2D Final

For 2D we had to create an accordian book based on a short story or short narrative. I chose a section of Tolkein's book The Silmarillion. It's the story about the Two Trees of Valinor, which the gods created to give light to their country. One of their own, Melkor, had slowly outcasted himself through his terrible actions and deceptions (he had destroyed two lamps that once gave all the light to Valinor, jealous that he couldn't have this light for himself) sought to destroy them. If these trees were destroyed, Valinor would be thrust into darkness. He convinced a great monster, Ungoliant, to help him ruin the trees. Ungoliant takes the form of a giant spider who eats light, and since she had eaten all the light around her cave home, she was starving. She hid Melkor in a cloud of unlight, a light that wasn't darkness or light, but a void. They snuck up on the trees; Melkor stabbed them and Ungoliant sucked the sap out of them. Melkor used this void darkness to steal two jewels that captured the light of the Trees, now the only remains of the Trees and light in the world. His jealousy and desire to own something that wasn't his resulted in his permanent banishment, but he was the only one with the Silmarils and felt that he had "won" over the other gods. Two goddesses tried to bring the trees back to life, but could only draw a single flower from one and a single fruit from the other, which became the sun and moon.

I choose this story because it's one of the shorter tales in the book, but also because I want to communicate the fall of Melkor and how his desire twisted him and ruined others permanently. I've decided to do a mixed media project, using Photoshop, stills from the Lord of the Rings movies, pen and ink drawings, text in Tolkein's languages, and some watercolor or colored pencil drawings, all collaged together onto the accordion.

door/window final part II

The top photo was taken in Old Lyon District, Lyon, France. These buildings were all Renaissance and back, stopping around the Middle Ages. They were fascinating old buildings. This tower houses a staircase, and in life is a much brighter red.
The bottom photo was taken last winter about ten minutes from my house in Hopewell, NJ, in the middle of the Sourland Mountain Preserve. The remains of this house stands on the front part of someone's property. I took it from my car window because a sign in the driveway I was parked in had a rather frightening "No Trespassing" sign on it and I wanted to be able to get away quickly. This area is pretty sparsely populated, full of unkempt dirt roads and fallen farmhouses. The people here are protective of their property, which is unfortunate because I find the abandoned buildings on the mountain really quite beautiful.

door/window final

What I like about these is that they were all taken while I was moving. I was in a tour group in Marseilles, France during a foreign exchange trip in 2008, and I had to keep up. So I didn't really have a lot of time to set up and take multiple shots. I think each of these photos has only one to three shots of the same spot total.

Drawing Final

My drawing final was pretty vague, basically to draw a chart of something you're really interested in. So I decided to do Doors of Middle Earth, two of my passions.

Whenever I go abroad, I take as many pictures of doors as possible. I find doors really fascinating, especially in older cities like Dublin and Dresden. Recently I've moved on to windows, but I have dozens and dozens of door pictures, which I'll post in a slideshow after this post. The symbolism of doors and windows isn't too complicated (entrances, exits, the unknown if the door is closed, seeing in or others seeing out/spying) but it draws me in anyway.

Middle Earth and Tolkien's legendarium also fascinates me. He created a world with various cultures, languages, customs, places, a full history and lineages two thousand years long. He literately constructed an entire world and its history. So, I figured I could do a chart of doors from different cultures (Hobbit, Gondorian, Elven) based on his descriptions and Peter Jackson's movie's interpretations. He hired two artists, John Howe and Alan Lee, who have spent most of their careers illustrating Tolkien's books. Alan Lee does these brilliant watercolors, which inspired me to do watercolors with colored pencil details. I can't wait to get started on this.

3D Final

My 3D final is the alter ego project that Nichola does at the end of each semester. It's her version of the Foundation pattern project. We had to answer a series of questions, design and backstory three characters, choose one and design a final costume for it. It's a lot of time consuming work, especially because craft is so important. If something's sewn incorrectly and doesn't fit or the seams aren't neat, it stands out. I spent about five to seven hours just trying to get the leggings on my costume to fit; I still have to make a cape and shirt.

