Dragon Drawing

I really love fantasy, so I figured I would draw a dragon in order to practice shading. It is loosely based off of a dragon on the cover of the book "Eragon", although it turned out looking a little different. Thats ok, though. I made it my own.

Shading 101

There are a couple different ways to shade objects. Two of which are shown above. The upper picture is my eraser shaded in diagonal lines of different pencil intensity. The one beneath it is my friend's pearl earring, shaded in a bunch of random lines. Shading is pretty fun. I just have to remember to really concentrate when trying to get the right values. This is definitely a time when the person drawing has to be "in the zone."

My Mag

This is a magazine that I created to show some of Frank LLoyd Wright's buildings. He, to me, seems like a very sophisticated architect. I thought the black and white cover kind of played on that.








(all of these pictures are from greatbuildings.com)

Frank Lloyd Wright

Robie House. Chicago, Illinois
The Robie House seems to be all about the lines. The abundant amount of horizontal lines seem to be what Wright was going for when designing this house. The different levels have only a small gap in the brick wall to differentiate between them, yet their width seems to more than double their height. I loved the use of brick in this building. I thought it was a smart choice because I like the way it looks with the surrounding trees and against the concrete that is also on the house.

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Ennis House LA California
The Ennis house reminds me of a concrete castle. It has a sort of majestic quality to it while still keeping it modern. One thing that stands out to me is the texture of the building. The materials used make it look bumpy. This makes it more visually interesting to look at.

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Falling Water OhioPyle, Pennsylvania
This architectural masterpiece seems to have been made while keeping the earth’s elements in mind. It was obviously made to sit right over a river, so the water is cascading down in front of it. The stone’s color mimics that of the water. The design of the whole building is absolutely divine. I like the how the porch area shoots out above the water in different directions. This is the house of my dreams.

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Taliesin House Spring Green, Wisconsin

The word “cozy” comes to mind when looking at this house. To me, it has a woodsy feel. The colors are kept subtle and natural. I like the roof and how it has a slight angle to it. It is for sure the kind of house someone would want to be in on a snowy day.
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Unitarian Meeting House Madison, Wisconsin
The most interesting thing about this church is, without a doubt, the A-frame roof. Its angled lines draw the eye in and make someone want to keep looking at it. What makes the roof even more aesthetically pleasing is the high contrast of color between the top (black) and bottom (white) of it.

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Storer Residence Los Angeles, California
The Storer Residence is interesting because there are many places the eye wants to go to. The concrete is has intricate designs carved into it. There are many different doors and windows that make the building more of a mystery. It makes the passerby think “I wonder what is through that door? Or that one? Ooh, or that one?” Any building that makes a person really want to walk through its doors has served its purpose…well, in an architects eyes, at least.

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Jacob's House Middleton, Wisconsin
This house defies the norm because of its curving walls. It looks quite surreal at first glance. Even the statue out front has the same curved quality about it.

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Taliesan West Scottsdale, Arizona
The Taliesan house looks almost as if the architect was mother nature. The stone material looks a lot like conglomerate rock. The wood on the top of the house looks as if a couple of trees just fell over on top and created a roof. There is a feeling of effortlessness when looking at this house, although one who knows anything would know better than to really think that.

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Moore House Chicago, Illinois
This house also has a slight A-frame quality to it. The area inside the roof looks a lot like German architecture, with the off-white paint and brown geometrical molding.

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Ward Willits House Highland Park, Illinois
Here is another German-inspired house. The geometric quality adds a sort of serene feeling to it. The perfect squares above the rectangular window, with more rectagles on top of it are only a couple of features that make this house balance out. The colors make the house come a part of its surroundings. The light sky blends with the light paint and the dark molding mimics the color of the surrounding trees. Very clever.

Metamorphosis::When Two Projects are Fused Together

Hello, world..
The title of this post is very self explanatory. We were to take one project from the person on each side of us on the alphabetical listing of students. The two people whose projects I had to combine were Kara Petrisco and Jessica Crews.

This is Jessica's memory box. I really liked the way the two boxes fit together.

Here is Kara's memory box. The qualities I liked about this box were the dangling mosaic-like squares of foam board. I really wanted to incorporate that into my project.

