Sharps, Flats, and Fishes

Yesterday I started playing with Octohedrons  that overlap.

Then I tried a set number (8) with a set number of colors.

Then I decided, "Well, what if the points were rounded off."

Designing sculptures children can play on, somewhat seems to pull me out of dark periods. This was a short distance from creating oblong sphereoids. 

Then it was back to something more somber in pattern for some kind of architectural screening.

Trebuchet Plans

Note to self:  http://www.algobeautytreb.com/ to calulate projectile and distance.

A Modest Proposal

The second time around in trying to improve my illustration and know more about what I plan to do I have found out:
A) the approximate square footage of my target area.
B) a desired width of the target area.
C) an additional adjustment and movement system to aim the trebuchet.

Considering that our military budget runs consitently over 600 billion dollars I image that I can bombard my painting surface for, oh, $600,000...easily. That's .001% of the budget that we spend putting our military all over earth, which is 19 times higher than the next nearest budget for any country. Bombardment is something we do well! We should be able to have something at least recreational and entertaining that mimics the process, but instead leaves only latex and inert casing fragments to be swept up, if that is deemed necessary.

Back in World War One the German Army used a rail gun brought within range of Paris. If I recall correctly, within 26 miles of the city. And then they lobbed artillery upon it. I imagine they spent about a million bucks on that almost a  hundred years ago. With so much invested on both machinery and military they pretty much ended up terrorizing the entire world with such a weapon.

These days farmers still play around with the idea of throwing pumpkins as far as they can.

These are the sketches that I came up with recently.

The last image is something I cobbled together from a kinetic sculpture I planned to go over a railroad.. This seems like the most reliable method to transport and adjust left and right how the trebuchet will throw my paint vehicle.

The Trebuchet Levee Painting Project - Continued 2014

I am revisiting an old idea ( Egg-shaped containers ~ The Trebuchet Project ) after finally drawing a trebuchet that I like that I looked up on the internet a while back. I converted it from metric to feet and inches and thought again about the whole idea, somewhat encouraged after reading The World Atlas of Street Art and Graffiti, by Raphael Schacter.

This is what I came up with in terms of illustrations, or "assault plans":

This afternoon I went to photograph the levee again. The Broncos are playing in the divisional playoffs and so the city is pretty much deserted or operating on a skeleton crew.