{"id":677,"date":"2016-02-06T05:50:17","date_gmt":"2016-02-06T05:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wolfcatworkshop.com\/?p=677"},"modified":"2018-06-01T01:55:57","modified_gmt":"2018-06-01T01:55:57","slug":"high-contrast-mobiles","status":"publish","type":"jetpack-portfolio","link":"http:\/\/wolfcatworkshop.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/portfolio\/high-contrast-mobiles\/","title":{"rendered":"high contrast mobiles"},"content":{"rendered":"

These were commissioned by a friend who wanted special gifts for a couple of new borns.\u00a0High contrast baby mobiles are meant to stimulate baby brains and are usually black, red and white -which is a palette I really enjoy. \u00a0I really like black, bold shapes so this\u00a0was a treat to work on since it combines illustration with the making of a useful object that would (hopefully) please the babies and the parents.<\/p>\n

This is not strictly a “how-to” post but there are a few ideas you can use for your own projects.\u00a0We started by choosing a few images that I had made already and worked from there. The inspiration for the first one was this postcard I posted originally on instagram<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\""happy<\/a>
“happy dreams”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I scanned the postcard and made a mockup in Illustrator with other elements:
\n\"mobile_preview\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The second mobile was going to a household with a beautiful white dog and I was asked to incorporate her into the design and this is what I came up with:<\/p>\n

\"mobile<\/a><\/p>\n

After this I traced the shapes in Illustrator and turned them into vector files. I cut them out of 1\/4″ thick birch plywood using a desktop CNC. Although this process could easily be done using more low tech tools like a scroll saw or a band saw.<\/p>\n

\"Cutting<\/a>
Cutting plywood on my Shapeoko2 desktop CNC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"layout<\/a>
layout with all the pieces cut and sanded<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The next step after cutting and sanding was to paint a coat of white gesso on the surface to prepare for painting. I put a lot of effort into this in order to left the edges visible because I love the look of the plywood layers but I’m not sure I’d do it again. To accurately transfer some of the images onto the wood I printed the outlines\u00a0on paper with a laser printer and transferred it using a blender pen<\/a> (amazon link), it’s smelly but works pretty well:<\/p>\n

\"Outline<\/a>
Outline ready to transfer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"mobile_wolfcatworkshop_highlights_006\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"rubbing<\/a>
rubbing with a spoon to transfer the lines<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"the<\/a>
the results are not always perfect but good enough to work with<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After transferring the outlines I hand painted the black using FW acrylic ink<\/a>\u00a0applied mostly with a brush. I used a quill pen for details and dots and coated the pieces with fixative at the end.<\/p>\n

\"mobile_wolfcatWorkshop_process_05\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"the<\/a>
the quill pen works surprisingly well on wood<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"layout<\/a>
layout after painting<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I wanted a really clean looking string and after a bit of research I found out beading wire is really nice and strong. You have to purchase little crimps but I think the final look is worth it. There are many types of wire\u00a0but I ended up using the 19 strand 0.012 in thick wire<\/a>\u00a0with these crimp tubes<\/a>. I also got some small spinners at a local fishing supply store. I didn’t want a lot of hardware to keep the look clean so I only put spinners in a few key places.<\/p>\n

\"ready<\/a>
ready to string<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The spinners are attached with little sections of beading wire. Also note that I used 3 strands in a pyramid configuration to balance the horizontal pieces.<\/p>\n

\"mobile_wolfcatworkshop_final_14\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"horizontal<\/a>
horizontal pieces held with 3 strands<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I was really pleased with the final result. Taking pictures of mobiles is kind of difficult (they move a lot turns out) but here are a few more shots – hands for scale.\"mobile_wolfcatworkshop_final_01\"<\/a> \"mobile_wolfcatworkshop_final_12\"<\/a>\"mobile_wolfcatworkshop_final_13\"<\/a>\"mobile_wolfcatworkshop_final_02\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"mobile_wolfcatworkshop_final_03\"<\/a>\"mobile_wolfcatworkshop_final_07\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Update:<\/strong>\u00a0I wrote another post about making a cat and fish mobile using a different set of tools. Check it out here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These were commissioned by a friend who wanted special gifts for a couple of new borns.\u00a0High contrast baby mobiles are meant to stimulate baby brains and are usually black, red and white -which is a palette I really enjoy. \u00a0I really like black, bold shapes so this\u00a0was a treat to work on since it combines […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":705,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"jetpack-portfolio-type":[],"jetpack-portfolio-tag":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wolfcatworkshop.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/jetpack-portfolio\/677"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wolfcatworkshop.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/jetpack-portfolio"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wolfcatworkshop.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/jetpack-portfolio"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wolfcatworkshop.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wolfcatworkshop.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/wolfcatworkshop.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/jetpack-portfolio\/677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1473,"href":"http:\/\/wolfcatworkshop.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/jetpack-portfolio\/677\/revisions\/1473"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wolfcatworkshop.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wolfcatworkshop.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"jetpack-portfolio-type","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wolfcatworkshop.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/jetpack-portfolio-type?post=677"},{"taxonomy":"jetpack-portfolio-tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wolfcatworkshop.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/jetpack-portfolio-tag?post=677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}