Final Computer Project

This was my Final Project for Computer Foundations. We had to do an autobiographical presentation. I chose to make a triptych showing me and my favorite stuffed animal named Puppy over time. I found pictures of me and Puppy from when I was little. I scanned Puppy and used the fur texture to make landscape forms for the figures to exist in.

My computer professor, Eva Wylie, commented on how it is both humorous and serious at the same time.

This maybe my final post about my finals until the Spring Semester. In the spring, I'll start this blog again as I make new work.

Updated 2-D Project

At the end of the semester, everyone was preparing for the Foundations Student Exhibition, which is a show of work done in foundation classes. Students could re-work past assignments to improve them for the show. I chose to do this with my Space project.

My teacher suggested that I add more complexity. I chose to add more shapes in the negative spaces. I used positive and negative images of stars because I wanted a pattern that wouldn't take away from the squares but would still go with the theme.

On the left is the new version. On the right is the old version.

Yeti Defense

This project was a group project that me and my friends Josh and Katie did. Our 3-D class was challenged by the other Wood Shop 3-D class to make a response to their Yeti project. They made sculptures of Yetis that they put in the large green hallway at Tyler. For a response, our class decided to defend against Yetis.

Our group decided to defend against the Yetis by putting a Yeti Detector by the front door to Tyler and "wanding down" people as they entered the building as airport security does (the wand and the detector searched for Yeti DNA instead of metal).

It was a short lived performance piece but we had a lot of fun doing it and putting it together. Some people loved the idea and got really into the new Yeti defending security measures. Others were less thrilled to be "wanded down". All in all though, it was a fun project that nicely complimented the other group's performance piece of recruiting people to join in an Anti-Yeti-Alliance Army.

These pictures show the Yeti Detector, the process of "wanding down", and me sporting the Yeti Defense uniform.

Leda and the Swan

For Drawing Class today, we brought in references to make our own version of Leda and the Swan (story from Greek mythology). Artists have been depicting their own version of this story since the Renaissance when it and other Greek myths became more popular.

This drawing was meant to be a preliminary drawing, but David Noyes told me not to add anything to it. He said it has a very elegant quality that would be lost if I went back into it later. I might make a second version with paint if I have time.

Field Trip to the Rodin Museum

In Drawing Class on Thursday, we went on a field trip to the Rodin Museum to draw the sculpture. We worked in pencil and focused specifically on The Burghers of Calais (One of Auguste Rodin's most well know sculptures). I had been to the Rodin Museum once before on College Day.

David Noyes suggested I block in large areas of value and then go back into those with smaller areas of value. The images above show this technique. He wanted us to focus on using value (not line) to describe the form. The one on the left is more finished. We had to leave before I could complete the one on the right. David encouraged me to go back to the Rodin museum often to draw the sculpture. He said I would learn a lot about drawing that way.

David Noyes also warned me to be careful not to get too concerned with getting things accurate, because I could lose the element of my own personal voice in the art. He says this is a problem he often encounters with students who had a lot of academic training (academic in the art sense; drawing lots of still lives for accuracy and taking many art classes). They are trained to become render-ers but they don't have their own voice. He says it can be more stimulating to the artist and viewer if the artist puts their own interpretation on what they are seeing.

Science

This project was an ongoing 2-D project. We would work on the little 5 in X 5 in squares a little at a time.

First, we picked a theme and did images on the squares of people and things based on that theme. I picked "science" and so I got lots of images associated with space exploration and quantum physics. We then chose words that helped to define or expand on our theme, and made squares of those. We used many different methods to get variety of techniques, values, and shapes. Finally, we picked a way to arrange the squares that reflected the idea we wanted the viewer to come away with.

When I was working on this project, I was thinking about science as exploration. I was also thinking about how all human beings from different times and places have been exploring the world and universe. I used a circular shape to reflect the circular shapes of orbits, planets, stars, molecules, and other forms associated with science, order, and systems. The circle is a 'universal' shape, that works well with my science squares.

