Seascape Relief: Update 16
The background has been painted, the lights secured in their curving brackets. One whole set of lights was damaged in the process and the whole 24 foot strand had to be removed, replaced with a working set, and reinstalled. All told there are 64 feet of lighting elements in the piece.
The clouds have been ground down to reveal some silvery steel, but some mill scale remains. Thus they are both dark and light. I lacquered them to preserve the effect and in this picture they rest on the edge of the frame, ready to be installed on their aluminum brackets above the lights.
Lights embedded in the frame are up higher than the clouds, in terms of depth of placement in the relief, so that they shine down onto the burnished steel. Thus the clouds are silhouetted by the blue lights and colored background, and also lightly reflective of the lights above them.
All the buildings have been cut and arranged for final placement. I am working on the spacing of the buildings in terms of the depth of each one, and must figure out a way to secure them to the background without marring the smooth lines of their shape and style. I cannot weld them - the heat would warp their lines, the paint would burst into flames and the lights would become blackened char. Nor do I want to drill a ton of holes in the steel and have all sorts of hardware showing.
Once the spacing of the buildings has been set and I have made adequate drawings to show their position in relation to each other, I must remove all of them and paint them one by one.
Then I must put them back in the right order - the right distance apart from each other in terms of their two-dimensional location, and also in the right depth from each other in the third dimension. And then magically secure them so that when the piece is stood upright, everything stays in place.