Monday, February 28, 2011

Light Painting Tools for The Exploratorium



RGB (CMY) Ball light painting tool
(Plastic vending machine pod, battery, leds, resistors, push button switches one for each primary color)





The general idea behind the ball was get away from sharp point source tools that are typically used and make a much wider more diffused source that would allow you to lay down a lot of color in a short time. Each of the three button activates one of the Primary colors (RGB) and multiple buttons can be pressed to create secondary colors. The photo above doesn't really do it justice, but if you look at the image from a distance you can see the blended RGB and the secodary CYM colors. White is only apparent when the ball is used in drawing and the colors get blurred together.


Simple line drawing.

A good example of the ball being used to cover large areas. Note the creation of yellow between the red and green zones.


White can be created by holding down all the buttons and moving the ball to blur the colors as seen in the X.





Light Stamp
(funnel, laser cut stencil holder, velum defuser, batteries, push buttom switch, resistor, led, stencil cards)

Designed to accept 5x5'' (laser cut or handmade) stencil cards, the device functions as a stamp in a light painting context allowing one to make multiples of a given image. Initial tests were with simple letter stencils, but I may try to make some laser cut rasterized images in the future.

Multi stencil Light Stamp example.

Light Stamp with a little blurring, perspective.

Light Stamp + cardboard Frank Oppenheimer.

Combination Light Stamp RGB Ball image.

The Light Stamp can also be used without a stencil as a source of defused light to illuminate small areas.



Light Pen
(plastic test tube, red led, push button switch, button batteries)


The pen works along the lines of a more typical led light painting tool, but is built into a minimalist and fairly indestructible plastic test tube shell.