I’m almost finished with my screen print series, “Perroquets d’or et d’ombre,” a French-inspired scene of two lovebirds in an electronic cage. I’m passionate about making the most beautiful circuit boards in the world — to elevate printed electronics to a fine art form. Here I pull a layer of gooey and gold ink (solvent-based, hence the mask). The 19 prints in this series are all unique and hand-screened by yours truly. Each one has between 18 and 25 ink layers, plus hand-painted details and metallic foil. Available soon - stay tuned for images and message me if you’re interested to collect one.
process
Night birds in a PCB /
Screen shots from a PCB that I’m designing — an analog electronic bird song generator with a primitive interface for adjusting the song, aka “patch bird.”
Birds in various cages, Faraday etc. /
Screenshot from a work in progress. Birds in various cages, Faraday or otherwise. September 2019
warbler studies /
Three studies of warblers for a new singing circuit (work in progress). The Red warbler lives in Mexico’s highlands, although its territory may become more northern as a consequence of climate change. The Cerulean warbler is considered to be at high risk of extinction due to human destruction of habitat. The Yellow warbler lives in North America and is thankfully not at risk for the moment.
Big Pretty Bird process /
Front and back of my “Big Pretty Bird” printed circuit board in the factory, just prior to etching. August 2019
Moth bus /
I've been making moth trails in the form of animated light. To learn more, please follow the links below.
https://hackaday.io/…/163201-electronic…/log/161522-moth-bus
Bird layout /
Bird layout in progress. Details of new work inspired by electricity in nature (and the nature of electricity). March, 2019
Papercraft tree WIP /
I continue to work on my latest Electrolier sculpture. For this part --an arboreal vignette (and habitat for electric creatures of the Virginian night)-- I designed a sculptural tree in Blender that I unwrapped, print, cut, and folded to make branches out of relatively thin paper. I used this first collection of paper branches to build an underlying structure for my sculpture, like a naked tree. I stabilized it with wood glue and expandable foam. At the moment I am applying a bark layer which I laser cut out of cardboard using the same sequence of branch patterns. Because I am layering identical patterns, and because the real world is imperfect, the bark does not wrap around the circumference of the underlying tree exactly. I fill occasional gaps in the bark by hand, which gives an organic feeling to the machine aesthetic.
Whoever believes that technology makes production easier or faster has not witnessed my painstaking practice to balance artist and computer, nature and machine. For more information on process, please refer to my earlier blog entry: https://www.kellyheatonstudio.com/blog/2018/8/1/modeling-tree-branches
Below are several images of my process thus far. Note that this is the first of two interlocking branches.
