Author Archives: leahm809

Demo A: Sculpting with Clay

Posted on by

after painting with acrylic paint, i added details in colored pencil and ballpoint pen

Demo B: Basic Automaton

Posted on by

box interior: added some supporting cardboard panels for the dowels supporting the frogs.

sketch of the dowels i glued for the frog mechanism.

Demo A: Carving

Posted on by

Edit 10/1: I added some more details; a wooden dowel for the stem & I replaced the armature supporting the head with a dowel as well. I also cut out some felt details and attached them with hot glue, and instead of making arms I finished this off with a cape. 

Original 9/30:

I left this guy armless because I was running out of felting time ^^;;

In order to attach all the pieces to each other i used armature wire & spray adhesive for a stronger bond. For the legs (and the worm) I also felted into the base (after they were glued) to make the pieces slightly more cohesive.

 

I originally was going to use styrofoam, but it was difficult to carve without being fairly careful & I didn’t trust its resilience. I also opted not to use floral foam because it isn’t feltable (at least not easily?) and I felt like it was breakable. I ended up using polyethylene foam which was a nice surface to felt into– the final product is a sculpture that is soft to the touch but not posable.

Soft Sculpture Demo A/B

Posted on by

This week I decided to sew a little guy! I have really basic sewing experience but this was my first time working from a pattern/making a plush and it was about as difficult as I anticipated, but overall I’m happy with the result!

scrapped body

 

The pattern I created initially included a body;  to come up with the basic shape I referenced a stuffed toy that I have and worked backward. I ended up scrapping the body as the other pieces came together because I thought the final result would look cuter if the limbs came directly from the star.

 

Most of this project was machine sewn, but the hand sewing part certainly took the longest. (…along with turning the arms and legs inside out…) Becuase I edited my design as I went, I didn’t plan ahead in adding the gusset or limbs before closing up the edges of my star. Sewing those pieces and making sure that everything was going to fit in the end was a little daunting, and as you can probably tell the gusset was a.) sewn in wrong  and b.) not the right size.

Pop-Up Demo A

Posted on by

 

For this week I chose to experiment with pop-up mechanics and I had so much fun! I love working with paper so I was really excited to jump into this project, but of course actually making something that A.) looks nice and B.) actually closes was a little bit easier said than done. My process was mostly guided by trial and error, including my work on the final, and instead of working from a sketch I just tested my ideas on a different sheet of paper as I worked through what components I wanted to display in my pop-up.

The biggest difficulty I had (which I’m sure was the same for most) was making sure that my parts weren’t inhibiting eachothers’ movement, and a lot of it had to do with which direction I was having pieces fold. I definitely had to compromise parts of my scene because they were folding into each other. The trial and error process was often frustrating, especially because I was working as I went (obviously not ideal); I ended up having to cut parts of my base in order to fit the foreground in.

 

 

Blender Demo C

Posted on by

yayyyy

the artwork i used for my planes:

some windows and doors
original illustration

 

For this demo I focused on the relationship between my planes and the camera– I really love the effect that adjusting the depth of field gives but my initial set up wasn’t giving me as dramatic of an effect as I wanted.  After figuring out that I had to change the render engine to see a change in the dof, I played around with the distance between each plane, the distance from the camera, and the aperture.

initial plane set-up
adjusted planes for dof

knife tool

My next point of experimentation was to adjust the topography of my planes… I only happened upon the knife tool when I was trying to figure out how/if I could cut a plane into two (still unsure how to do that, but I’m sure that I can!) I decided to put some folds in this plane to make it more grass like, but it’s not very noticeable in the final render.

The final step was to animate the camera zooming (and panning slightly) to show that my planes exist in a 3D space. I used the auto-keying feature for this which made the process indcredibly simple.

animating the camera

My first hour or so in blender was pretty rough (most of it spent really desperately trying to get my shadows to work) but after a couple of youtube tutorials I’m really excited to work more in this program. This tiny taste was a lot of fun :o)

Bridge 1 ABC

Posted on by

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

In this abecedarian, I chose to focus on a myriad of different obsessions, ranging from very mundane and tangible (such as high-fives) to more serious (like isolation). The comments I received during critique affirmed certain parts of my work, such as whether or not the images I used to represent each obsession were successful. For the most part I got positive feedback, but looking back I wish I had asked why certain images worked, or if any were unclear.

