Bauhaus Mobile

The Bauhaus style is iconic for its use of geometric shapes, primary colours and vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines. For my mobile, I created a symmetrical composition with black lines and modular geometric shapes that can be swapped around to different positions. You may follow the steps below to create a similar mobile, or design your own version with different shapes, colours and compositions.

Materials:

• 2 x large balsa wood rods (305 x 5 x 5 mm)
• 4 x small balsa wood rods (150 x 3 x 3 mm)
• Black acrylic paint
• Cellophane sheets in red, yellow and blue
• Fishing line
• 0.5 mm stainless steel wire

Tools:

• Penknife
• Scissors
• Pin
• Round-nose pliers
• Pencil
• Paintbrush

Paint the balsa wooden rods in black acrylic paint and leave to dry.

If you are creating a symmetrical mobile, the weights of the shape pieces should be equal in order to achieve balance. In this case, it means that they should have the same area. Work out the math for each shape using the formulas below and cut out your pieces.

• Area of Square/rectangle = length x breadth
• Area of circle = πr2
• Area of triangle = 1/2 x base x height

The number of pieces depends on your mobile design. For my design, I only needed 8, but I created more for the option of swapping out the pieces.

*If you are creating organic shapes without a formula to work out their areas, you might need to proceed by trial and error, measuring the weight of the shapes against each other and adjusting them to find a balance.

In order to create a modular mobile with interchangeable parts, attach jump rings the mobile pieces and rods.

You can make your own jump rings with wire and the round-nose pliers. Cut a small length of wire about 4cm long and curl it into a circle with the pliers. The wire should overlap on itself.

Make double the number of jump rings as your shapes, plus 1 extra for each of the small wooden rods. For my design, I need a total of 16 + 4 jump rings.

Using a pin, create a small hole in the top of each shape. Thread the jump ring through. Attach a fishing line to the jump ring, knotting it tightly. On the other end of the fishing line, attach another jump ring. Repeat with the rest of the shapes. Make sure that the length of the fishing line is the same for all of the shape pieces.

• Cross the two rods in the centre
• Wrap with wire around the join to secure.

• Thread fishing line through the loop and attach a wire hook on the other end.

Small wooden rods:

• Wrap with wire and twist to create a loop in the centre.
• Thread fishing line through the loop and attach a jump ring on the other end.

At this point, you should have your shape pieces and the rods ready.

Start by hanging up the crossed wooden rods with the hook.

On each arm, hang a small wooden rod using by slipping on the jump ring attached.

Finally, hang the shape pieces on each arm of the small wooden rods. Once all the pieces are hung up, the mobile should be perfectly balanced and rotate with the wind. The shape pieces can also be swapped around to create different compositions.