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Stokes Wood Mural Development 5 Part 2

The laser in action once again for the final boards.

We did manage to crash the laser cutter just after this, as it did not like a particular line. It stopped, shut down and started beeping, not what I like to hear from a brand new £50,000 piece of kit. We managed to resolve it be deleting the line and redrawing it, phew.

Stokes Wood Mural Development 5

Here are 3 different panels at various stages of the production process.

Left: Just come off the laser after 1 hour of machining, then cut down to size on the band saw.

Middle: Sanded down to remove the burnt hazing around the letters and drawings.

Right: All oiled up and looking beautiful.

The final thing to do is to get the nuts and bolts, then get it up on the wall at the school.

Stokes Wood Mural Development 4

After taking all of the kids drawings and scanning them into the computer I had to take each page into illustrator to perform wizardry. All of the kids will have their name on the sign but not all will have their drawings due to some only having 2 sessions with me, therefore not having time, and others have been subject to quality control. With hundreds of drawings and only 8 panels, I had to select the best, convert them into line drawings and delete a lot of line work from each individual picture to create a image that will look good when burnt into the oak, whilst maintaining the charm and detail of the original drawing. Eventually I ended up with a set of panels that I was happy with before the final spell-checking and editing, done after taking the last snapshot, ready for it all to be sent to the laser!

Stokes Wood Mural Development 3 Part 2

Laser cutting into oak! As The Mask would say “smoking!”

This is how the final sign will be made.

Stokes Wood Mural Development 3

The oak has finally arrived! It was chopped into two and transported to DMU’s workshops.

The test pieces were laser etched and routed to see the best results. The laser showed up really well and the clarity was perfect, the routed part (not shown) was hard to make out from a distance.

The laser etched test was initially done on 100% speed and 100% power. The second (left) was at 100% power and 90% speed to make the large letters show up more.

Other parts were at 60% power such as the bird and girl drawing on the second try.

It looks amazing, I will take it into the school to show the head teacher before we order enough wood for the 6 or 8 panelled sign.

Stokes Wood Week 4

So my last week at Stokes Wood went very well, besides one kid crying because he made a mistake on his work, which I told him it didn’t matter as it was the practice sheet anyway. Oh well. He still managed to finish his work eventual and left happy.

We drew our names again in perspective, though at a different angle this time. For each group I decided if we were going to tackle the new sheet or re-do last weeks one. We then completed an A3 version of that sheet to make a big one that looked awesome.

A very good end to working with the kids. Also a lot learned in my first experience in doing so.

With teaching over, I am still working on the sign to cheer up the dreary concrete wall outside of the reception. My test piece of European oak has been ordered and I am waiting for it to arrive although I am a bit pre-occupied this week!

Stokes Wood Mural Development 2

The next step was to test how well the kids drawings could be machined onto wood. I took the image of the bird that I liked and then imported I into illustrator, converting it into a DXF. With the new file, the image was laser etched onto plywood, resulting in a really nice looking mini plaque. The first routed MDF part followed both the interior and exterior of the line work, making a slightly fuzzy feel to it. Using the same pointed cutter, a new part was cut with the router following just one of the lines, creating a finer cut image. The final test was using a flat cutter rather than a pointed cutter, this is what I originally planned to use however a lot of the detail has been lost. Overall, the testing showed that the drawings can easily be placed onto the sign, with the best results coming from the laser and from the CNC router using a single line and a pointed cutter.

I pitched the current design to the school and the head teacher said it looked so good that it may be bigger than originally planned. The only added cost is the extra material to be used.

Let’s see how it goes!

Stokes Wood Mural Development 1

As part of my role at the school, I am creating a Mural/Sign for the school.

I want to create an oak piece, that has the kids drawings routed or laser etched onto it. My sketch work show various ideas of sizes and shapes, although the content is pretty much the same.

It should look gorgeous, simple oak with these kids drawings all over it and the name of the school. Keeping it really simple.

Stokes Wood Week 3

This week at Stokes Wood I attempted to get the kids to write their name or part of it in 3D perspective. And as you can see from a Polish girl, Wiktoria, she did a very good job at it.

My new worksheet that I created was a little too minimum for the Tuesday groups. When I returned on Friday I added more construction lines to help the kids and created a sheet with pre drawn grids on so they didn’t have to struggle with drawing those either.

It was more of a learning curve these sessions and the end groups were much more successful thanks to my lesson re-adjustments along the way.

I just have to decide what we will do next week for the final session.

Stokes Wood Week 2

This week at stokes wood we did some shading. You can see my efforts above and like before the kids did a pretty good job of it. We began by practicing drawing our cubes from my worksheet and then shaded 3 different tones onto the sides of the cubes. We also did some drawings of things related to the school, I collected them all up and selected some of the best. The birds above are a favourite of mine, the boy who drew them was not great at the shading, or much else, but these birds have a certain charm. I needed drawings for the mural/design that will be placed outside of the school reception, and with some magic applied to the drawings, I (hopefully) will create a really nice piece.

My Friday was cut short due to me having to set up the degree show at DMU, so I taught 6 pupils instead of 4 so not all of the kids missed the afternoon sessions.

Degree show info to come soon!

Stokes Wood Week 1

After my first week as Mr Clarke, I was really surprised at how successful my workshops turned out.

My dot-to-dot in 2-point perspective sheet worked a treat. Above you can see my sheets that I completed whilst showing the kids what to do. Some were really good! Seriously, very good work. With 4 pupils in each session we worked through learning to draw 3D shapes and also started to think of things that we could draw to go on the mural that I will design. No problems to report either, awesome!

Lee Clarke Design Goes To Stokes Wood Primary School

From Thursday 5th June I will be going to Stokes Wood Primary School to teach year 6 pupils in design workshop.

The workshop will involve learning about 2-point perspective drawing! This may sound complicated for an 11 year old to tackle, and it probably will be. Hopefully with my specially made worksheets, we will be able to get these pupils to create some 3D drawings. I have also been commissioned to design, manufacture and install a piece of artwork/design/sculpture to be placed outside of the reception entrance. The pupils will be helping me to design this too, and show them the design process in action.

This project has been arrange through the DMU Graduate Champions Scheme, a programme where graduates are paid by DMU, to work at various organisations.

Exciting stuff!

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