Class on Tuesday October 28th

After fall break we started back up into groups for Design Drawing, South side and half of Mid-Town was put together into a group and started in Nadia's group first. We were continuing with contour drawing but we were also incorperating hatching and shadowing in our drawings. In the image above we had to draw a view of our desk and then hatch a couple areas to give the affect of shadowing.
After drawing our desks we went up to the Crit room and were given a box to draw the contours of. This lead to our next lesson and studies: How to draw things in perspective... I had dabbled alittle in this knowledge back in my high school art classes but I felt it would do me well to learn it again because I had never really incorporated it into my drawings before hand.
Taking the same box we drew free hand before, it was put into two-point perspective (keep in mind I did not have a ruler at hand) along with shadowing from a light source and where the shadows would go.As more practice we drew a corner of the room in two-point persepective, it was really hard to draw a corner in this perspective and still make it look like the corner was concave instead of convex. It took me several attempts to get to this drawing above.

Property Site Plan

Site Plans taken from the book in two different ways:


And then for homework we had to use Google earth to find our house and draw a site plan of it based on the bird's eye view we were provided with.
And here is the picture I drew from:

Final Dialog Pictures

Dialog Final & Critique Notes

Here is the final Dialog structure, along with this we had to do sketches of two different elevation views, a plan view, and another sketch to represent our model. And also we had to create a new Dialog graphic to add to the presentation.


The Presentation method at this critique was switched up from the norm of being in groups, saying alittle about the project and process, and then having other students and instructors critique it. This time we were given a paper with a series of questions and in groups previously posted we were given one question that we had to answer with our project.

1.) How is Dialog created?
Dialog is created using spaces in the different projects in different ways to describe the the viewer what the 'conversation' of the piece would be. Like in Kalani's Dialog project, his consisted of two separate pieces, one taller then the other, that could be arranged in different ways in order to give the viewer the affect of two duel spaces.

2.) How is the sense of space/place defined?
Space is defined by the planes and skewers and in what way a designer arranges them to for said spaces in their project.

3.)How is the idea of system generated? (This was my question!)
System is generated by how all the materials are arranged based on concepts like negative space and structure and in what way they are used to define the structure. For example, Chey's project.

4.) How does joinery support the project concept/ strategies?
Joinery can make or break the project literally because it holds the spaces together with a certain amount of strength to give a definite dialog to the viewer in concept and the stratagies are so you can fully develop those concepts and build the structure. An example of well crafted joinery includes Illyana's project. Her project resembled that of a fan and she used that shape as a strategy to create her concept of dialog and create two spaces. Her matter of joinery was used in the middle of her fan-like project and was intertwined in the folds of the fan as they came together to give it strength and create two spaces of dialog.

5.) How is scale utilized in the project?
Scale can be utilized to enhance the design of the project and also can help you when you're taking a previous project and attempting to remake it.

6.) How do two dimension images add to the understanding of the project?
Drawings can show and enhance close-up details to give a different perspective as to the project so you are not distracted by the 3D properties that are just background noise in what you are trying to understand. Also one can build a model on the instruction of drawings.

7.) How did the initial project idea evolve?
For this question I'm going to talk about my own project, the project evolved mostly because of me playing around with the 12 planes and skewers using a box-like form that had way too many spaces then two. I also did some sketching keeping my idea of using two cubes from my box-like form to create and overlapping effect while still having two spaces and having an interesting structure.

Architectural Details

On the last day in Nadia's rotation we had to pick three architectural details within the Studio Arts building and draw them at three different angles like we did with the lights. I did the ceiling, joints on the glass of the gallery on the first floor and beam joints on the studio level.

Like with the light drawings, we had to pick an architectural piece and draw it at a larger scale. I really like the joints holding the glass and so thats why I decided to draw it.

Dialog joints and First Graphic

Graphic number one for our Dialog project, it depicts the jist of my process from the first model to the second. As you can see in the bottom left corner, my precedent for this project is a box kite.


These pictures are of one joint in my project, Stoel informed us last week that we would need to make one for Monday and had to make it in the best craft possible. To keep the two bristol board pieces together I had to use glue dots to set them and then rubber cement along the joint to hold them. And then for the last of it I used rubber cement on the skewer to create stability. This joint is a repeating design in my Dialog models and will continue to show up all the way to my final design.

Light Drawings

For the second installment we had to find three different lighting fixtures in the Studio Arts building and draw them in three different angles along with whatever might be in the background behind them. I had alot of fun doing the wood grain the middle-left one.

And with the drawing above we had to pick a light angle we had drawn and draw it on a bigger scale.

Dialog

With the conclusion of our "Understanding Unity" project we got into "Understanding Dialog", the instructions once again called for 12 skewers and 12 planes of Bristol Board but now we had the constriction of only having two spaces. As for the definition of spaces we had to figure ourselves when making the project. The picture above is my first attempt, basically it was the shape of two squares ontop of each other one opening facing one way and the other facing the opposite way giving the definite look of two spaces. The craft was poor in this first model and so it kept falling apart and the way I had the 4 skewers on the inner part of the squares actually created more spaces in the eyes of my instructors though I was told I had something with the dualing space idea.
And so keeping in mine the dueling space idea brought about my next sketch-model. This one was made with much better craft and was much more interesting, the issue I ran into was not with the skewers, but with the planes, in my design I had two planes left over which are on the very top and bottom of the structure. Sure they go with the designs movement but it seems like the could have a better place. That is the next challenge I'm tackling, how to take a perfect 10 plane-12 skewer structure and turn it into a perfect 12 plane-12 skewer structure by Friday!

