but there was room for improvement. We needed to think and plan more before actually making the inflables. Also, it would of been helpful if we had a practice one to see if that paint idea would actually work and look as satisfying as we picture it. If we had more time I think addressing the project this way will be more productive.
After making the inflables we had to make gifs out of the documentation of the inflatables in action. These were the three I made on Photoshop:
I think these are very successful for my first attempt of making gifs on Photoshop. For the first two ones I used the paint brush and traced around the images I had of the inflatables and put them all together on the timeline. For the third one I just used the images to create the gif. I think in future I will make gifs again (ones that could relate to my specialism). For example, I could make a gif of the preparation or the process. Also I could make a gif out of a series of photographs instead of displaying them in a line- this is a different but eye catching way to display images.