15 + 17 points
Alternative Medium Art by whatis 42
October 6th, 2006 4:41 PM
The alternative medium I chose for this project is Silicon. Specifically, pieces of single-crystal silicon wafers stolen from my dad's chemistry lab. Don't worry, he was going to throw them away anyway.
These silicon pieces came in a variety of colors and designs, and a few pieces were attached to circuit-style wires. Each piece is different, and some of them are etched, stained, corroded (or damaged in a style that looks like corrosion), or otherwise modified in interesting ways. I didn't do anything to change the silicon, all of the pieces are exactly as I found them. Technically I did remove them all from their individual glass vials (which took freakin' forever!), but it just wouldn't be the same if I glued all the glass vials to the painting, now would it?
Note: This is also the first time I've painted since elementary school, so forgive my lack of painting skills.
Title: Untitled
Date: October 2006
Medium: Tempura paint and pieces of single-crystal silicon wafers
These silicon pieces came in a variety of colors and designs, and a few pieces were attached to circuit-style wires. Each piece is different, and some of them are etched, stained, corroded (or damaged in a style that looks like corrosion), or otherwise modified in interesting ways. I didn't do anything to change the silicon, all of the pieces are exactly as I found them. Technically I did remove them all from their individual glass vials (which took freakin' forever!), but it just wouldn't be the same if I glued all the glass vials to the painting, now would it?
Note: This is also the first time I've painted since elementary school, so forgive my lack of painting skills.
Title: Untitled
Date: October 2006
Medium: Tempura paint and pieces of single-crystal silicon wafers
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posted by Cameron on October 6th, 2006 4:53 PM
That's really impressive... I really like obviously artifical material mimicking organic shapes.
posted by alice gray on October 6th, 2006 5:35 PM
documentation for something like this is pretty tricky! congratulations on painting again. It had been years since I painted when I went for the Player Portrait task. Gluing glass vials to the painting would have been pretty interesting in a different way. I wish I could see the object itself.
I bet your dad will love this picture.
posted by whatis 42 on October 6th, 2006 10:32 PM
Thanks! I'm glad you both like it. I was really proud of this one, but I'm not very good at evaluating art and I tend to assume my work isn't as great as I think it is. So I'm glad this one is well-received.
Unfortunately it's hard to see some of the silicon pieces clearly in the photographs. They're all different in some pretty cool ways, but alas, but camera skills are not sufficient to the task of capturing them.
Please use your imagination to add interesting color swirls, lines, and other doodads to the little silicon pieces. I'm sure whatever you come up with will be just as cool as the original. :)