The Beauty of the Other 71% by JJason Recognition
January 20th, 2008 5:08 PM / Location: 44.941087,-93.16805The first step was research. I hit up Instructables, in hope that they'd have some advice about ice sculpting. They didn't but they did have instructions for making Ice Gems. And that had promise.
I'm a big fan of testing, so first I made a test gem, freezing it overnight. When this came out fairly well, I tested out my technique of sticking things to the ground with ice (by pouring a small puddle which I put the items in) which also worked.
(It is around here I got another idea, involving Lincoln-esque fake hands and foraging up a large numbers of rubber gloves, which totally didn't pan out at all. So, I gave up on that idea and went back to my original idea)
Having finished research and development, it was time to ramp up production. I filled ten balloons with varying amounts of water and left them in the refrigerator overnight. My fridge actually wasn't large enough for all the balloons, so I ended up having to leave two of them outside (I'm glad it was only two - the ones I left outside ended up much murkier than the inside ones). When I got up the next morning, I simply cut the balloons off the ice, put them all in a bag, and set off.
Now came the difficult design - where to decorate and how to decorate my chosen place. After considering and abandoning some ideas, I finally decided to decorate some stairs, putting the ice on either side of the stairs. Now I just had to find a stairway with five steps. That didn't take me too long, but to my dismay I found when I got there some of the ice had broken in transit. Luckily, it all worked out in the end - I was able to decorate six steps instead of only five, and the remaining piece was left at the foot of the stairs. The assembly process was pretty straightforward - lay out the ice, arranged them in the order I wanted, then freeze them to the step. I used a teapot from my apartment for the water.
The leftover water was used for a little additional decoration - see the photos
Box of Balloons
I own this large box of balloons. They're useful.
Test
The test gem, frozen to the ground. It didn't move if I pushed at it but it did when I gave it a swift kick. Which is strong enough for me.
Hand
The hand I made from the idea for the task that totally didn't work at all, not even a little. But on the plus side, I got a totally cool transparent copy of my right hand out of it, so that's a win.
Balloons
Here are the balloons, freezing.
Outside Balloons
Here are the two balloons that had to left outside to freeze. Poor balloons. Don't worry! Balloons don't have feelings!
Frozen
One of the balloons, now frozen.
Broken Balloons
And the knife that I used to cut them off the ice
Frozen
All of the gems, frozen and in the freezer. Also pictured: bread.
Bag and Kettle
The bag is full of ice. The kettle is for water.
Broken
Some of the ice broke in transit, but I managed to use all of the bigger pieces anyway.
Layout
This is what the ice looked like before I bonded it to the ground.
Ice
Up the Stairs
More ice
As you can see, I put a piece of ice that had broken in half at the top of the stairs.
Water!
After laying out the ice, I went to get some water.
Before
Here is the ice before I bonded it to the ground.
After
And here it is after. It was so cold that the ice was fixed in place basically immediately after I put it down.
All of the ice
Bonded to the ground.
Action shot
Down the stairs
Close up
On one of the globes.
Down the Stairs
Down we go
Fragment
I decided to use put this fragment at the bottom of the stairs.
Left over water
Hobo signs!
The Zero
It's everybody's favorite circle with a line through it!
MN0
I came back and embellished the zero later.
Biome!
Biome forever!
Later
A couple weeks later, it has melted :(
Remains
The only ones that are left after two weeks
46 vote(s)
- niallsb: Forevolution
- teucer
- Magpie
- rongo rongo
- Flitworth
- Lank
- Darkaardvark
- susy derkins
- GYØ Ben
- Haberley Mead
- Loki
- Tøm
- Not Here No More
- bunny dragon
- Meta tron
- Tricia Tanaka
- Herbie Hatman
- Bex.
- Kariudo Chasseur
- Spidere
- inquisitive dragonfly
- Ben Yamiin
- JTony Loves Brains
- Heatherlynn
- Fonne Tayne
- Ben Whitehouse
- Augustus deCorbeau
- Lincøln
- Burn Unit
- Julian Muffinbot
- Minch
- Kyle Westwood
- Myrna Minx
- Terpsichore
- meredithian
- Rainy
- H L
- Sparrows Fall
- Flea
- Super Fly
- Amoeba Man
- carry_me_Zaddy
- Sundroplets
- Brand
- Poisøn Lake
- Idøntity matrix
Favorite of:
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(none yet)11 comment(s)
Neat!
Huh, it's cold enough here in Boston to do something similar. But how to make it better, hmmm. (I suspect the right answer is to try a totally different tack.)
Awww maaaan! If I had a freezer I would totally do this. That and make icecream. A life time supply of icecream to whomsoever buys me a freezer.
Where are those steps? Did anyone comment about your additions? I think they're gorgeous!
The steps lead up to a dorm at the colllege I attend. Nobody commented on them while I was building them and I haven't been back since. So I don't know what people think of them.
Man, now I wanna drive up there just to look at those steps.
Time has not been kind to the other 71%
It got warm and then cold again, so there was some melting. Also some people probably kicked them. Only these two gems are left on the stairs
Wait, this was flagged? I didn't notice any flagging.
Isn't this an artifact of the gang of rubins from a while back? Everything was 5 flags that had a fleur.
actually i thought there was some sort of counting pattern to the number of flags, but i can't remember what someone posited that it was now.
i admit, i don't really pay enough attention to that kind of stuff.
Pretty! And it was a good touch to freeze them to the ground.