Crit Week: Conclusion

First year Critiques are over! I just finished presenting my work, however I was not just sitting around this week. I drew, quite abit actually so lets begin. Wednesday crits started and I set about to drawing my peers, projects and people



As you can see, I tried to get more people into the view this time, and I think it worked out pretty well. A few proportions out of place but all in all not a bad attempt. I didnt use any measuring technique either, a sign I may be learning to read proportion with out using my pen.

Just a few peoples projects drawn as they appeared on wednesday I've realized that my Micron pen is already running out, it seems odd to me that I should dry out so quickly, does anyone else see this problem or know of a solution?

Fridays, critiques revealed more projects with various curvy shapes. I also drew my initials in what I call Jazz Squares as they strike me as being jazzy. In no offense to others but I dont see curvy shapes when I think about jazz, I see curves just not to an extreme. There is still some geometry to them.

Also like my blue pen? I was getting bored of black and white drawings all the time. So I bought a blue pen to spice things up a little.

Crit Week 2 the revenge of the crit

ITS CRITIQUE WEEK! The week when all the studios gather to judge everyones projects and make judgments to our own beliefs on our designs. Its also a great time to draw, especially when you need practice drawing people.. Big Crowds lots of overlap, it can get hectic (the drawing not the critiques. I got a few good drawings done today, one involving trying to fit everyone in my view into my space on my sketchbook.. I think I was moderately successful..

I think next time I will try to make the people fill up the whole page, just to give those who are reading this the sheer scale. There were probably close to 100 of us in our little tiny critique room. The rain was overpowering our presenters today, it was actually kind of funny, we had to stop for 10 minutes while we waited for a lull in the rain.

Just look at all those people, I myself am impressed with my effort you can really tell that their are alot of people between me and the projects being displayed. Certain people keep getting messed up because they kept fidgeting or someone would lean forward and block my view but I'd already be about half way through the person and not wanting to change the image, so I'd wait and then my subject would have moved anyway. Oh well! Still looks good to me

This is Ben Adam's Project, he designed a very interesting space for Rothko. I originally only intended to draw the project, but then the veil covering the stool it was seated upon began to call me, before I knew it the stool was too, and then the wall... and then the shadows so it pretty much became a whole scene, only his board is missing. I've been working with my markers so much I almost forgot how you can show contrast using just your pen, I was so ready to whip out my cool grays. By the way Suzanne I think you'd agree that the shadows were likely a cool gray number 1 today.. maybe a 2 in the darker spots.

In conclusion, now that I've finished my final project I'm happy to say that I reunite myself with my sketch book and have some fun. This year has been odd. I used to be incredibly bored, I'd simply play video games or talk to my friends. Now I love to go out and draw and look at the world around me. But this post has gone on far to long, and that big world is in need of documenting.

Working With Wood

So recently in studio we worked with a single 18" piece of 2x4 to create a system. I didnt really enjoy this in the end as I felt like I had gotten hung up on system because I kept thinking of like a system in physics where balance can be achieved through counter weights which is ultimately how my project was destined to end up. I wanted it to appear that the heavy top piece was actually being supported by a very thin and off center support which required very careful distribution of weight. Actually getting it balanced took a little while to figure out. Ultimately it was fun working with wood and I'm a little sad that we had to stop because I was really enjoying it.

This project was difficult and although I was not totally happy with the result I'm not completely against it either I think it succeeds in some ways but could be improved in others

Another Friday of sketching

Today we had a critique on the projects we just finished, I'm not sure how I really felt about the way we handled this critique but hey. So I sat and drew alot I really was trying to get the duct work but it was really hard, I dont know what I was messing up with but I couldnt get it to a point that I liked. You should read some of the other comments I've written out on the paper.

Also Suzanne if your checking blogs, please disregard my terrible sketch of you in the lower right side of the page.. you kept moving and made it difficult to draw you.

The Metamorphosis

This project was abit challenging at first, create a hybrid of two objects, and then combine them twice over. My projects were originally done by Kelly Mc Millian and Krista Giles
Ultimately I really wanted to focus on the shapes of these 2 objects and thus adjusted mine into this hybrid

I thought it still had the triangular shapes of the all white one as well as the 2 black columns of the project by Kelly.

After completing that we had to create 2 more that consisted of a majority of each of the 2 projects.

A Container for A Memory

Last week we finished a project in which we designed a place to hold a memory. It could be happy or sad or anything, just a memory we had. I decided to do the following:

"In the autumn of last year my boy friend Wesley and I piled into a car for what I thought would be one of the most horrific experiences of my life. We were on our way to my families Thanksgiving weekend. Normally I do not have to worry about what my family thinks but something this big was something new for everyone. Never before had I brought my boyfriend to really meet the larger extent of my family, and a large portion of my family was not aware that I am gay. So the whole way up there and for a long time before guests even began to arrive I was nothing more than a nervous wreck. I was stressed any emotions were entirely out of sync. I thought I would die and that my family would hate me. I think Wesley understood what I was going through because he came to me and just held me long enough for me to realize that all that mattered was what he and I thought, for better or for worse we were happy. At that moment all the stress and emotional problems I had felt just seemed insignificant and melted away from me. Needless to say the weekend went very well, I had panicked for no reason but I left it with a new understanding of our relationship."

This memory was very important enough to me that I wanted to find a way to show it in my container. I wanted something layered that really showed how over time my emotions changed to the calming feeling, which is also why the colors go from solid black to a solid white. As someone told me, "It's like an onion" The Sharp angles were also intentional because I wanted to show how difficult it is for me to open up so I wanted an imposing shape that looked sharp, the Triangles really gave it that effect as well as making a unique way for it to stand.

My original prototype really seems radically different at least to me, this is largely due to the fact that it could close. I removed that from my final design because I didn't really see how it related to what I was trying to convey. So I removed it and made each piece separately.

-Cheers!

Pencil Box

A project just completed recently was a project to design a pencil box, our materials were matte board as well as glues and adhesives. Sounds funny I know but suprisingly previous projects have banned the use of glues and such. This project I really just wanted a simple box nothing really special, in fact the only real thing that I knew I really wanted was a window to view what pencils were where in the box because there is nothing more annoying than thinking you've grabbed your HB when in fact you grabbed a 3H pencil, alright maybe not the worst but it is a hassle. Many people have noted that my matte board is both black and white and I am here to say that, that was intentional. I felt having it be all black was a bit bad, where as with the white it gave the box and outline and really a sign that it existed in the world. The lid is a unique feature of it as well as I chose this area to be the only part of the box with a pattern. I felt that with all the other parts having the white outline the actual lid was a bit neglected so I added the pattern. You also will note that the lid has one stripe thinner than the others this too was intentional. I wanted the lines to get larger further down almost providing the user where the end of it was, while giving the lid a little detail that it really lacked. It has certainly come a long way from my first iteration where the top of the box was very unstable and was relatively with out details.

- Cheers!

A Place for an Egg

Our first physical project in our design classes was to prepare a place for an egg using only paper. That means no adhesives, to counter this problem I decided to use some Origami styles that I learned to do really for this project. My place for an egg evolved from a huge mess of many things into the simple black base that it is today. I'm very happy with how it turned out. As for what it celebrates I went with its asymmetrical shape that still appears round, which is why the all the pieces that point up are on some kind of axis with the egg.