I really enjoyed the bacterial paintings we made in the lab. My goal was to try one of each color and do a simple design (the red one in the top left of the image is not mine, it is a classmates, but my red plate showed up the same as the blue and yellow: with polka dots on it. I used a different sized paint brush in each of my petri dishes because I thought that would be the best way to get the most concentrated pigment color to show up. I chose to do polka dots or circles because I had a really good idea of what the final product would look like and I didn’t think there would be a lot of room for human error. Whereas, if I decided to do a drawing or design I found it is very meticulous because it is basically like painting with clear paint and hoping for the best result.
Next time, I would take more risks with this. I would mix the color choices and do a more detailed design like Kenlee’s. This is unique in so many ways: 1. obviously that is not harmful to the environment!!!! 2. there’s a lot of room for creative freedom and innovation with something like 3. it’s a very fun process and a very fun learning experience. Bacterial paint address the concept of Long Life Design in that it is not harmful to this world. If we were to print these bacterial paint designs on clothing made out of recyclable fabric then once our clothing is done we could plant it with our plants, or even tear it apart and use it to make new clothing or anything of that matter. I left the lab last Friday with two questions: How can we do this on larger scales? And why aren’t more designers doing this?
