Planning the Carousel Base - Part 26 of the Project

 I am publishing the blog a day early due to weather conditions.  A major winter storm is moving through the area, and declarations have gone out stating that people should be prepared for multi-day power outages.  Like many people, I have spent a fair amount of time preparing for the storm. I wanted to get something on the blog early just in case.

The photo shows four animals on one row and two animals in the middle.  The animals are on temporary braces for the picture.  Most of the animals do not have four feet on the ground, and do not stand on their own.  The outer circle is twenty inches in diameter.

I had underestimated just how big the base of the carousel would have to be to accommodate the track system as well as the space needed for each animal.  The animals are an inch or more wide and five inches long.  They needed to be set back further back from the edge of the base than I had thought they would be.  

As I mentioned in the previous post, I was having trouble visualizing how the carousel would look while trying to draft it on graph paper.  I was not able to make sense of what I was seeing on the paper.  Now that I have drawn out some circles on a piece of poster board and placed the animals on it, I realize that my draft was not that far off.  What I had thought would be the base was not nearly large enough.

I had originally envisioned two rows of animals with three in each row.  However, to make the carousel large enough to do that and accommodate all the track, the base was going to be so large that I would not have a place to display the carousel anywhere except right in the middle of the living room rug.  So, time to fall back and punt.  

One of the possible ways I thought of was to reduce the size of the base and have four animals; two horses, the goat, and the tiger on the front row, and the second row containing the cat and rabbit that would chase each other around the inner track.  That could possibly work if I reduced the size of the inner pillar that will support the roof.  It seems that the central pillar would look disproportionate to the roof that way.  Also, the shorter area of track between the animals would lead to smaller distances between the bumps in the base that would make the animals move up and down.  I could probably make that work, but I expect that it would make the animals appear to be jumping up and down frantically because they were so close together.  I would prefer to have a longer space between the animals so that the rise and fall of the animals is a little more sedate.

Another plan that I have considered is to use just four animals and make the other animals into freestanding projects.  This would be quite workable.  There would be enough room between the animals for the bumps to have a gradual lift of the animals.  This is a strong contender for the new plan.  

The third possibility I came up with is to make two more horses.  Then I would have enough animals to make two carousels, one with horses and one with animals.  The horses were the easiest to make of all the animals because they did not have anything added other than their manes and tails.  They did not need the time investment of putting on all the fur.  I had not really considered making two carousels, but that might be the way to go.  (Not that I have any room for displaying two carousels.)  

Anyway, I am still considering my options.  At this moment I am strongly considering making two more horses in the future to have enough for a second carousel.  My main inspiration for starting this project was seeing a hand carved Denzel carousel that had many different animals on it.  So, if I start with the four animals that are already made, I will at least get the first carousel started.  I will at least work out all the logistics of how the animals will go up and down on the first carousel.  If I get everything worked out easily, then a second carousel's animals are already halfway done.  If the project turns into too much of a nightmare, then the horses can be freestanding projects.

I guess this is the lesson everyone should learn about making art.  The artist might start out with a vision but may have to change his or her plan as the creation unfolds.  Artistic ideas have to develop as the circumstances dictate.  Another art lesson is simplification; less is more.  If you try to put too much detail in too small a space, it creates stress and distractions that take away from the piece.  If the concept of the piece is too grand, it is best to let go of part of the vision and go with what works best visually.

There will not be another post this week even if we do not lose power in the storm.  Look for the next post the first Monday or Tuesday in February.