Monday, August 22, 2011

You Spin Me Round (Like a Painting)

When I was at Chinook Hobby West a few weeks ago Tasco's Official Halley's Comet Watching Kit wasn't the only thing I bought.  I also bought myself a Spin Art Painter Set from Rapco!  Having no artistic talent at all, I figured a spin art set was the best way to "create" something as most of the work is done by the machine anyway.  The set including the spinner, paint, paper and frames all for only $6.99.  If I managed to screw something up it would be no big deal because it was cheap.


This thing is totally old school, gotta be late 70's.   I got to thinking that since it was so old that maybe the paints including might not be good.  As always I was right.


I took this picture after I had already shaken the paints up!  I guess they had been sitting in the box for so long that the lead had separated from the paint.  A spin art set without paint is pretty useless, so I went to Michaels to pick up some more paint.  Once I got there I end up buying a pack of paint in primary colours AND a set in neon colours because the neon ones look much cooler.  The two sets of paint set me back $17 plus the $6.99 I paid for the actual Spin Art kit.  This cheap craft kit is starting to get expensive.


Inside the box is the actual spinning thing and the black cross shaped thing holds the paper while it spins.


Then you have the actual paper for the spin art, 19 pieces all together.  Plus the "frames" which are total crap because they're just folded lumpy paper.  The set included 19 pieces of paper, but only 3 frames.  They must think you are gonna screw up a lot and have many frame worthy pieces.  BTW, what is up with only 19 pieces of paper?  Why can't they make it a round number and give you 18 or 20?


I also had to buy a D battery to run the spin art machine.  I can't even remember the last time I bought a D battery.  The instructions also included a wiring schematic in case the wires came loose in transit.  I flipped over my machine and saw that two wires had indeed come apart!


I instantly flashed back to Electronics class in high school and pigtail wrapped those two wires like it ain't no thang!  The other two connections were pretty crappy, so I fixed them too.


Now that I got paint, a battery and the wiring is up to code it is time to get down to business...art business.  I even read the instructions and they said to put the paint on the paper first and then spin in.  Then you can add paint later as it spins.  I just thought adding paint to a spinning piece of paper was a messing waiting to happen.  I had the brainstorm to put the spin art machine inside the lid of an apple box to prevent any paint from flying out.  When I was done there was a lot less mess than I had anticipated.  Only a single drop of green paint was on the inside of the apple box, everything else stayed inside the machine.


Since I had 19 pieces of paper I decided I might as well use all the pieces, it was art madness.  Once I started I noticed my spin art didn't look like the ones on the cover of the box.  Dammit, why can't I do this?!  Some pieces I just laid down one or two colours as a base and then came back later and layered more paint hoping it would look better.  It didn't!  Once I finished up I had 19 pieces of spin art and I wasn't happy with any of them.  They just turned out "meh".  Now I'm stuck with all this lame spin art, but what am I supposed to do with it?  That said on Tuesday night I'll be posting the entire spin art collection, so if you see something you like you should let me know because you're getting one whether you want it or not!  I will sign and remark any art at request, my fees are quite reasonable.


Forget the spin art, the actual spin art machine turned out to look the coolest.  I didn't bother to wipe out the inside because it just looked too cool.

So many colours!


And then there is this thing.  I do not know what it is or what it does.  There is no mention of it in the instruction booklet.  You can see it on the cover of the box, but it's just sitting off to the side.  I still managed to make my spin art without it.

2 comments:

mike said...

The green/White one is the best Keith, followed by the green/red/yellow/purple one below it..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_art

Did you add paint once it was spinning? Can't you make more with normal paper? Or do you need authentic 1972 era media?

I think you put the black circle thing on the paper and then put the paint inside it, then lift it off once its spinning around good and fast... but I'm not actually a trained spinner art technician or anything so what do I know?

Keef said...

Spin Art requires 5X7 inch sized card stock paper. I believe 1980's era paper is also compatible.