Dodecahedron completed!

Earlier I posted about a book of three cut-out shapes I'd bought. I had started working on one of them. You can see how this project began here. Now, finally, I can show you the finished product, hanging in a corner of my dining room swaying gently in the breeze from the heat register. I took a short video of it and attempted to upload it but it didn't work. Too bad.

Tangles: too many to mention!

Some polysyllabic (many syllables) words, for those interested in such things. 
In my earlier post I wondered what shape this was; the book called it an icosahedron (20-sided shape) but I didn't think so. I finally figured out that it is a dodecahedron (12-sided shape), but not a simple one. The angles connecting each yellow pentagon (5-sided shape) have been pushed in, creating the blue folded diamond shapes and yellow stars instead of pentagons. I expect there is a proper geometric term for this shape, but I don't know what it is.

Icosahedron?

You may recognize that word from the Zentangle kit. The kit comes with an icosahedron die and a legend for when you just can't think which tangle to do next.

An icosahedron is a 3-D shape with 20 sides. At the right is a diagram of the most simple version, with flat faces. They can also be truncated (which flattens the points into pentagons) or stellated (which pulls the faces out into points and makes it star-like). The measurements are related to sacred geometry and the Platonic solids. Fascinating! I love these 3D geometric shapes.


I also love second hand stores. At one I bought a book - Cut and Assemble 3-D Star Shapes - made of heavy cardstock. It contains the parts required to cut out and construct three different shapes.

The blue background of the
book cover doesn't help much.

Lovely and fascinating, but no doubt more lovely and more fascinating if tangled first! I started drawing in the book (parental *gasp*).

The book calls all three shapes icosahedra, but the particular one I'm starting with has 12 yellow faces (and 30 blue faces). Looks like a dodecahedron (12 sides) to me.






I scribbled in the book (parental *gasp* #2) : pencil strings over the stars. I'm using black ink on the yellow parts, but the blue is fairly dark so I'm using white there. Here's part of a page I've tangled so far.

I'll post a photo when this piece is tangled, constructed and hanging from the ceiling.

Marvellous micro pencil-tip sculptures

I haven't (yet) used a magnifying glass when creating artwork, although the thought has occured to me on several occasions. Perhaps it's only a matter of time with my love of detail and my middle-aged eyesight. I'm sure if I was doing this kind of thing I'd be into the magnifying glass.




Dalton Ghetti carves tiny sculptures in the tips of lead pencils. Yes. Really, he does. Regular-sized, ordinary pencils.


I had his stubby pencil alphabet as my computer wallpaper for a while. I changed it  because I kept misplacing files amongst the shiny colors.







One of my other favorites is the saw, which uses the lead for the metal part and the wood for the handle part.


See more examples of his very fine motor skills here and here.