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Shapes

Dean Center

Dean Center

Joined
May 4, 2010
Messages
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Location
Bozeman, MT
There have been a couple of discussions recently about curves and shapes and they made me think my latest project might be worth sharing. Many years ago, while reading a Richard Raffan book, his comment that he took shapes he liked, painted them black, and kept them as models really struck me at the time and I always told myself I would do this one day. A couple months ago, with no project deadline looming, I decided I should finally do it. Also, as someone who totally lacks any artistic sensibility, I have found I need to see and maybe handle something before I can judge whether I like it or not.

This is a very long way of saying that I took some poplar spindle blanks and turned, without hollowing, what might be a box. Then I painted them black. Here they are, in profile.

Some shapes which I've admired (and photographed) in other people's work, I have not been able to visualize in my mind to turn myself, but I kept after these until I had a satisfactory result. One of them took 4 blanks to finally get right. None are exactly 'life-size', as it's all about the shape. Also, I didn't worry about exactly turning the details. I started by planning the dimensions and proportions, but adapted as I went along to get a good shape. Then I wrote down, including on the bottom of each, what those proportions and relative dimensions should be.

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I've never heard of that but it's a great idea and you turned some great forms as examples. I tend to like making closed forms and lidded vessels too.
 
Same question from me? Apart from maybe the far right one the last photo, they seem pretty close to spot on to me. Thanks for reminding me of the black paint trick, will copy that some day very soon.
 
hockenbery said:
This is an excellent presentation.
Which ones would you change?
Click to expand...
#2, I think the join should be a tiny bit higher, 1/16" at this scale, and the base could be a wee bit narrower.
#8, I'd try bringing the top in a hair tighter, which would lower the widest part more to the center of the piece. The lid would then be a little narrower as well, but should still top out at the top of an imaginary sphere. I'd also have to see how that change turns out to know if that was an improvement or not. (#8 is a Raffan shape and surprised me when I found it appealing. It's kind of an odd one.)
 
Dean Center said:
#2, I think the join should be a tiny bit higher, 1/16" at this scale, and the base could be a wee bit narrower.
Click to expand...
These all look terrific - fine tuning is part of the process.

It looks like the join is close to the golden mean maybe up a tiny tiny bit.
The base could be narrower. If you roll the bottom edge in a little it will appear narrower.

The golden mean is the ratio of adjacent Fibonacci elements. 1+( n+1)/n.
The limit is 1.618.
But at the start it is 1.5 and then 1.66666. the Fibonacci are pleasing.
Placing the wide diameter at 1/2 the height, 1/3 or 2/3 height are all pleasing to the eye.
The 1/2 and 1/3 are from the first ratios.

My crude measure using the ruler in the iPad photo editor has #2 lookin good!
Top-15. bottom -24 Ratio is 1.625 pretty darn close to perfect.
So up a little as you called it.

For those who didn’t get to study Fibonacci numbers they are the series where each number is the sum of the last two
1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21…….
These numbers are found lots of places in nature.
 
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This is fantastic. I have been meaning to do exactly this for a decade or more. I have a bunch of soft maple that just looks dirty when finished, but will be perfect when painted flat black. Thank you Dean for bringing this back to my attention.

To follow up on Al's comment about the Fibonacci series, here is link to a short excerpt from a fascinating PBS documentary on how frequently the Fibonacci series appears in nature: https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/nvmm-math-pifibonacci/pi-the-fibonacci-sequence/ Those of you in the US might be able to find and access the full length version online, but alas, it is not available from a Canadian ip address. I remember watching the whole program sevearl years ago - it obviously made an impression on me.
 
I have long tried to employ the Golden Ratio in my boxes, and found the results generally unsatisfactory. Mostly I have made taller than wider boxes, generally with the base and lid in Golden Ratio proportions, and also with the width equal to the height of the base, which makes the total height and width also Golden Ratio. It seems to me that 1/3:2/3 is at least as good in this application. More importantly, when trying to make more squatty body boxes, as with some of them in the pictures above, the Golden Ratio just doesn't fit, yet they are attractive to me.

I have heard that applying the Golden Ratio is especially pleasing when width is greater than height, i.e. landscape rather than portrait. Maybe this would work for boxes, too. #3 above is a 1/3:2/3 lid to base and maybe Golden Ratio width to height. It strikes me as a nice, functional box, but not remarkably aesthetically appealing.

With regard to #2's base, these are functional pieces and need more stability than a Mike Jackofsky hollow form which sits on a dime sized base. I think that's why I left it as wide as I did. It can get tucked a tiny bit and look better while still being stable, but I can't judge it using the aesthetics of a hollow form.
 
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