Having successfully created 5 sheets of 3 layered cardboard sheets, I was able to create a thicker layer at a time now - although the knife took a little bit longer to actually cut through all of the layers, in comparison to scoring and cutting out 3 individual sheets, I'm really happy I decided to do this and therefore speed up my construction process rapidly!

Slightly blurry photo, but it shows how much more progression I've made to the inside section of my chair.. I now need to start thinking about changing the shape of the design so the sides of my chair come around the person seated in the chair, as well as eventually adding arms.

As some of the cardboard I sourced had a white side on one side, if I made a slightly bigger layer and stuck it onto another which looks smaller, the white sheet would show through and look prominent compared to the rest of the design. Trimming this off with my knife easily solved this problem, but also made the seating area more comfortable to sit on as it is very important all my layers line up at the same height, otherwise when seated, someone would not want to sit on it for long!

Again, I took a photo of my workspace at the end of the day - definitely getting a lot more crowded now! Especially when walking to college, my peers and I noticed some more cardboard lying out in the street of town for the recycling men to collect.. until we came along and borrowed some :) 

I now positioned a lot more cardboard under the table as I knew how successful my last few layers had been; so for Tuesday, I had a lot more cardboard to work with.

PLENTY!

On Tuesday, I managed to nearly double what I had already made because of the amount of layers I had stuck together over night and how quickly I worked during the day with my determination to finish my final piece. As one structure started to get really heavy, I decided that I would start a knew one and as that one started to get to the same thickness, I would stick them together and repeat.

Spreading PVA over one surface and placing the other chunk of layers over the top was probably enough to stay in place, but jsut to make sure, I decided to put heavy books on top to weigh it down, which would therefore spread the PVA more between the layers and adding more strength to the design.

My area now is really starting to get crowded and I'm taking over a lot of the studio with my materials. My body is also really starting to feel my project, arm ache being the main problem, as well as my back, hands and now feet from standing most of the day and not having many breaks because I'm so deteremined to get it finished.

 

I also started to layer up more the 3 sheets of cardboard per layer I PVA over night under the table. I thought about how much quicker having 5 sheets per layer of cardboard would be and arranged them accordingly to sort out on Wednesday.

Wednesday I would give myself more resting times so I can keep up my energy for the final week of my project; I would also try to start on the arms of my chair as I now had enough width for a person to sit.

 

Leaving Thursday for my time in the glass workshop too, it was essential at this stage to make good progress every day and reflect how productive I have been to make progress.

I drew out a rough idea of what I wanted the arm of my chair to look like on one of the 5 layer thick sheet of cardboard, then I got a few of my peers to sit in my chair and tell me how they felt in certain positions. 

I asked them first about how the chair itself feels so far and whether they think they would be able to sit in it - all of which said yes (but I'm hoping they were being honest with me rather than just being kind). 

I then asked if they could have the arm at any height, where abouts would they position it - after showing me, I got them to hold their arms in that place while I used a pencil to mark the cardboard underneath their arm to suggest to me where to cut the arm height.

I ended up with some varying lines so I decided to take the average line and cut it to that shape. This proved a lot more difficult than the 3 sheets of cardboard I had cut before with the stanley knife so I decided to use the jig saw on this occasion to could develop the arm height properly.

I soon got more of my peers to try my seat and see how comfortable they were sitting in my design. The majoirty of people said they felt comfortable and the others felt it could be slightly slower; after trying it myself, I decided to cut a little bit lower towards where the elbow would rest and also flatten out the top so it is easier to move.

Everybody now had a successful and comfortable compromise for the height to the arms of my chair.

I also thought it was important to be able to not use the arms if you didn't want to, this meant that the distance between the arms must be big enough to fit not only the users bottom surface area, but also include the arms to the side - on Monday I will add another couple of layers to ensure there's enough room.

During Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning, I was able to draw the middle layer outline and the new arm outline on one sheet of cardboard and draw one line in between the two to form another layer of my design.

At a closer look, you can see how I have averaged out the distance between the lines, I would then create quarter lines and cut out all of these new shapes to get a much better idea of what my chair will look like and how many more layers of cardboard I will need to collect over the weekend at work.

Again, cutting these layers out on the jig saw not only made the process quicker for me, but also was able to cut through multiple layers much better than me as my body ached all over!

I really like the progression I've been able to make with these layers and I can really see my overall product taking shape! Also getting compliments from my peers keeps my going.

I will need to add a few more layers between these graduations to make the size change much less prominent but overall, I'm happy with how it's startign to look!

More layers in progress..

My workspace come Wednesday evening.. I tidied up a lot more of my mess and used up the rest of my cardboard creating more layers in progress of gluing. I guess more collecting over the weekend it is then!