Figure Drawing: Day 2

Today we didn't have a model. The model couldn't get to Tyler becuase of the SEPTA strike. The subway, trolley, and bus systems are completely down.

Instead, the some students from our class took turns posing (clothed). David Noyes gave us all images of paintings by Francis Bacon and told us to have the same sort of exageration in our drawings. Certain parts of the figure are exagerated to better show the feeling of the body and how its positioned.

These are two drawings from the end of class. Once again, I was having trouble in the beginning. By the end though, I had a better understanding of how to exagerate the body the way David was talking about. He said I should look at drawings by Henry Moore because they have similarities to my drawings. The drawing on the right definately reminds me of a Henry Moore sculpture.

Figure Drawing: Day 1

Last week in Drawing, we had a model for the first time this semester. Drawing the model was actually extremely challenging for me this day. My teacher, David Noyes, did not like my approach in the beginning. I was drawing too "formulaic". David said that the best way to draw a model is not to see the model as an object to draw (that is how people start out learning to draw the model usually). He says the best way is to draw the model as a specific individual, with a specific body and personality. He had us all imagine how the model must be feeling at that moment and try to capture that in the line quality. David Noyes demonstrated the importance of sensitive contour lines that describe the form.

This was very different from any approach to figure drawing I had used before. My past figure drawing teachers focused more on internal structures. While the new way of drawing took some time to get down, I had a much easier time with it at the end of class.

The drawing on the far left shows my drawing with David's demonstration to me on the page. He was helping me understand how to better draw the arm. I copied his line once so I could understand it better. The two drawings to the right are ones I did later in class. My drawings were much improved from how I first started out.

Grit and Beauty Entry

Temple University's GenEd department held a contest in October that was open to all the students. I entered this contest, and then later in computer class I found out that we were going to be given an assignment specifically so we could work on a piece that could fit this contest. This was great because it gave me more time to work on my entry.

The contest was to create a post on the contest's online discussion board that reflected both the "grit and beauty" of Philadelphia. We could use written words, images, videos, or anything else submitted in digital form.

I chose to make a post about all the dead birds I find on Temple's campus. Most of them die from hitting the glass windows of large new buildings such as the Tech Center, Alter Hall, and the Tyler building. These new buildings have huge panes of glass and mirror type surfaces. It makes the buildings very beautiful, but also deadly to birds who don't know that its a sheet of glass. I've been counting the birds I find as well. So far I've found over fifty. Most are small green and yellow warblers like the one I used in my entry image. They are migrating through the area in the fall.

This interaction between the birds and the glass is gritty because there is death and the urban environment directly involved. At the same time, both the buildings and the birds are visually beautiful. The birds are so pristine when they just fall to the sidewalk, that they look like they could be alive. I wanted to capture this quality in my image. I used bright colors and one of the birds I found outside the Tyler building. Hopefully with closer inspection, the viewer can see the "gritty" side of both the image and the new city buildings.

This is a digital image I made in photoshop. In my contest entry, I also wrote a little to explain why I made this image.

Woodshop Project

This was my favorite project so far out of everything I've done in all my classes. I worked on this project for well over a total of 30 hours over two weeks.

The assignment was to create a 3-D piece (some students did performance art and/or interactive installations) using 2x4's and cardboard. To give us a starting point, we wrote a fictional story about a society or group of people. We then made the 3-D piece based of of some element of the story or society. I wrote a fictional story about a society on a different planet called the Utabis society. These people have octagonal based architecture. The octagon fits their society perfectly because the Utabis buildings function on both land and in outer space. The octagons fit together for structure and expansion on land, but offers more volume per surface area (which is good for living in space) than a rectangular prism shape. I see the octagon as the perfect compromise between the circle and the square. The number eight lends itself to symmetry and stability. I wanted to explore the properties of the number eight and the octagon. The official name for the 3-D shape that uses squares and triangles to make a polyhedron with octagonal axises is a rhombicuboctahedron. I repeated these forms throughout the sculpture.

