Instrument Five Drawing (Nat Chard)

This will make more sense if read as a continuation of the previous post on Instrument Five

The first genration of Instrument Five Drawings have the continuing problem of the main thrust of paint obliterating the more subtle splatters that come from the collision of paint on the drawing pieces.

Instrument Seven solved this problem (future post)

The early experiments also played with paint viscosity and targeting the paint catapults, which were more accurate and had greater repeatability than i had imagined when designing and making them. They were designed for a disposable plastic tea spoon as a paint holder but I found that a hemispherical measuring spoon provided a more coherent throw.

As the throw happened very quickly, and having an fascination with the work of Arthur Worthington and Harold Edgerton, I decided to capture the paint in flight to see what it was up to – in effect the occupation of the architecture as the drawing pieces also constitute an architectural model (this will make more sense when I have posted a model from which the drawing pieces develop).

First genreration splat (Nat Chard)

The first attempts with 500 watt flash lamps used at their lowest power (for the fastest flash) were hopeful (above) but not fast enough to resolve the paint as a crisp frozen image. This would be solved by using a powerful battery powered flash in the subsequent generations. The significant discovery was that making these photographs made a hopeful change in my engagement with the work. When making a drawing I set the aim of the catapult in the hope of the paint travelling in a certain trajectory, and perhaps colliding  with one of the drawing pieces in particular. With the photograph, which is timed manually so that even with my most developed method I am only catching the paint in the photograph every two or three throws, I have more than one anticipation in making the throw of paint.

One is the aim – what I want the paint to do – and the other is the hope for the photograph. While the aim is predictable, the figure of the flying paint is not, so in both cases, even if the photograph does register, the real hope is for the unpredictable things that happens. Having the straightforward task (of getting the timing of the photograph right) made it much easier to have a sincere hope for the aiming of the paint while at the same time hoping that it would give much more.

Second genreration splat (Nat Chard)

With a new flash that provided the speed that I needed, the photographs during the throw became more important to me than the  drawing. I alternated between orange and white paint to see the temporal build up of paint on the drawing surface and the residual paint from the previous colour, un mixed, helped describe the behaviour of the paint in flight. The story and architecture discussed by these drawings will be explained in a subsequent post.

Second genreration splat (Nat Chard)

Second genreration splat (Nat Chard)

Second genreration splat (Nat Chard)

In the lowest image notice how the line of paint remains continuous as it stretches over the drawing pieces.

Drawing Instrument Five (Nat Chard)

Drawing Instrument Five (Nat Chard)

When light casts a shadow, the figure that lands on whatever makes the screen is a predictable combination of the angle of the light, the form of the objects and the nature of the screen. Instruments one, two and three played with the of manipulating such a projection as a critical reception of ideas. Every move was contained by the relentless obedience of light’s behaviour. Instrument fout tested out the idea that instead of projecting light, if paint were thrown at an object the shadow would not just be the figure of the object but also the dynamic conversation of one material hitting another. This visceral event would not be reliable and repeatable. Each time the paint were thrown the objects would be different, due to the accumulation of paint. Further more, as some of the objects had special figures to play with the paint in different ways,  they would would provide a range of ways in which the flying paint would behave during and after a collision of paint on drawing piece.

Set fo Four versions of Drawing Instrument Five (Nat Chard)

Each instrument has a number of parts. A three egged chassis holds a beam like an optical bench to hold a paint catapult, a picture plane and a set of drawing pieces. A side frame hold a model scene that is protected from flying paint by a glass dome. The scene reminds the person who is drawing of the content under discussion in the drawings they are making. As with the light projections, the form of the folding picture plane has a consequence on how the paint is accepted. Several other measuring instruments calibrate the relative positions of the instruments.

Some Versions of Drawing Instrument Five (Nat Chard)

There are four versions of Instrument Five. One is red, one white and the other two a combination of the two – where one has red legs, for instance, the other has white.

Two Versions of Drawing Instrument Five (Nat Chard)

Each instrument has all the parts and can throw paint at any of the other instruments. The accumulation of paint on the drawing pieces may be from several other instruments.

Drawing Instrument Five (Nat Chard)Drawing Instrument Five (Nat Chard)

The pleasure in this instrument was the discovery that it can nurture the very condition that it tries to draw  in the person working with it. To get to that stage though, there is a further development that makes much more sense of the instrument. This is a series of high speed flash photographs of the paint flying though the air. I will show some of these in the next few posts.

Drawing Instrument Five (Nat Chard)

Drawing Instrument Five (Nat Chard)