In Flux In-stalled

So I have finally installed phase one of my In Flux installation.  Please see the prior posts for more info on the beginning of the project.  Today I will be showing you the processes leading up to and including the installation.

 

So initially I thought I would video myself blowing this up.... it took an hour and a half to blow up.

 I can't begin to express to you the sheer joy of heating the end of this stand to cherry read and then driving it 3.5 feet deep into the foot of the styrofoam and having it work perfectly.

 Like I said, perfectly.  Here's a coat of white primer.

 Followed by some paint.

 I planed this wood down to a thickness to make it look like it was submerged in the puddle and then stained the top to look like a used popsicle.

 

 Aluminum base for teeth

 Done!

 Let's take a ride in an automobile

 Hooray!

An interesting side effect of heating up a square tube and dropping it into the foam of the sculpture

 A foamsicle

 Let's take a ride

 I mapped out the face using a laser level

 Adhesive-backed vinyl

 Frame for the head

 Frame in place, hoisted up by a cable

 Magic

 Installed

 Melty

 Dreamy

 meh.

Phase two is coming soon.  More additions to be made!

Romancing the Foam

 So, I've got a lot of catching up to do on the blog here, so I will be making two posts this week.  Phase one of installation is actually complete and you can visit it at 323 E Veterans Way, Tempe AZ.  But today I'm going to be showing you the fascinating and messy process of finishing up foam.  Later this week I will show you the rest of the pics!

 For the fine details like those of the hand I used a file or an xacto blade.

 Looking better

 

Shaping up

 

 The gang's all here

 Patching with plaster

 An insert for the inside of the leg.... but how to get it in?

Maya took this picture of me pulling in the astroturf

 Painting straight on the foam

 Brighter!

 Coated in resin, patched a bajillion times.  Maya knocked the hands off by accident, but actually gave me the opportunity to fix a lot of details.

 Happy ice cream bar!

 Dreamy Dreamcicle

 Nummy 

Child Labor.

How to Carve Styrofoam

  

This week we examine carving styrofoam or at least how I do it.  I create outlines in cardboard and then mount them onto the block of foam.  The cardboard acts as a guide for my homemade hotwire (years ago I made one using a Lionel Train transformer, an extension cord, PVC pipes, and guitar string).  If you take a look at the video on the bottom you can see me knock it apart after carving the front and side profiles. 

Don't forget to check out my new website http://www.nathaniellewis.org/

Profile

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Below I used a large, smooth cake knife to cut off a lot of the excess

Below that you can see a small video of me knocking off pieces after hotwiring.

Everything is In Flux

 

Hi there, 

Forgive me reader, for I have sinned.  It has been 8 months since my last post.  Things have been a little crazy here.  Me and the family have moved ourselves back to Arizona because I got a really sweet teaching gig.  I have received a grant from In Flux to produce the sculpture you see above (or at least something very similar).  

I have also selected the new domain name for my website: http://www.nathaniellewis.org/  I got myself ORGanized.  .net is so 2000 and late.  I also re-designed it.   I didn't have a ton of time to customize it, but I likes it.

I'll tell you more about the sculpture next week.  Below are parts of the plan and the proposal.

 I started with a drawing

 I built an armature to scale

 Then I sculpted the figure (not shown because I can't find the pic)  I used this figure as the base for the photoshop rendering you see at the top.

 

Next came the styrofoam

 

Projected a scaled version of the figure onto the foam (picture courtesy of Maya)

 

Traced it out on both sides ready for rough carving

Next week?
CARVING!