My final piece is on the left with a detail on the right. Its best to see it in person. In the critique, peers and my professor Mike Treffehn said it evoked a solar system, atoms, Stonehenge, spheres in societies, eggs, the qualities of eight and the octagon, a compass, and more. The large wooden shape in the center is 16 inches tall. If I could do this project again with more time and materials, I would make it larger and use wood or metal in place of the cardboard and paper.

I learned so much in the wood shop while making this project. It went through many revisions, but I love how it turned out in the end. I think I will submit it to the Foundation Exhibition at Tyler. I wasn't expecting to like my sculptural work better than my 2-D work, but that is how this project went. I wish I had the space in my dorm room to properly display it.

I can't wait for metal sculpture next year when we can weld. I'm glad I took wood shop because I now know how to use all sorts of tools such as the band saw, table saw, drill press, panel saw, and sliding miter saw. I feel empowered when I'm able to make something really well using these tools. I'm glad I can take a break from going to the wood shop everyday though.

Re-Worked Illustrator Self-Portrait

In many of my classes, there is the option to re-work assignments to improve them. Usually this is done after a critique. This gives the student the chance to learn how to improve the art and make better technical decisions in the future.

In my computer class, we can re-work anything up until the day before the end of the semester and have it reconsidered. After every critique, I try to take all the constructive criticism into account and improve the assignment. During the critique of the Illustrator self-portraits, it was brought up that the hair was not treated the same way as the face. Sometimes doing two parts in different ways is good because it shows difference in texture. Other times it just appears that it is disconnected or was finished hastily. I decided to go back and add more fine shapes and color variation in the hair. I think it really improved.

On the left, you can see the self portrait as it was before. On the right, is the self portrait after I re-worked it. Each has its merits, but I think I like the one on the right better.

Photoshop Painting Exercise

In Computer Foundations, we've been learning Photoshop. This image is one I made in an exercise we did in class to familiarize ourselves with layers and the paintbrush tool. We were just supposed to play around with the tools and make something as practice. This image that I made was based off of some sketches I did of architecture in the city. The teacher (Eva Wylie) told me to try creating some straight lines next time to show control and skill in a variety of ways of mark-making in photoshop.

Squirrel trapped in Trash Can

I've been very busy this past week so I haven't posted in a while.

For my computer class, we have an on going assignment to take digital pictures that capture "The Feel of The City". Philadelphia is a much more urban environment than Pittsburgh. In Philly, there is a sort of pride in the city's "grit" that I don't think I encountered in Pittsburgh. Everything here is like what is in Pittsburgh but raised to the second power. The city is so much larger, and complete with larger pros and cons of city life.

Health wise, I don't think the urban environment is the healthiest environment for most forms of life. Included in this are the squirrels. There are many squirrels on Temple's campus. For the majority of the year, all these squirrels eat is garbage from the trash cans.

I was walking past the Student Center with my friends when one of them noticed that a squirrel had gotten stuck between the metal trash can cylinder and the plastic bin inside. The squirrel must have gotten in when the lid was off and then ended up trapped when the lid was put back on. It was gnawing on the metal bars just like how pet gerbils gnaw on the bars of their cage. I freed it by taking the lid off and then lifting out the plastic bin. It hopped right out and ran accross the street.

I took lots of pictures too. This event captures pretty well what the urban environment can be like sometimes. I've never seen a squirrel stuck in a trash can at home.

City Hall Drawing

Today in Drawing Class, we took the subway to City Hall to draw the architecture of the City Hall building. This building was made in the Greek revival style, so it has many greco-roman elements all mushed together. Its a very complex building and great for drawing.

