Professional and Collaborative Practice - Maidstone

Date - Thursday 30th March
Hours in - 9:30a.m. -5:10p.m. (7hrs40mins total)
Job - Maker

9:30a.m.
Spoke with team about options to lighten the boards as the general feeling is they are too dark.

10a.m.
Production meeting discussing communication, punctuality amongst other topics

10:30a.m.

Started to mix tester samples, we decides to take the centre colour and move it to the top as this is a nicer lighter colour. We also mixed in emulsion into the paint to help with giving them a more pastel look which is similar to the original model. We applied our tester samples to the board, however when dried the dark colours from previous made them too dark.

 

So we decided to paint the tops of the board with the emulsion to give a clean surface to work on to. 

We then used rollers to apply the base colours for these sections. Doing this helped to save time. 

Once these were on we looked at mixing up another light tone to cover the centre as it was felt that this purple was too dark. we tested it on the board. However decided to paint over the purple with the emulsion again before covering with the new pink colour as it was again too dark underneath. 

 

Once this colour was on we mixed a lighter salmon colour to blend through the orange into the pink we tested this colour on the board. 

We felt that this colour covered nicely and no base emulsion was needed, and so applied a layer of this, I feel that this colour helped to bridge the gap between all the colours. 

The orange we had originally used we unfortunately we unable to mix more of as one of the colours, Leather Lake had ran out and so I mixed another colour which was close and faded nicely from the salmon into the red. 

I feel that I spent a lot of time mixing paint today and found keeping a note of what I mixed helped to be able to later remake more. Our progress on these boards was much faster towards the end of the day however we were still unable to finish them. 

Professional and Collaborative Practice - Maidstone

Date - Wednesday 29th March

Hours in - 9:25a.m. - 5p.m. (7hrs35mins total) 

Job - Maker 

9:25a.m.

I started painting the ombre again trying to blend the dark purple through,

When the rest of the team arrived I changed jobs and started to add filler to the podiums giving an even join and filling any nail holes. 

  

Whilst waiting for the filler to cure, I joined the others with the ombre again for a small while. 

After the filler had cured I started to sand the filler down however I have found I am allergic to the filler dust and so another student took over the sanding for me. 

Whilst waiting for the podiums to all be dried and sanded, I took boards of MDF and measured out the bases of the podiums, and then added an extra 8cm on either side to help keep them balanced. 

 

I then took these boards and cut them on the band saw. 

I then helped the group who were painting to stand all 5 boards up together. 

Before helping with the ombre for a while again. Today we were trying with sponges which gave a much better fade and finish than the brushes. 

After this I went and primed the lattice with white emulsion, 

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I had to make a choice about whether or not to paint the inner pieces of the lattice, however we felt it looked crisper with them not being painting, (However I feel that when they are painted later, the paint will likely drip into these gaps.) Having already started painting a few of them, Once dried tomorrow I shall go over with some sand paper and clean them off. and then possibly if needed paint them black again. ) 

Once the lattice was primed, I was then able to get on and prime the podiums. a couple of other students were on hand for this and we were able to finish priming them relatively quickly, before moving them into the workroom for another student to attach the bases,  

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Professional and Collaborative Practice - Maidstone

Date - Tuesday 28th March
Hours in - 9:15a.m. - 5:05p.m.
Job - Maker

9:15a.m.
Checked that the bracing on the back of game spinner were sturdy. The game spinner is now complete however, me and another student feel that putting a couple of screws in the back of the board to hold the block in place in case someone is too rough with the board would be a good idea (and so at some point either today or tomorrow this shall be done quickly)

 

I then moved onto sanding down the painted surface that the sliding doors sit on, to give a smoother surface for them to slide over.

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The main focus for today was starting the ombre on the flats, to begin me and another student started mixing up colours, using the same rosco pigments as previously tested, however as the boards are bigger we mixed larger quantities and enough to cover all flats, so that we do not have to remix colours and end up with a colour that may not be the same. we tested these colours on a primed board. initially we found the colour we mixed for the centre was too purple and so added more orange to it to help give a smoother fade.

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2p.m.
After mixing we marked out sections on the board, to put down a base coat, before we start to work on top and blend properly. We used rollers to apply the colour to these sections, overlapping the colours to stop straight lines.

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Once the colours where applied we stood two boards up and screwed them together and attached braces to them to stand them up so we could work into them easier.

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We used a dry brush and dab technique applying white emulsion to tone down the colours and help fade them together better.

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We weren't able to finish these today and shall continue with them tomorrow.

Professional and Collaborative Practice - Maidstone

Date - Monday 27th March
Hours in - 9:35a.m. - 5:20p.m. (7hrs45mins total)
Job - Maker

9:35a.m.
Met with team and discussed jobs for the day, including, priming flats, fixing over hang around flats, finishing game spinner, trophy, marking out and cutting podiums.

10:20a.m.
We started by priming the flats, with white emulsion, using rollers to give an even finish, I found that it needed a few coats to give a better coverage.

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After this me and a fellow student went around and marked the base of each board so that we knew which way around they needed to stand.

After we went and had a strip cut that would fill a gap at the base of one of the boards, as the flat front was just not big enough to cover the frame. 

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After this a couple of us met and discussed what to do with the overhang around the flats, originally we were going to cut the overhang off, however as the frames themselves aren't square whilst the face of the flat is we instead decided to pack the overhang to give a surface that will meet to attach together, for this me and another student took lengths of different thickness MDF and cut them to size on a band saw, using these thickness's in various places on different boards depending on the size of overhang.

(The overhang problem)

(cutting the packing)

1p.m.
After this we glued them to the boards with gorilla glue, before using a clamp to hold them in place whilst they dried. As we only had 4 clamps we had to let some dry before moving on to another board and row of packing.

Whilst waiting for them to dry we started priming the sliders for the tall board, using the same white emulsion (both sides needed to be primed and so whilst waiting for this to dry we went back and forth between priming boards and gluing on the packing)

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3p.m.
We went to the computer room and printed out numbers for the spinner game, to use as a template to cut out of mount board. once printed we applied the paper to the mount board with spray mount.

Using a scalpel we cut out the numbers carefully, before sanding down the edges gently to give a smoother look, we also tried to peel off the paper, however found that it was too well stuck and so instead peeled off the first layer of paper carefully, and sanded down the fluffy layer beneath.

We then sprayed the numbers black, and left them to dry for a while, once dried using a black sharpie I coloured the white edges black.

I left these to dry for a little while longer, and helped to prime the stand for the sliding doors, helping to paint the hard to reach places, as well as the joints between the back stand and the board itself.

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After this I glued on the numbers to the board carefully letting them dry for a few minutes.

Before moving on to glue on the back stands for the game spinner, before leaving these to dry overnight.