Ashley Goodenough: Laser Engraving, "Fear and Safety"

"Fear and Safety"

Concept: This laser engraving project began with an original piece of mine that is an ongoing study of texture, gradient, and figure/ground relationships (photo above). I have multiple versions of the piece, and would be interested in doing a series on different materials, starting with tile. For the first one, I chose a version that represents the contrast between fear and safety. My interpretation of the image has several possible figures: a being with wings (like an angel), a claw reaching upward, a pair of lungs, or a mouth overflowing with teeth. Out of the four possibilities, two of them inspire fear, and the other two inspire a sense of comfort/safety. The dichotomy of the two ideas creates the feeling of unease that I was aiming for, and the texture and gradients overlaid on the figures can alternately encourage or confuse each of these interpretations.

Modeling: First, I made sure I had a high quality photo of the art in good lighting. I then brought it into Adobe Illustrator and image traced it. After getting the vectors, I pulled it into Photoshop and posterized the image so that I would have 4-5 different values of gray. I intended to do a raster engraving of the image with this file. After an initial test on my material (birch wood), it became clear that a raster engraving was going to be too muddy, and I decided it would look much cleaner as a stamp. I brought the file into Rhino, rebuilt all of the curves to simplify the image, and deleted smaller curves that were only going to cause issues when I applied a medium engrave setting. I then used the Hatch command to fill in the areas I wanted to be engraved, and I left the rest unhatched. When medium engraved, this resulted in an image that looks a lot cleaner and more dynamic. 

before polyurethane coating

during coating

after coating

Materials: I started with a panel of birch wood, but I intend to continue this series on a variety of materials. I also bought an off-white patterned tile on which I’d like to engrave a different version of this piece. The birch wood served me well, with the exception of a little burning along one edge of the wood when the machine was finishing the outer cut. I was planning on sanding out the burned section, but decided that the burn provided another unintended level of texture that wasn’t there before. The medium engrave was very consistent and a good tint on the wood. I finished the piece by coating it in two layers of polyurethane with a satin finish, since I wanted it to be sealed but not too shiny, so that I didn’t completely lose the appearance of the wood texture. The lighting in the pictures above are not consistent, but with the polyurethane coating, the piece actually has a more contrast between the light and dark sections.

Bonus Update: I fabricated an additional version of this piece. I'm calling it "Echoed Motion." The grass and sweater textures in this image appear to be moving or waving in the same direction like they're being pushed by wind, and it gives it a sense of movement that is echoed by the pattern on the ceramic tile it's engraved in. The tile is 12"x18" and has a varied geometric glaze in off-white. After engraving, I pushed several layers of charcoal into the grout, using a paper towel to get an even coating. I then finished it with Krylon Crystal Clear to prevent the charcoal from escaping from the grout.

This is before the charcoal treatment. It's interesting at this stage, but you can't see all the detail of the engraving. However, it does give you an idea of the original glaze pattern on the tile.

Where the glaze was cut into more deeply by the laser, the charcoal stayed darker. Very cool echo of the engraved design. Here are some detail shots so you can see how the charcoal stuck to the deeper cuts and was easily wiped off of the other areas.