Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Lightbulb Art - Shade

I broke the lamp shade in the guest bathroom about six months ago.

I must get something that won't burn to cut the glare from the clear lightbulb, I thought.

The obvious answer of using other lightbulbs, burned-out and coloured ones, came to me quickly.

It just took me a while to get around to making it happen.

These bulbs are filled with rubbing alcohol, mineral oil or both and capped with black silicone caulking. I found the grill in some renovation garbage.

The wire came from the broken slide projector I made a mobile of many years ago. Some of the wires are attached to the bulbs using triangular bits of plastic clipped from excessive packaging. I think the springs are from a lawn chair. I don't know where the other wire bit came from, but it was a perfect length.

Click on the photo to see my Flickr set that includes a couple of "the making of" views.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is beyond delightful... it's exquisite!

Anonymous said...

wow!! I'm so impressed!!

Aggie said...

Absolutely stunning!

Anonymous said...

Gorgeous! I love it almost as much as your typewriter mobile. And I love your typewriter mobile a lot.

Michael T said...

Due to the bright halo in the picture, I'm not convinced it does the job it sets out to do. Please comment on that. Other than that, it's beautiful.

David Scrimshaw said...

Hi Michael,

How well it acts as a "shade" depends on the angle you're looking at it from. The halo in the picture is the light from the bulb reflecting off the wall.

I used one of those new low-wattage energy-efficient bulbs, so it isn't too bright even if you can see it through the hanging bulbs.