My alter ego idea is the last in a few projects I did on anxiety and panic attacks. Originally, she was going to rescue people from panic attacks by gathering them into a pod/womb structure. But now, it's about the idea that alter egos are a part of the original person, and how that part doesn't have to become a separate individual. Instead, you can use your alter ego to teach yourself how to fix the shortcoming or problem that the alter ego fixes. Instead of saving me from a panic attack, my alter ego teaches me how to deal with it on my own, how to get strong enough and confident enough to tackle an attack before it becomes a problem.

photoshop environment

this was the photoshop environment project... i definitely feel as though i could have done more with this, but i got really stuck with my concept early on. i wish i had a solid idea to start with; then my final product would be more cohesive. i like individual elements in this image, but not all of them together.

photoshop painting

This was our photoshop painting assignment. Rather than trying to cover the entire drawing, I incorporated the original drawing with the photoshop brushes to compare and contrast the effects (soft, flamelike marks vs. thick, impasto marks)

lecture 3/22

So today was just advising... I talked to my advisor last week and I have to send out emails today to the glass department so I can get a meeting in. I can't wait for sophomore year... I really, really want to start taking different classes. Mostly I want to start anew. This has been a really difficult year for me... I feel like another school year is a step closer to healing and better times and better grades. Hopefully I make it out of this semester in one piece.

Illustrator Portrait

So this is our scanned face project. There's easily a thousand different pen layers in here... it took me wayyyyy too long to do this. I'm glad I spent a lot of time on it but it restricted how much I could get done on my photoshop drawing.

other lecture reflections

still on how i love the italian renaissance and how badly i want to go to italy. i've heard a lot of people trash it, but so far i can't find a reason not to go. live in rome for 15 weeks? why NOT? i'd live there for a year if it wouldn't delay my graduation. all i've wanted to do for a long time was live in another country. my dream is montmartre, paris. the artist's sector. one day....one day.
i want to experience another culture, language, and history so full-on the only way i COULD do that is by living abroad. and temple rome is such an easy way to do that....i don't see what the problem is.

lecture last week

last week's lecture was my favorite so far, about glassblowing and fibers. i really, really want to take glassblowing classes next year, so i'm glad i made it to this lecture.
still, i continue to have the same conflict about my major. i'm doing something i love, but i don't think i'll make any money off of it. i can't see myself making a serious living off of what i do, and that really worries me.
it's something i think about every day.

5th Illustrator Drawing

Lecture 2/22

Today's lecture featured professors from the GAID (Graphic and Interactive Design) and Printmaking programs. They're both majors I'm considering pursuing. However, I was a bit worried about majoring in printmaking. It's the one of the two that I'm more interested in, but the man giving the presentation was showing work done as fine art. It was work for galleries and installation. I'm under the impression that trying to be a fine artist and sell work to make a living is an extremely difficult field to break into, and that chances are, you won't make enough money to be a career artist and still pay rent. He couldn't really offer any marketable alternative routes one could take with a BFA in printmaking. I'm really trying to get a job after graduation, and I don't want to choose a major that might leave me unemployed. I wish that there were better solutions to the problem of being an artist and being unsure of your career path.

Floorplan Project

This project was about using the shape tool to show a bird's eye view of a room. My room is a kitchen (not my own, I made it up). It took a while to figure out the different tools and to work efficiently, but once I figured out the shortcuts it was much easier.

illustrator project part 4, pattern 2

keyboard drawing, illustrator project part 3

pattern, illustrator project

pattern made up of j's, p's and o's from the myriad pro front.

eggs and bacon! illustrator project (free drawing)

this is made up of i's and an o from the mistral font.

lecture reflection 2/8 (not foundation, art history)

since i slept through the jewelry department presentation (not intentionally), i'm going to do my reflection about my art history lecture from yesterday instead. we're covering italy between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. i went to italy during the summer of 2009 with my high school art teacher and class, and we saw a lot of the work i'm learning about in class now. at the time i didn't understand the significance of what i was looking at (say, the Arena Chapel and its innovations in composition). now the work means much more, and i wish i could have taken this class before going. it's not a loss, really- i'm going back for second semester of junior year, to temple's rome campus. art heritage is just making me even more excited for that.

lecture summary 2/1/2011

The lecture from this week was much, much more useful than the one last week. I feel like the information would have been much harder to find on my own. It was about two minors- Art Education and Art History. I wouldn't do Art Ed because I don't think art teachers (in elementary and secondary ed) get very much respect. I know my teachers had to constantly fight the administration to get supplies, and often they paid out of pocket for better quality stuff. The kids gave them attitude because they felt that the class wasn't worth their time or was a joke. I'm not trying to deal with that kind of bureaucracy or bratty mentality.