[thumbnails]

These were my first ten sketches for my project. I finally chose the very last thumbnail sketch as my project.

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"Karsicca"

This is my version of a perfect fusion of Kara and Jessica's projects. The colors came from Kara's project. All of the hanging pieces of foam board were red except for one piece, which was yellow. I wanted to give that same feel to my project; the red overwhelms the yellow squares. The shape of my box came from Jessica's project. the yellow fits into the red like a puzzle piece. as well as the material (foam board.)
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"Jossica"

The next part of the assignment was to create two more "fusions". These were to be of my project and the other two. For instance, I had to create a prototype of a fusion between my new project and Kara's (and the same with Jessica's.) First was Jessica's.This one has the same colors as Jessica's, which is nowhere in the other projects. I actually got the idea for this project from Tommy. After he suggested it, I wondered why I hadn't thought of it. When you think about things too hard, your brain kind of shuts down and you are blind to the obvious.

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"Karsie"

This last project is a blend of my project and Kara's. I sat down and sketched out different things that had qualities of both of our boxes. I settled on one and started working. I wanted to keep the hanging foam board idea, only I switched the shape of it to reflect the shape of my box and the "puzzle-like" quality.

This project as a whole taught me that designers are always inspired by other designers. They take ideas from their fellow designers and make something new out of it. There was a lot of talk about the "essence" of a project. I never really got what that meant untill this project came around. It is breaking a piece of work down to its bare minimum and figuring out why it is special. Design truly is a beautiful skill.

"What makes studio, studio?" layout

ID July/august 2007 page 188/189

Here is my sketchbook layout. The prompt was "What makes studio, studio?"

Memory of Musical Performance

This assignment was to design a container for a memory. At first, lots of people, including myself, were confused how you can "contain" a memory in something. Then we came to realize, with Tommy's help, that it doesn't necessarily have to be a box, per say, but something that is reminiscent of that memory. It has to evoke the same feeling that the memory had.

My memory was not just one memory, but a series of memories. Back in high school, I was known as the piano girl. I played for many different functions: recitals, plays, graduation, seminary, chorus concerts, etc. I wanted to design a container to show how when I was playing the piano, I felt isolated from the audience, but still connected to them. I was connecting to them through music.
This is the first iteration. I was basically trying to get the form and test out different materials. I used matt board for the circles, and tissue paper as the connectors between the two. The circle in the middle is supposed to be me. It is surrounded by the "audience" and the two of us are connected by "music." Good idea, but needs work.



This is the final product. I made it a couple times before, but they all turned out the same. The material that I used for the circles was a felt-board material. Part of me wishes I could have found something more sturdy. The other part of me likes the fact that it can bend and move because when you bend it, the ribbons--or "music"-- stretches with it and remains connected. I thought that was kinda cool--and fun to play with. I like this iteration a lot better. The inside of the middle circle, which is supposed to be me playing the piano, has ribbon twisting and turning on the inside. They shoot out of the middle and connect to the "audience". There are two different colors of ribbon to signify the right and left hands while playing piano. The silver ribbons, which are placed at equal distances from each other, are the left hand because that is the hand that maintains a steady beat. The gold ribbon is the right hand. It is the melody that weaves in and out of the silver.

Overall, I think this project worked out all right. I just need to get more creative. Sometimes I feel like I'm falling behind the rest of the class. But something tells me mostly everyone feels like that.

A Home for my Pencils

The assignment was to design a place to put our pencils. This was my first iteration. I wanted it to have the leaning sides and mosaic-feel. Even though it looks pretty cool, it ended up being very fragile.

This was my next attempt. It definitely looks more structurally sound. I completely ditched the mosaic look of it and decided to focus on the geometric quality and cool negative space that is present here. When I was finished, though, I missed the leaning sides. I also thought the matt board at the bottom was too big of a base.


These last three pictures are my final iteration of this project. The precariousness is back from the first project with the diagonal sides. The base is still there, but is smaller and simplified to one color. Overall, I think this is my best project yet. Its amazing how some ideas seem to work out so well and then others crash and burn. I'm learning to be more okay with the crashing and burning ideas, though. There's definitely some improvement in my work ethic.