Chess Set Project Brief
Design and make a chess set. Create one full set to represent each of the pieces, 1 King, 1 Queen, 1 Bishop, 1 Knight, 1 Rook, 1 Pawn.
If you have the resources, feel free to make a full set of playing pieces.
You may use any source of inspiration, such as the built environment, the natural world or even consider figurative work. Use your sketchbook, develop the pieces with consideration to their status and role in the game of chess, explore and develop form.
The board will be 600mm x 600mm with the footprint of the pieces approx. 65mm x 65mm (2.5” x 2.5”) to fit within a 75mm square. If you wish, you may design and make the board in any appropriate way.
My source of inspiration in my work is the forest and forest floor. I have a particular passion for fungi, loving the amazing and varied shapes and vivid colours of the many kinds of fungi.
I intend to have some light-hearted fun with this project as it is an optional one and will not be marked!
Hand building, especially on a small scale, is something which is quite out of my comfort zone, a good opportunity for me to learn different techniques.
I chose mushrooms and toadstools as inspiration for the first pieces, the King, Queen, Knight and Pawns.
The Rooks will be based on tree sections with bracket fungus which I am still working on and the Bishop design is yet to be finalised.
I have enjoyed the challenge of designing the characters and hand building small pieces then matching them for size. I intend to complete the full set because – what can you do with half a chess set?
If I have the time over what’s left of the summer I intend to finish the chess pieces and create a board using tiles which are representative of the forest floor using pressed leaves and other natural elements, (with a flat surface of course or the pieces would find it hard to move around!) The ceramic board would then be set on a slice of natural and smoothed tree trunk.
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