Grid Art: Bold As Love

For my grid art project, I decided to do a grid portrait of Jimi Hendrix, the most influential contemporary guitarist of our time (IMHO).  I had an idea to create something like stained glass, but use a Plexiglas sheet and fix glass “marbles” to the Plexiglas.

I chose a basic portrait, then posterized it to 10 colors, then pixelated it to the size I wanted to use (40 x 40).  Easy enough, I thought.  I was also able to isolate each color to its own sheet, making the grid easy to follow.  That was the easy part.

The quest to find glass marbles was a bit of a challenge.  I wanted to use similar shades, but there’s really not that much variance out there.  Also, not all marbles are created equal.  While they were generally the same size, the first batch of marbles I measured turned out to be slightly smaller than the average.  Consequently, my grid was ever so slightly smaller than what I needed.  I also wrestled with making the grid 40″ x 40″, which would be difficult to transport, but gave ample room (1 x 1 squares) for the marbles.  But I also thought that 1 x 1 would leave too much space between the marbles and the overall picture would be lost.  Undaunted with my choices, I soldiered on, mixing “mini” marbles with the larger ones where needed.

The above slider shows some in-progress work.  The finished piece was sprayed with 8 coats of polyurethane in an attempt to make the glass beads more stable.  I used Gorilla superglue gel to set the beads, but the slightest “flex” of the Plexiglas (while moving) would pop the glass loose, so I need to go back and re-glue with a different type of glue that has more movement – maybe a rubber/silicone cement of some kind.

I made a video of the finished piece, showing a strip of LEDs I used as a border.  Really cool effect when set to music…

GRID ART UPDATE:  I got my hands on some different glue that’s working out great:  Aleen’s 7800 Adhesive – now it’s just the tedious process of going through and re-gluing the loose stuff…and more keeps coming loose.  I also plan on putting a 1/2 inch Plexiglas “frame” around the back of the plexi to make it more rigid.