Artwork Distractions…

It’s been a while since I’ve updated folks. I’ve had a few distractions from art lately, but know I still aspire not to be known as the guy with the cameras or the cool gadgets, but the ‘artist’. One of the distractions is my new Anet A8 3D printer. 

I recevied it as a very generous christmas gift and I’ve wasted no time trying to learn the 3D programs that would feed designs to the 3D printer. I printed off a skull I downloaded from thingiverse.com and was surprised with the quality and level of detail. I soon after discovered lithophanes. They used to make these by hand 200 years ago and now you can do them digitally with not a ton of effort. Basically, where the plastic is thin it allows the light to shine through and where thicker, it blocks it. Preserving a black and white picture. You can simply set these in a window and allow the sunlight to illuminate the image, or you can put some artificial source of light. I’m not the first to discover this and be amazed by this. A local art studio/gallery had some on display. I was asked by a friend I brought along how they were made. I actually didn’t know at the time.

Here it is a little over a month later and not only do I have a 3D printer, but I stumbled upon this method. I then did a bit more research and found that people were printing off frames that would contain candles, christmas bulbs and LED! If anyone knows me, I’m a fan of LED. So, there were already templates you could download and print, but I know I wanted to gain this knowledge and start designing from scratch. I then found tinkercad.com.

Super easy web based autocad software. I have a vision of making my own base that will house USB/LED cable and 100mmx100mm lithophane panes. Becoming a very personalized, but yet also, interchangable way of displaying these photos. I’m hope to get all the ‘bugs’ worked out of the design before christmas. I’d then be using my Christmas gift to gain knowledge, but also to be able to pass around some pretty great personal gifts. I’ll make a ‘project’ post with all the details and more pictures of my lithophane night lamp in the near future. But wanted to explain why the art projects have been temporarily shelved. Happy Holidays Everyone!