Displacement activity

 We had so much rain with those amazing storms yesterday that our grounds were waterlogged today. Getting up to my shed to finish some outstanding print work was out of the question unless I wanted to try it by canoe. So, I played around with something that had been in my head for a while.

 I've been putting a workshop together on flexible book structures like flexagons and quatragons and have become really interested in things that explore moving images like mutoscopes and zoetropes etc. In a conversation with a friend the other day we talked about using an interactive way to display work at the end of a course. She is a surface pattern designer and wanted to find a novel way to get people to look at her work. As I have been playing with similar ideas I suggested she look at kaleidocycles and how to make them on You Tube.

 Naturally, once I'd made the suggestion I had to give it a go myself. I found a downloadable template  and made a small one on an A4 sheet with a photo of some beetles that I had.

 Then I scaled it up to A3 and combined some colour and black and white beetle images, sticking the diamond shapes on to the card template individually to help understand how much one can control the composition of these things by where they are placed  and the orientation of them too.

 I really like the way they move in the hand and give you four viewing options as they are turned. Most of the online video tutorials focus on patterns , which might work for my friend,  but I think this is an idea that can be pushed further with thought. Once you understand that the template is a set layout of equilateral triangles you realise that the basic unit can be scaled up or down and can create some intriguing pieces.

With that in mind I've cut some larger triangles to try on paper up to A2 or A1 but the forecast is for dry weather tomorrow and I think I'd better plan to finish what I've started in the shed rather than continue with what I am calling 'displacement activity'. Good fun though. If you're interested in folding and playing do have a go.