Last 24 hours have been good, started drawings using the tops to make the marks. I have done seven and they are all different, using mainly two tops I made. One is ash, about five inches in diamiter and at least two inches thick, so quiet a chunk, and then a much lighter one from MDF, I use that on with felt tips and the pencils with the ash. The most wonderful thing about the marks is there is no sense of it being contrived, it's pure free flowing and the spirals tend to mesmerise. They have order and chaos at the same time

Eames Tops

Eames Tops

Progress to date

I choose cars and the road as my subject for the project "Movement and Motion" but dropped it after two weeks because my ideas were getting too complicated and really were not grabbing me. For the past week I've been exploring the possibilities of spinning tops. I fell in love with tops 20 years ago after seeing a short film made by the Eames called Tops. I love the simplicity of them, their different shapes, colours and probably most of all what they do, spin. I also love the fact that they are as old as mankind and belong to all cultures. I've spent the week drawing and making them, trying different things colouring them and what happens with the colours when they spin. I've been experimenting with mounting a camera on one, that is still in the testing stage. Plan to make several from found objects, also looking into using florescent paint and fiberoptic so investigate what can be done with light. Have been filming the tops spinning with a plan to cut a short film.