Unity Final

Third Rotation

The last rotation we are participating in before fall break is Nadia's, and as our first assignment we had to fine three architectural items in the Gatewood Studio Arts Building and draw then in three different ways: contour, cross-contour, and shading. I picked things like hinges on doors, the push bar on the door, and an electrical outlet.


Our next assignment that I'm currently working on is to draw three different lighting fixtures in the building in any style we want but in three different angles.

Unity Project II

After the critique in class on Wednesday, the Understanding Unity project has officially come to an end. For this project I ended up making 5 different models to finally reach my goal. In the first model I started out doing a stacked box and plane shape that was more in characteristic of geometric shapes (The middle one in the picture above), but as I got half way through it I got frustrated when the design continued to fall apart and so I gave up on it and began trying to think of another, stronger, unity design. I thought about the other sketch-models I had seen already finished, most of them were based on geometric shapes as well and so I tried to come up with something more organic and curvilinear. In the end I ended up with a project with 12 curves, 6 on one side and 6 on another with two skewers used as the mid-point axis and the other 10 placed in the curves of the model. Also the model was laying down on its side, but in playing with it even more I found that it could stand on an end and make a diagonal axis.


For attempt number three I just remade the previous model and tried to do something different with the 10 skewers that weren't supporting the middle axis of the structure, I ended up alternating them up and down in a zigzag pattern to give more the effect of unity in the project and movement of the sticks with the curves. Though with this model, maybe because of the weight balance, I could not get it to stand up on its diagonal axis.


For model number 4 I decided to tweak my project even more by making the curves different sizes to make a sort of staircase effect using gradation, starting big at the beginning and getting smaller and smaller near the end. I spent most of this model experimenting with measurements and drawing markers on the inside of the curves to get the balance and placement of them just right without the structure being crooked. A problem I found was keeping measurements accurate in order to keep the two axis skewers from going sideways instead of staying parallel. Also I went back to making the structure stand diagonal, though it was unstable that way. As for the ten skewers, I ended up putting two on one end and two on another to give the feel of compression and also to keep the curves in place and then did the same arrangement of one over the other in the middle three curves.

And then there was the final for the critique. Not only did we have to have a finished product, but also we had to have a graphic and drawings of the plan view and elevation views of the structure as well as contour and gesture drawings.


((On the graphic where it says 'glue dots' and 'rubber cement' I put an example of each since I had all my materials up for the project, they just didn't show up when scanned for some reason.))

Cellphone and Stick III

Finally to the last part of Suzanne's rotation we had to take the 32 stick and cellphone thumbnails and then condense them down more into 16 thumbnails of stick and cellphones.
From there we condensed stuff even more to 8 thumbnails...

And finally in a 19x19 square we had to do four images of stick and cellphone.

Compare and Contrast "Unity Projects"

Today in our studio critique we discussed the elements of Unity in our “Understanding Unity” Project. Our task was to make a unified structure out of 12 4x6 Bristol board pieces and 12 10” bamboo skewers. We could not cut the paper and we could not cut the bamboo skewers.


My project was biased off unity via repetition of shape. The curves in my project are constantly repeated on the length of two bamboo skewers at an equal proximity, to give the project interest and motion I tapered the continuous curves to the very end of the sticks.


In comparison to my project, Katie’s “understanding unity” project was also biased of a curved shape, hers being more about circles then just regular curves. Both of our concepts of Unity had to do with repetition, mine in the pointed curves and hers in the circles within circles. Instead of being on a horizontal axis like mine was, hers was on a diagonal and supposed by a sort of base to keep its shape. Our projects also varied in scale in the concept of hers being more taller and longer and mine being more longer then taller.


Another project I picked to use in comparison to mine was Christy’s. Christy also used the repetition of a shape like I did but her shape was a geometric triangle rather then my organic curve. Her form was more about the triangles stacking upward while mine was about the curves moving the length of the bamboo skewers. Another difference is in the axis placement of the project, mine still being on a horizontal axis while hers was on a diagonal to keep interest in the unity of her triangles.

Cellphones and Sticks II

Next installment of the stick and cellphone drawings, from the 16 and 16 before we had to create thumbnail drawings, 64 for the cellphone and 64 for the sticks. I did not photomerge this time so you only see a few of the 64 that actually exist. (And this is were I started to run out of sharpies)
After the two 64 thumbnail drawings came the 32 thumbnail drawings of both the stick and the cellphone parts coexisting with each other in each panel. These exercises were to get us to simplify over and over again.

Unity Project

The newest model in the Unity project. The point of this project is to assemble anything we want with 12 bamboo skewers, 12 planes of 4x6 Bristol board, and rubber cement as a binding agent in the project. While figuring out ideas we also constantly keep unity in mind. As the picture shows, I went a more organic and curvilinear shape rather then geometric and angular. After first creating it out of frustration of a previous idea I realized it looked alot like Christmas ribbon candy, so that became my precedent.I'm hoping that this precedent can help me to progress my project othen then with use of color since we were told to avoid color. For now my things to work on include craft of the paper and rubber cement and trying to decide if the project should be tilted on an axis to represent the idea of gradation or on its side to represent the idea of level.

OR
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