We've been doing architectural drawings in pen lately. In order for pen to look good, the mark has to be active and confident. I had some trouble in earlier architectural drawings we did on campus. I would move too carefully through the drawing to get all the proportions correct. This gave my drawings a constricted look. After getting some feedback from Professor David Noyes, I planned on taking a more relaxed approach to drawing City Hall.

When I was drawing City Hall, I didn't worry about proportions and correct angles. I just let the pen do the work. Aside from one mistake with the archway, it turned out very well. David Noyes said my drawing was his favorite. I wish I could have had more time to finish it though.

2-D Collage

We've been making many collages in my 2-D Foundations course. Our last series of collages was focused on how meaning is created visually. We also talked about music, and how non-lyrical music and visual art are both non-verbal means of communication. We learned ways of creating meaning with only formal elements such as high/low contrast, shape, size, and mark making. Music employs the same ideas to create meaning with only sound. All this was meant to ease us into abstraction and understanding how 'abstract' art conveys meaning just like representational art.

The collage posted here is the final collage I did on this theme for class. It turned out the best out of all the collages I did. I really focused on shape, value, and placement of the elements to create a specific feeling. I wanted it to have a feeling of nervousness and anxiety that is neither good nor bad. The collage is mounted on foam core that is cut to fit the irregular form.

Adobe Illustrator "Painting"

This last computer project was my favorite. We scanned our faces and used Illustrator to "paint" the image by creating planes of different colors to match the scan. All the portraits have a somewhat pained expression because of the scanning process. The illustration has lots of room for the artist's own interpretation of the subject, and has more variety and choice available than using a program's filter.

We watched clips of the movie Waking Life ,which is a movie animated using this same method of digital image making. I had seen Waking Life before when I was working on the MLK East Busway Community Mural Project. Free (the group leader) would bring in movies he wanted us to see when it was raining or we couldn't work on the mural. Waking Life was one of them. It has amazing animation and I appreciate it even more knowing how exactly it was done.

Comuter Foundations Class

This post is about my Computer Foundations course. This course introduces many different programs such as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. We also learned how to make blogs and navigate Temple's many websites.

The two images I've posted here were done with Adobe Illustrator. This is a great program because the vector based system is perfect for making curves and shapes with only a few plotted points. One assignment was to take text and change the shapes to make a landscape. Another was to make a humorous personal warning label.

Drawing Exercises

In this post, I've uploaded some of my drawing exercises we did in Drawing Foundations. Every 5 hour class starts with about half and hour of drawing something like a leaf or a stick, to get us warmed up. The professor, David Noyes, is very specific about how the object is to be drawn. If there is too much emphasis on observation and technical skill, he says it is a good drawing but not anything special. He wants the hand of the artist to be visible. At the same time, if the line is too loose, he says the drawing becomes more about the artist than it is about the object. He wants something very specific in the middle of the two extremes. The exercise drawings I have posted were successful drawings I did in class that David liked.

Slide show is working!

I worked around the slide show problem. Picassa gave an HTML code to plug into the blog to make it create a slide show. Clicking on the slide show will take you to my Picassa account. This account was created for my computer class, so it has many photographs and images not related to this blog in it.

I will make more slide shows for my different classes.

More Sketches

Here are some more sketches. I'm trying to set up a slide show on my blog but it isn't working right now. For some reason the blog is not recognizing my Picassa account's album. Hopefully I can get that working soon.

Sketches

Here are some examples of Sketches I've been doing. I have 4 sketchbooks that I've been working on, and each has different purposes. One is used only for my 3-D Foundations class. Another I work in when I don't have anything else to do. The large sketchbook is good for ballpoint pen drawings. I have a small sketchbook that I'm only using Sharpie and Micron pen in.

New Blog

I've started this blog so I can post images and information about the art I'm working on. I've set up a different blog for my Computer Foundations class at Tyler School of Art. I'm hoping to use this blog here long after my computer class is over, so people can see the art I'm making.