Working with Materials

 After long semesters of how to conduct field and getting to know people and places I finally got an opportunity to choose something that had hands on work. In the beginning I was really looking forward to working with various materials but this course has not only thought me that but also of how to stretch the materials to its limits and use it to its fullest.

We learnt about various joineries throughout this course, knowledge of which will help us in the future of our design career, as till date my major mind block was using either feviquick or m-seal. Also the information gained during the process of working with materials and research was a lucrative niche. Getting to know properties of materials will help us use that particular material judiciously in our designs. I found wood a very interesting, as wood itself categorizes into soft, hard, aromatic, age of the tree etc. every inch of the same wood is also differently priced. I wish I could have worked a little more with wood though and also get an insight to the workshop.

The other materials we worked with were straws +pins, clay, POP, wax etc.

Straws and pins was a very challenging task, we worked as a class, every one had their own ideas , since the class was pretty co-operative we proceeded with the trial and error method  every idea possible. Finally as a class we were almost successful with making the bridge structure support the weight limit. If we had the time I am sure we would have worked on it a bit more and made it better. It was an intimidating task for all but satisfied by our outcome. I personally learnt that even the weakest structure if given a correct form can prove to be the strongest. Materials are very tricky; we need to spend just enough time to understand them well.

The next material we worked with was clay. It was a messy and fun material but at the same time a tough material to work with. It is not very easy to give it a form. A strong base is required. Also what my learning's are with clay is that whenever we are adding another layer of clay to the previous , only smudging water is not sufficient we need to make sure that there are no air bubbles or gaps as later the art piece / form may tend to crack. This was my first time ever with clay. My first model was a small, somewhat distorted devils portrait from face to the neck region. Looking at how precise mr. Narendra and a few of my colleagues were at it it encouraged me to work with the material even more. I then came up with a portrait of a random roman looking face, which I felt was an improvement to the previous form.

We also worked with POP and the first two times mold making  was a disaster but finally I came up with a much sturdy one comparatively. The whole process of how casting is done was explained well and we also got to experiment a part of it on Narendras expense of wax. A

Next was working with wood to create the five basic joinaries , seemed easy but cutting through the dainty yet tough pieces of wood was literally breath taking (cause every cut we had to hold our breath) and hard .

I only wish that the course was a little longer and we got more time to spend and explore a few more materials.

Thank you.

i have sent a PDF of the pictures and the text. please do let me know if not received