Walking Drawing Machine

This weekend I took over Center Space, literally. Finding a way to track the walking movement of my walking machine proved a little more difficult than tracking its antenna. I thought about potentially attaching a drawing instrument to each of the legs but again I did not want to inhibit the natural movement of the legs, so this idea moved to the back shelf. Instead I decided to use carbon paper, from the suggestion of Patrick in a crit last week. Since my walking machine covers a large area I knew I needed a large space with a hard surface flooring (much like Montreal - Black Box), a ceiling that I could hang the 'insides' from, and somewhere that I could turn the lights out for the antenna LED photography. Center Space was perfect!

I bought a package of typewriter carbon paper because it can be used many times and still achieve the same transfer result, and also it is black. I decided to use approximately 100 sheets and laid them out on the floor within the boundaries of which the walking monster could travel, face down on top of 3 large sheets of strathmore paper. On top of this I then laid out 3 strips of tracing paper and taped the seams together to eliminate tripping of the walking monster which would in turn effect the drawing. From here it was simply up to the walking monster to travel around his confined space and draw for me!

I sat with the walking monster for 2 hours of his trip late Saturday night, and then again for 2 more hours on Sunday morning while he finished things off, which for whatever reason proved to be more finicky than Saturday night, requiring the repair of a broken leg attachment (all is better now!). The final result was magnificent, and although more subtle than I originally envisioned the result is still amazing and is a wonderful illustration of the walking motion of my monster.