Assignment 1 – Katherine Hua
I first approached this project planning to just cut out random shapes from the plastic and putting them together to what kind of unique and unexpected shape forms. My first inflatable is the fish that you see below. This was built with the go-with-the-flow approach in mind but as I went along, I realized I inherently began trying to make it a purposive shape so it eventually became a fish. From then on, I made the rest of my inflatables with a shape in mind. It was a lot easier to make inflatables when I had a something in mind that I wanted to make because I could plan out what to cut out and how to put them all together. I really enjoyed this project because I enjoyed seeing how I could form very different things by breaking everything down into geometric shapes and putting them together. I learned from this project that plastic does not like to be flat – as you can see from my avocado inflatable. When air is blown into them, the plastic likes to curve and bend to form a rounded face. One thing that I struggled with was the taping component – I wish my taping could have been cleaner and looked more uniform. I ended up switching to clear tape because I couldn’t get my tape widths to look consistent across my inflatable. It also took a while for me to find and tape the holes in my inflatables closed. Overall, I really liked seeing how the inflatable looked like after being blowing air inside it vs. how I had envisioned in my mind. The uncertainty of it all made it quite interesting.
- Ghost Fish
2. Johnson’s baby lotion
3. Bubble car
4. Avocado
5. Triangle
