Museum Evaluation
This piece is one that caught my full attention as soon as I saw it. It isn’t the largest or most colorful but I think the composition is what reeled me in. The piece is done on a cream paper with only black. In the middle there is a woman standing with her back to us, feet together, hands on her hips and looking over her shoulder. She is dressed very elegantly with black high waisted dress pants with a flowing blouse tucked in. The blouse has a large but intricate scroll design on it with a scolloped deep-v cut down the back. She’s wearing thick hoop earrings and her hair is in a polished up-do. Behind her there must be a mirror because you see her face in the reflection. On the right side of her there is a thick, bold line running diagonally beside her. On the opposite side there is are two diagonal lines running parallel in the other direction, one is curvy and the other is straight.
I think the most appealing part of the piece is the composition. the strong diagonal slightly off center really separates the space nicely. It also creates and asymmetrical balance with the diagonal on the other side. These lines also create unity and rhythm throughout the piece. The bold diagonal line also creates heaviness on the right side of the piece which contrasts with the soft delicate side with her face. There’s also a contrast between the curvy lines in her blouse and some of the lines against the straightness of the other lines. The fluid lines on the blouse seem to create a nice visual texture as well as the way her hair is depicted. The focal point for me would have to be where the thick black line and the top of her black pants meet. The intensity of the color really helps to bring your eye here first. The artist uses a lot of lines to create rhythm and repetition. I also feel that the space is occupied in a very effective way. It has interesting negative space as well as positive space. The artist knew when to stop. The message comes across effectively without overdoing it. The design is clean and crisp.
Sound Map
For this assignment we were instructed to go and sit somewhere for an hour and record what we heard, where we heard it from, how often it reoccured, etc. Then we were to create a visual map of the sounds we heard and our experience. I decided to go sit in J.O.’s (the dining hall at Oglethorpe House) and record what I heard. This is what I came up with…
The blue curvy line through the middle represents the constant conversation going on between people as they ate. The
The Map Assignment
The first step to this assignment was to basically destroy a map without any regards to what the finished product may be. This was probably the most difficult part of the assignment for me because I’m such a control freak that the messiness really stressed me out. I painted my map with paint, nailpolish, poured laundry detergent on it, sprayed it with hair spray, stapled it, wet it, even glued marshmallows to it. The parts I really liked were how the wet map could be shaped into any form. My map was one of North Carolina which is where I’m from and it really reminded me of our family motorcycle trips. So, I decided to build a motorcycle out of it which took me probably 18 hours, but it was SO worth it! I used my own motorcycle as a design reference hopefully you can tell the resemblance!
ABC’s and 123′s
For this assignment we were instructed to take photographs of each letter of the alphabet and numbers 1-9. The trick was that we couldn’t use examples where the letter was actually intended to be that letter. This required us to really use our imagination and start to look at things in a new way. I started finding letters in everything around me such as bicycles, sidewalks, and tree roots. Some of the letters and numbers came very easily, others were insanely difficult to find. Once I found all of them I decided to display my photos in a dictionary. I found a small pocket dictionary in a used book store that worked perfectly because the sleeve came off to reveal a plain white cover which I really liked. Here are my results…
Jack and Jill
Well, at first this assignment intimidated me. I thought I had to come up with some elaborate, extremely creative version of the Jack and Jill classic. After meeting with my group and collaborating our ideas we came up with this idea that Jack and Jill are two opimistic birds in love. When they leave for their journey on their new life together, Jack gets killed by a cat, with Jill following soon after. However, the two end up together in a Romeo and Juliet sort of way.
I really enjoyed working in a group setting. It allowed the creative juices to flow a little easier with other people to bounce ideas off of. It also helped to get the project done a lot quicker by deligating segments of the assignment to each team member. The only downfall is when one member of the group is absent from the entire assignment it makes it difficult to produce a cohesive product. Otherwise, I thoroughly enjoyed doing this project as well as seeing what the other teams came up with.
Blog Inspiration
Initially I searched to find Chip Foose’s blog. He’s a very inspiring car designer to me because he’s in design and restoration. When I found his blog I was a little let down. It’s fairly visually appealing but all of his posts are just about events that he’s involved in rather than some of his current work. Nothing inspiring there.
http://www.chipfoose.com/ws_display.asp?filter=Blog
THIS blog however, I LOVE! I love the design of it. It’s simple but interests you at the same time. I like that you can go to the different pages such as sketchbook and portfolio. There are also links to his top posts and recent comments down the side. I also like how the photos are so large and he also incorporates videos. Check it out!
http://www.studioclues.com/sketchbook/
This blog seems to have a newspaper quality about it which I like. It’s clean, easy to read and figure out. I also enjoy that the photos are the main focus. The site is also connected to their Facebook, Twitter, etc. which is a smart choice.
Some blogs definitely stand out more than others simply because of the layout, colors, and design. Some that are bland and boring do not seem as professional and relevant. They seem very outdated. I hoped to find more interesting blogs about yacht design but most seemed to fall under this outdated category.
Exploration 2: The Black Square Problem
In this assignment we were only allowed to use flat black squares to communicate the following words:
Order, Increase, Bold, Congested, Playful, and Tension
Here are my designs!..( I used everyone’s favorite black construction paper again!)
Order-
Increase-
Bold-
Congested-
Playful-
Tension-
Let me know what you think!
Repetition Grid
In the first part of this assignment we were asked to create a new shape by taking one and taking a chunk out of it with another. Then we were asked to choose one out of the 75 that we had done. Once we chose “the one” we played around with it on a grid to figure out the exact placement that we preferred. Then we used copies of that and played around with them on a grid. I decided on a design that had lots of variety and almost all of the subgroups created different negative and postitive space when I got to the inking. During the critique my piece got an array of reviews. A lot said the focal point was not obvious but most liked that it kept your eye moving. They said my motif was very simple (which it is) but it works because there is so much variety. Some even said it might’ve been interesting to see what could’ve been done with 100 tiles instead of 25. Overall I really enjoyed the project. All of the steps kept me on my toes and guessing what the end result would be. Even though the actual inking was annoying and tedious, I’m pretty pleased with my finished design.
Redesigned Curved Lines
I decided to redesign my curved lines image because I don’t believe the lines show any variety in thickness within one line which didn’t create movement. The new design creates more interesting negative space and the lines now help your eyes move around the page.
