For my final project I decided to make a shadow box (I think that's what they're called, but I'm honestly not sure). I drew up my design digitally then imported the different layers into Adobe Illustrator and remade the drawing with vectors. I tried to make the drawing as clean as possible since it made the vector process significantly easier. I don't normally draw anything like this so I wasn't sure how to approach coming up with the design at first. I didn't have an idea in mind when starting out, so it was a lot of me looking at different landscapes and trying to mentally decide what I thought might look good for something like this. I actually started out my design by drawing water lilies, and loving the idea of them. This led to me drawing water, and eventually an oriental type landscape. Ironically enough, the water lilies aren't even a major part of the design anymore (I actually think the design might have been better if I ended up taking them out) but it was sort of cool to see everything build off of that first idea.
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| Digital drawing of my design |
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Vector drawing of my design
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After cutting out each of the paper layers on the laser cutter, I cut out strips of foam core and glued them together to make frames/spacers. I then glued each paper layer to these frames and glued the frames together. This helped keep the paper together and give the image more depth. I also played with different thicknesses of paper to give different areas more depth and let more light shine through.
I altered the spacing and layers as I went, and ended up having a total of 16 paper layers (which is crazy since at the beginning I was only planning on having 5-8 layers). Since I wasn't sure how thick the image was going to be, I didn't plan out the box part of my shadow box until all of the paper layers and foam frames were glued together. I made the box so that it could fit the paper layers snugly, without the need for glue to keep them in place, and so that there was a small amount of space for lights in the back. All but the front of the box was constructed out wood, screws and glue. For the front of the box I decided to cut out a foam core frame to match the white of the paper, I also let this hang over the image a little to frame it and allow me to put a piece of acrylic in front of the image. I attached LED lights to the back to light the image. These lights came with a remote that can change the color and since they were cuttable I have leftover lights that I hope to use for other projects :)
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| Shadow box with the lights off |
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Shadow box with the lights on
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Back of the Shadow box
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Overall, I had a lot of fun with this project and may make more of these in the future. Now that I have a better understanding of how the paper will hang and come out, I think it will also be easier to make designs. I'll probably make the entire box white next time too.
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