what to do.. what to do.
I had never worked with withies (willow cane) so I did a little research on what other people had made with them and came up with the idea of making a lamp.
I started off the project with the idea of making a structure that is geometrical and could be seen through the covering. My attention was drawn to chinese lanterns.
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I love the way you can see the frame beneath the surface of the covering material. These are very beautiful.
These were my initial inspiration for the withie lamp idea. I am inspried by mythical creatures, in particular the Pheonix. It seemed to me to be the ideal choice for a lamp since I could make it very colorful with reds, oranges and yellows.
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some initial sketches I made. According to Chinese mythology, the pheonix represents a female aspect, whereas the Dragon represents the male. I kinda liked that thinking, I wanted my lamp to be a little female looking.
In order to bend the withies into shape, I had to make a withie bath!
left them soaking for a few days. Since I wanted to see the structure through whatever material I had chosen to cover, I decided to try and remove the bark. It wasn't easy. Two days I whittled the bark off with a knife. Tried various methods included a surformer until I eventually had enough sticks.
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The basic structure I began with. I came to the conclusion that the type of withies the people making Chinese lanterns used maybe different or I simply needed to soak my withies for much longer. The withies were quite stiff to bend and I had to tape them tightly together with insulating tape. I didn't want that showing through so I would have to cover more of the structure than I had intended. I would have to come up with a design.
I thought it looked a little like a totem pole, so I had a look at some bird designs of totem poles.
A design I came up with for the wings inspired by Native American Totem poles.I decided to use corrigated card. It has a great texture and you can play about with the direction of the ridges.
after the basic structure was made, I fed in 2 sets of battery operated LED lights. I decided to use tissue paper to cover the lamp. I tested a piece in front of the lights and had the problem of the lights producing a spot of light rather than a glow. After a brief discussion with the Lights Department, it was suggested I cover each bulb with a small piece of plastic bag or light gel to disperse the light. Since a plastic bag was the cheaper option..Iwent with that. 
some images after I covered the structure.
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with a little less flash on the camera..
and lights..
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