Week 2 assignment: laser cut research

     There is an artist by the name of Gabriel Schama, who makes 3d laser-cut pieces, that resemble canvases, all made from plywood. He begins his work in Illustrator rather than on paper media. He says it's easier to "let go of the design" when he can simply jump back on the raw file to continue working after the first prototype has been cut. 

    The way his works look is very visually catching, there are so many details in all the angles, that every time I look at the whole design, something smaller grabs my attention away from the whole. In my opinion, the layers are well thought out, and nothing really feels like it is more important than the rest, it feels like one cohesive build that flows with each curve.

    Another artist that caught my attention is Kate Raudenbush, she sculptural work with steel that she laser-cuts. Her pieces can be much bigger, I believe in part because they are meant to be put up in places like the Smithsonian American Art Museum, as well as be set up in other places in nature to be eye-catching. 

    Her works are bigger pieces of steel that are laser-cut and shaped to fit the shape of her desired piece. I personally have worked more with wood than with metal, but what caught my eye in these works of hers is how much more malleable metal can be than wood when trying to get a desired shape. As well as how sturdy it can be with the pieces that have been cut from it, the branches on three specifically feel like an interesting process to try and get them to look and come across as life-like.

    I have had an interest in paper craft before, and I have done some previous research on it, but one artist whose work I hadn't seen before is Anna Cook. The way her final works look is something out of a fairytale to me. The amount of precision that the smaller details in those animals or in the bits of nature that she adds is so incredible to me, and for her to draw everything in such a way that when it is laser-cut, there is nothing that seems out of place, or lacking from it.

    What drew me to these works was the level of detail that she adds to the animals, from the fur to the whiskers. The amount of layering that has to be done on these for them to look realistic puts into perspective how the animals' bodies are shaped for their environments. I enjoy the parts of nature that she adds work on most of the animals that use it to hide from their predator, and for the tiger, it adds to how much power they have to them since there is not that much of it involved.