case of wine

The cardboard inserts that separate bottles in a case are brilliant. These have fascinated me forever. It's the old thing, buy a present and the kid plays with the box. In order to get the cardboard slats to intersect cardboard is removed at the lines of intersection. 

The slats are geometric planes. Planes intersect at a line. For one slat to pass through another, cardboard is removed at the line of intersection. 

Here is the impressive thing about this convenient arrangement that fascinates me, at the line where two slats intersect, half the cardboard is removed form one slat and half of the intersecting line is removed from the second intersecting slat going in the cross direction, for matching slots in each slat, half the slots aiming up, half the slots aiming down. You've seen this insert arrangement and most likely pulled it out played with it, noticed how the whole thing can fold flatly. 

The thing about it is the cardboard is doing something in the  physical world that is impossible because physical reality is not mathematics. The cardboard is cardboard, not a mathematical plane, the intersection is where two solid cardboard slats share the same physical space, impossible, not a mathematical line. 

At the point where the two slots slip into each other to form the arrangement, and continue until the solid portions of each opposing slat slip into the slots of the other, at the point in the middle, where two slots meet, the dot is empty. Because half a slot is removed from each slat, the intersection line contains only one plane in each direction, half the plane, actually, in one direction, then another. Simple. Mesmerizing. Perfect for pop-up cards. 

Arranged standing up crossing the central fold as a "V" and two sides fixed, one retro, one verso.  Separate flat pieces, content, can be placed anywhere on the grid as slotted cards. A chessboard for example. 

I drew this for you because I intend to show something wicked later and I don't want to spring it all at once. 

The same is true with simpler mechanisms where three or four layers of paper are glued at the same point. Mathematically it works perfectly, but paper is not math, it has depth of its own, the thickness of the paper interferes with the mechanism working. Along the line everything is fine. All lines are glued according to their working positions, but then they meet at a point and must bend to compensate for their own depth, and that screws up the mechanism performance. Solution: remove the problem area, the point of intersection. The mechanism will work without the problem. The glue tab is fine on all lines except at the point, so remove the point and get on with it. Unsightly, yes, jury-rigged, yes, but it works. 

I saw this same idea the other day when looking for images of solar discs. I noticed they did that same thing inside a particular coffin. I notice it because it is a problem for me. The lines of the feathers converge at a point. I have drawn this design hundreds of times, I grew up drawing this design over and over, and this point of intersection never fails to be problematic. Ancient solution? Remove the problem area, like this:

See the two small squares where the largest feathers join at a point? Removed because that is a problem area. 

Incidentally, when you see that three-prong fox skin inside a cartouche, the central hieroglyph on the left side that looks like the bottom of a fork with a bow on top instead of a fork handle, it's three fox skins tied together, it means  "born" and the word pronounced "mes". It's a big clue the name is Ramses, in this case Ramses III. 

This post is about removing areas from your art to force it to work in the physical world.