If I had another week to work on this, I probably would have picked my materials with more intentionality– one of the questions I got was why I chose the colors I did, and the answer was simply “Those were the colors I owned.” Furthermore, I would have spent more time choosing certain obsessions, because I only really had one day to mull over what I think I’m obsessed with. Being able to make a list and then look at it again over a day or two would have allowed me to pick themes with more certainty. Additionally I would have considered my format more closely. I chose to make a book because I like the way it looks, but the finished product wasn’t more designed than that. In other words, the book feels like a means of presenting the image, rather than an integral piece of the artwork itself– the work could exist in a grid. If I had more time I could have designed a better cover, considered page format, or try to push the possibilites granted by this medium.

Hee Eun’s piece really stood out to me– I was surprised that someone would choose to design a website, and the way that they presented their work felt very intentional (the design of the website perfectly captured the aesthetic of childhood– highly saturated, bright colors– and I really enjoyed the audio that they added). The juxtaposition of color and sound with their more serious obsessions was really successful and ironic.

I also enjoyed Laura’s cats– I thought that presenting obsessions in this way was very interesting and completely different than what I expected. The format was visually appealing, despite its lack of alphabetical order, and to design entire characters around personal obsessions was a unique and refreshing take– pushing the limits of the project’s requirements.

The obsessions I’m most curious about in my work are those tied to memory, procrastination and isolation. These themes came up in various obsessions that I listed (embers, memories, yesterday– baking, giving up, video games– nighttime, the ocean, quiet) and they seem like themes that are always dancing around my subconscious, and it was intriguing to see that of 26 “different” obsessions, most fall under one of those three categories.

Bridge 4 Reflection

Posted on by

The focal point of my research about Polyester was the extremely positive reception it recieved when it began being mass-produced in the 1950s. It was hailed as a ‘wonder-fiber’ due to its extreme durability and its ability to be washed and dried without damaging the material. As time passed, however, the material’s image shifted, and many viewed it as cheap and unfashionable. It’s strong point was its convenience, but as style and concern for the enviroment hailed, Polyester became less appealing.

With the posters I created, I aimed to create fun and almost childish images, in order to reference my object (a stuffed toy). I wanted to play around with the concept of manmade and handmade, hence the collage. The posters can be viewed almost as propoganda for a material that really is the opposite of “safe” and “sustainable.”

The critique was helpful, and aided me in realizing that certain themes I wished to express did not really come out in these posters, such as the ones mentioned earlier. As the creator, I understand that polyester isn’t sustainable, and is often dangerous to create due to the chemicals involved (many of which are pollutants.) The posters themselves view polyester in a mostly positive light, except for the on the far left. I think that I would make my design choices more intentional in the future, as well as conduct more clear research in order to create a more impactful and compelling design. Ultimately these posters seemed shallow at best, and while I believe their aesthetic was cohesive, I feel that they fail to deliver a delibrate or clear message.

(Instead I could have created a hierarchy of information– starting with the appeal of polyester to the consumer, and moving inward to the cost of polyester on the environment, perhaps going ahead more to talk about the guise of sustainability in regard to the “recycling” of polyester.)

Bridge 2 Reflection

Posted on by

 

The artist that I researched was Wolfgang Tillmans, a german photographer known for his photographs of the german club scene in the 80s. Much of his work breaks the norm as far as composition and subject matter goes. My artist, Alice Neel was an American portrait artist, whose works revolved a great deal around local new yorkers, ranging from the everyday person to actors, writers and politicians. In their own ways, each artist was a documentarian.

