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.