Albert Einstein
After Shelley saw my interest and delight with pop-ups, she introduced me to automata. Again my fascination was with the fact that you could simply take paper, scissors, and glue and make these moving objects. This was another step for me. Now illustrations were not only leaping off the page, but moving as well.
My first attempt and still my favorite automata is the Cat Walk shown above. Shelley and I found it serendipitously when we were looking for an actual cat walk for our cats. It opened up a world for us. It is very interesting to see the eyes, of people who come into my office, widen in awe as they start playing with Cat Walk’s mechanism. They think I am an engineering genius for putting what is in actuality a very simple paper kit together.
If automata appeals to you check out Paper Animations to see other working models of other delights designed by Rob Ives. There are many other automata makers out there but Rob Ives’ have a special lightness of touch and humor that is second to none. If Shelley were designing automata it would be like Rob’s.
4 comments:
Now I'm curious what part three is going to be about. I know and love Pop-up and Automata (I'm infatuated with paper), what could be next? I wonder... hmmm... this 2/3 trilogy post, makes me want to have a go at these delightful art forms.
O, maybe It's just my mac, but the "Paper Animations" link isn't working.
Hmmm... somehow the URL got the notesonnotesfromhalfland URL in front of it. You can click the link and then delete the first half of the address (everything before the www) or just paste this into your browser: http://www.paperanimations.com/bewitched.html
A great post Paul! Those automata are fantastic! So whimsical.
(*my fault on the link, I gave Paul the html for links and never checked that it was typed correctly. Thanks for the remedy, Mike.)
Another favorite of the automata Paul has built so far is Walter Ruffler's Fire Dragon
as it has a lot of natural movement to it.
These things are brilliant!
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