Realizing the similarities between Neel and Tillmans was very interesting to me, considering the differences in their lives– Tillmans was born in 1968 in West Germany, while Neel was born in 1900 in Pennsylvania. 

The concept that Adrian and I came up with drew inspiration from the documentarian aspect of each of our artists– we wanted to show student life through a series of portraits and still lives. I chose to paint the figures in the portraits in a style reminiscent of Alice Neel’s, while adopting some of the strangeness seen in Tillmans’ work.

I really like the emotion that came out in the painted pieces I made, but I would have liked to created clearer cohesion between my portraits and Adrian’s still lives.

Adrian took all the photographers for this project, while I waited and drew over the files he sent me. This process worked, but was slightly stressful because I had to rely on Adrian to finish his part of the piece before I could begin mine. Ultimately, I’m proud of what we made together and fortunate that we were able to get it all done.

Bridge 1 Reflection

Posted on by

Original Mock-up

 

New Mock-up

Wall Didactic

Kara Walker’s piece, “A Subtlety”, focuses on the tie between the sugar trade and its root in slavery and hard labor. Walker is able to utilize the size and state of her space to create a piece that is harmonious with its surroundings, ultimately highlighting the power of her central figure, Sugar Baby, and playing with percieved stereotypes and flipping them on their head. 

Our piece attempts to comment on a seperate issue, climate change. We wanted to keep the scale and tie to social media present in the display of our piece, so the location is key– the project must be seen and experienced as it melts away. The temporary aspect of the ice sculpture is an important homage to the decay of sugar in Walker’s original piece, and like Walker, we wanted to memorialize the piece in photos that viewers would take. 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Through my research, I found that Kara Walker was asked by Creative Time to create an installation for the Domino Sugar Factory specifically– in other words, she was asked to create a piece for a specific space. She was enamoured by the state of the sugar factory, with pools of molasses around the floor of the building, dripping from the walls etc. She speaks in greate length about her creative process, and about how the basis of her ideas revolved around certain specific concepts: 1. The idea of ruins (ancient, egyption, and the space itself) 2. A socially “accepted” idea of white=good, and black-bad. 3. The reclamation and of a space. The piece represents the sugar trade and its integral tie to slavery, all while utilizing the size of the space and and the temporary nature of the scultpure to drive viewers to engage with the piece through pictures posted on social media, ultimately creating a related, more performative piece, of racism in action.

Reflection
The research itself went more smoothly than I expected, due to the wealth of what’s written about Walker and this piece specifically. Having access to videos of Walker herself speaking about her piece was very helpful to me in researching her creative process, especially due to the popularity of this project specifically. Of course, there was some difficulty in researching more specific details of her inspiration for this piece, because it is so different from her usual work.

Working in a group was overall interesting in the rehashing of ideas and creation of our final mock-up. My group and I specifically lacked some communication throughout this assignment, but that showed mainly in our Seminar presentation. In discussing our final project, I initially had mixed feelings about our message, unsure if a polar bear being as a vessel to communicate a message about global warming was either original or the clear “successor” to Walker’s piece. And while some of these feelings still remain, it was interesting to hear from other people that felt differently.

I personally have always been very interested in Kara Walker’s artwork, seeing it for the first time when I was around 7 years old. However, I had never done any in-depth research on her work, so this assignment was eye-opening in regard to some of her developmental processes, as well as for my interpretation and apprecieation of her other pieces.

Our proposed alternative artwork, in its initial conception, ultimately seems underwhelming compared to Walker’s piece. I think that the message itself may be a bit overdone, but the comments from our critique were very helpful in creating the idea for a more successful piece. In our original mock-up, we had our piece sitatued somewhere near the river at Chelsea Piers. While this location is public, it’s not nearly as in-your-face as Times Square, where the sculpture could even become an inconvenience (and ultimately force people to feel the uncomfortable impact of climate change, an issue that many ignore because it “doesn’t directly affect them”.) Having the piece ultimately discuss enrionmental racism and its effects on people rather than the image of a polar bear would have, perhaps, been a more powerful initial approach.