Process for Afterlight
Over the course of 10 months, I sought out to create the vision I had for Afterlight.
Following a series of trials and tribulations, designs and iterations, I finally landed on the forms and imagery I wanted to produce, and the building process it would take to get there.
Testing materials
My journey started with testing various building materials: tinted joint compound, steel epoxy, acrylic sheets, and various lighting solutions to fit within the forms.
designing the series
Once I had a knowledge of the structural elements for the first piece in the series, I moved onto designing the ‘family’ of structures. This entailed creating numerous design options, first on paper and then on the iPad.
Sourcing materials & building the forms
Sourcing the materials was another great problem to solve. Home Depot runs became a daily habit, while also using random supplies I accumulated over the years.
drawings & Placement
Once the structural forms were completed, I entered into a furious drawing phase.
I knew for this phase, the drawings had to speak to the dichotomy of dark vs. light, chaos vs. serenity, and rigidity vs. fluidity. All with, ideally, a human element mixed in.
I sought inspiration from memory, observation, imagination, and several trips to the public library’s art history section.
I would end up sketching 400+ drawings in various mediums (graphite, ink, marker, and charcoal), and then whittle things down to the top 40-50 that worked for the pieces.
