This is the final design of my garment. I really like how the bottom turned out well and seems more fitted to the whole outfit than the previous design. The design also has better balance as there is a lot going on at the top. Although the outfit to me looks great, I still think that it is too plain and simplistic for a couture piece therefore I will be adding more accessories (Such as sleeves, gold eye make up, etc) to it to give it a more dramatic touch.
These images are arranged i order to show the different stages during fabrication. I tried to drape the red and gold Chinese letters in different ways to experiment with the way it turns out on the body. This specific material is used to give a symbolic story to the garment as it was used to protect houses from the beast. To blend the two cultures together (American and Chinese) I chose to use a textured scarf and spray paint it with gold and red to imitate the architectures in China town. The red was used to give a brick-like feeling of the architecture and the gold was used as it is one of the most popular colour used in Chinese culture. This is to symbolise how the American architecture was worn away by the Chinese immigrants who took over the area. The fringe here impersonates the Chinese lucky charms that was used was hung on bags and plants to bring luck.
At this stage I find that the composition feels unfitted as there are too many different textures fighting for attention. Therefore I will have to make the bottom more structured and give it more control.
This photomontage was done by experimenting with the ‘magic wand’ tool in photoshop to create interesting shapes from inspirational images and objects relating to chinatown and the myth of the beast ‘Nian’. The long and dramatic design on the first figure was driven from fire and Chinese patterns, using red as the main component of most of the designs as it is believed to scare away evil spirits.
The second design was a combination of the Chinese ribbon and words written on papers that was stuck on doors to protect houses, fitting perfectly into the theme of defence.
The third design came from Chinese paper lantern and the “Lantern” flower which is believed to bring good luck and light the way. There is also red fringe from the Chinese ribbon like decoration which inspires the bottom part of my garment.
This mood board is derived from my interest in the Chinese myth “Nian” a half dragon half lion beast that descends down from the mountain every new year to hunt for food eating everything from agriculture, farm animals to villagers. One year, a wise man suggested that the villagers covers the town with red and light up firecrackers to scare the beast away. From this, the night on New Year’s Eve, the town was covered in red lanterns and banner like words painted in gold to scare the beast away. (These words are to bring them good luck as well as act as a spiritual layer of defence.
To pull this inspiration into the project, I have looked at the myth under the defence perspective, bringing red colour, Chinese banners, lanterns, and lucky charms into the garment. However I was also looking at the New York side of defence to see how the two cultures could link. One of the ideas I came up with was the NYPD whom protects the entire New York population including Chinese immigrants.
I found that timed fast sketches are more effective at getting the main gestures, movement and weights of the model than carefully drawing them. From previously having to carefully sketch structures, I felt like I have drastically improved my figure drawing skills without needing to structure the 9 heads. I have also developed a lot more understanding of concentrating on the structures, main components, minimal lines in order to result in better sketches. I also enjoy working with charcoal pencil, and have found that it allows more flexibility in fast sketching with darker lines. Although I find watercolour more challenging to work with as it is more loose and flexible so I was not really able to capture components of the model.
This typeface is derived from the word ‘sharp’, created by with the use of nails and safety pins which are both ‘sharp’ objects. There are aspects of the letters that was specially exaggerated to emphasise the sharpness of the typeface.
By the end of your first semester, you will have posted a lot of content to your learning portfolio. One of the challenges for you, your instructors, potential employers, family and friends will be sorting through it all. The Courses and Topics menus based on categories and tags, the tag list, your post titles and the search box are all ways of finding things in your portfolio, but Categories and Tags are the two most important. Both help you reflect back on the work, but they also give visitors a way to understand the relationship that exists across the images, text, videos, and other content that you’ve created in the various projects, classes, or years at Parsons.
As mentioned elsewhere, Categories and Tags are two means of aggregating and presenting related content in your portfolio. Your learning portfolio comes pre-populated with categories for each of the courses you will be taking in your first year at Parsons. It also come pre-populated with over 60 tags for you to use, but you can create new ones at any time. Log into the Dashboard of your learning portfolio to see the full list of categories and tags. You will find both under the Posts tab.
Categories and Tags in the Dashboard
So whenever you make a post, be sure to assign a category for the relevant course and year and add relevant tags that might be thematic or as specific as the name of the course project the post relates to. For example, your final project in Space & Materiality might require you to develop a proposal, preliminary sketches, some historical or technical research, a prototype and a final product. These might be uploaded in separate posts, each of which could be tagged as Space Final Project. To find them all, one would simply click on the tag in the tag list or at the bottom of one of the posts to pull them all together under the heading of Posts Tagged “Space Final Project”.
This post has been assigned the tag of LP Instructions. You’ll see the tag at the bottom of the post, in the sidebar and in the footer. Click on it in any of the three locations to see what happens. On the first day of the semester, the result will look a lot like the homepage—four posts about the learning portfolio—but over time, these posts will get buried amongst all of the other content you’ll be posting to your portfolio. To find any of them, all you’ll need to do is click on the LP Instructions tag.
Posts Aggregated by Tag
Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to do that for each of your projects or themes you’ll be exploring?
Though less selective, the search box is another way to find things in your portfolio. You will get much better search results if you put some thought into giving each post a concise but descriptive title.
Get to know the layout of the learning portfolio.
Theme
The WordPress theme used by the learning portfolio is called Tetris – Newschool.edu. Continue reading
The Learning Portfolio is where you will tell your Parsons story. If you have questions or would like to learn more about the many ways you can design your portfolio, be sure to visit the Student Resources + Support site at portfolio.newschool.edu/studentsupport. But before you do, be sure to read the About pages under Courses and Topics in the menu bar and in the Links section of the footer, as well as the other three posts found on the homepage.
As a student at The New School, you can create as many blogs as you wish. But when you first registered for your Learning Portfolio at portfolio.newschool.edu, a portfolio/blog was created for you with your Net. Id. at the end of the URL, e.g. http://portfolio.newschool.edu/YourNetId. Hopefully, that’s the blog you’re reading right now. Have a look at the address bar for confirmation. It’s important that you use that blog—that URL—as your Learning Portfolio. It makes it possible for your instructors and classmates to find your Learning Portfolio. To learn about privacy settings, see the Help menu.
The Learning Portfolio is a tool with which you will engage throughout your education at Parsons (and perhaps beyond). The focus of the Learning Portfolio is on reflection, on looking across your many courses and semesters and the various assignments and projects throughout the curriculum. The portfolio is a way for you to examine your own progress and performance, to share your work with others, and to tell a story about your time on campus (New York, Paris, and elsewhere).
By uploading files to a learning portfolio site to share with others, students are declaring that they created the content or that they have the right/permission to distribute this material within a class (in the case of Canvas) or on the Internet (in the case of uploading to a learning portfolio site). Should you have any questions about how to acquire this permission or your use of the materials, please see the Copyright & Citation tab on the Library’s Images for Designers and Art Researchers page or email ereserves@newschool.edu.