Art History would be easier since I'm required to take four courses for a BFA anyway. All I have to do is take two more. And looking at the course load I'm going to have and my plans to go to Italy junior year, I think it's completely doable. Plus, it'll be good to have art history as a background for my work.

pairing 3

This pairing represents two of my favorite foods: tea and dessert. It's the same logo as before, paired with my favorite brand of tea, Tazo. The bag that this logo was a part of had a huge fudge brownie in it, which was delicious. I got it the day I went to Reading Terminal. The teabag I had in my room. I've got a few different kinds of tea...there's probably about 50 bags of tea on my bookshelf.

pairing 2

The image on the left side is a picture of Tyler's cafeteria. It's crammed with art kids on break, eating "art kid" food- meaning, vegan food, sushi, Indian, and some random sandwiches. There's a stereotype that all art kids eat is alternative or multicultural foods, which is completely untrue and is really frustrating. What's not a stereotype, however, is the number of art students who smoke cigarettes. Most people I've asked smoke cigarettes because they thought it was cool, and now they just do it out of habit. Others say it's to relieve stress. But for some reason, there are more art student smokers than other majors (from what I've noticed).

pairing 1

The image on the left is a photo of the Suburban Station exit behind City Hall. I paired it with the logo from Flying Monkey Patisserie (in Reading Terminal) because I almost lost the logo on the subway. Flying Monkey is in Reading Terminal; I took the Broad Street Line to get there. Also, Reading Terminal and Broad Street's subway both get a ton of foot traffic.

lecture reflection 1/25/11

today's lecture on study abroad wasn't very useful for me. i couldn't hear anything because i came late, and then, at the end of the lecture, the presenter gave websites to check and people to contact with any questions i had. i felt as though i could have looked up all the information myself.
despite not being happy with lecture, i still want to study abroad. tyler's rome program is one of the reasons i came here. i love traveling, and the fact that i can go overseas and not have to pay more tuition is really exciting. i hear the art classes aren't so great, but i believe being surround by so much culture and history will be well worth the trip.

mondays might not be the worst day after all

so despite being the beginning of the week, my monday schedule is good. i have art history in the morning and drawing in the afternoon. both of my teachers are really interesting and passionate about their subjects, so it's much easier to be excited about their class. in fact, all my teachers are like that. when a teacher doesn't care about the class she or he teaches, it's really, really hard to take that class and the teacher seriously. so i'm glad my teachers care, because the classes will be interesting and worthwhile.

bust (until sunday)

so the weekend didn't get more exciting after all, aside from wandering around center city today. i stayed in to do work all weekend, planning out projects and trying to finish a ton of reading before class next week. i did, however, go to buffalo exchange for the first time. since i only work during the summer, my income has to carry me a long way. so it's good to know that i can shop somewhere and get good clothes cheap. going to buffalo also reminded me how different philly is from home... there's a secondhand shop on my town's main street, but it's mostly pastel old lady clothing and paste jewelry. but buffalo has the benefit of being in a major city, so there's all kinds of clothing coming in. i found three dresses from bcbg max azria, dresses that probably cost about $150-200. and they were only $25-30 at buffalo exchange. you'd never find that level of designer in a thrift store by my house. if you have bcbg, you're not trying to sell it.

after leaving buffalo exchange my friends and i headed towards reading terminal market, one of my favorite places in the city. it's open on sundays now, and it today it wasn't nearly as crowded as it normally is. but i still love the marketplace feel, loud and crowded with a variety of different foods, crafts, and books. flowers, fruit, chocolate, beeswax, pancakes, and clams can all be found under the same, small roof. and that's what fascinates me. philly is diverse in its people and its restaurants, but it's hard to find so many good groceries and natural products in one place. it seems like one has to travel to different parts of the city for candles, organic, local fruit, and interesting books. but reading terminal has all of those things. and it's mostly locally owned! i love the idea of successful small business, since that's what i'm thinking about doing after graduation. it can get expensive to shop in reading terminal, but i believe good products are worth paying for.

one boring friday

i thought i'd spend my weekend going on adventures throughout philadelphia. instead i spent my friday wasting time on the computer and carrying eight pounds of art supplies back from blick... hopefully the rest of my weekend will be much more eventful.

first week of class

so, i'm almost done with my first week of classes. there hasn't been a lot of homework just yet...it's mostly the professor reading the syllabus and explaining his or her expectations for the course. what i've noticed is that all of my professors are serious about their classes. they expect dedication, hard work, and drive, but they also expect efficiency. it's one thing to work hard on a drawing for eight hours; it's another to produce a drawing at the same or a higher level in two or three hours. they want us to understand that you don't have to slave over a project to make it "good". and i really appreciate that, because i used to have a mindset where an artist needs to suffer in order to produce excellent art. but suffering isn't necessary, skill and creativity are. the more efficient you are, the more work you can produce. it's easier to manage your time and easier to meet deadlines. the hard part is learning how to do that and applying it to my work and schedule.

companion piece for my 2D final