Finished Floor

Finished Floor

This week I finished the floor plan and it looks really nice. Now I can finally move onto constructing the house. I can't wait to see it all come together and have a nice finished peice. I'm really enjoying this project. The next step would be to construct the interior of the house including the spiral staircase.

The Floor Plan

The Floor Plan

This week I've been working on the floor plan for the A-Frame house. I've cut the pieces for almost the whole plan but have yet to put it together. The floor plan is tough because it needs to be nailed and not glued and the nails are small and fall out easily. It looks like this project will take longer than what I was hoping but I was very hopeful in the first place. The project will be finished most likely one to two weeks after winter break. I still can see it all coming together and I can't wait until I have a nice finished project.

A-Frame's In Process

A Frame's In Process

This week I completed six A-Frame's out of eight for my A-Frame model house project. It was challenging at first but as time progressed and I completed more frames it got quite simple. I'm at the point now where I don't even need to refer to the directions or measurements to make a frame. The next step in the project after all of the frames are constructed would be the floor, roof and interior. I'm very delighted to see the progress that I've made already and I like seeing physical results. I hope to have this project completed by Winter break.

A-Frame Model House Project Start

A-Frame Model House Project Start

This week I've begun a project that I'm probably more excited about than any project I've worked on this year. I am attempting to construct a 3/4th scale model of an A-Frame house. 3/4th scale means that 3/4th's of an inch in my model would be equal to one foot in a full scale model house. The project is very professional and comes with realistic floor plans. I must follow the floor plans very carefully if I want the house to come out like it is supposed to. I'm very excited to gain experience and see the final product.

Gears

Gears

This week I've begun my new unguided project. I have cut out the foam core walls and currently working on my first set of gears. I used a template to create the gears and pasted the paper template onto a peice of plywood. Then I cut out and adjusted the gears. They came out pretty nice but need some adjusting to make them turn the way I want them to. I'm slowly seeing the piece come together as I get further and further and I can almost visualize it.

Here Comes The Sun

Here Comes The Sun

    This week I'm beginning my first piece with no guidance from a book or instructions. The only requirement my teacher has asked for is that the piece consists of atleast one CAM and two gears. I will use the gears to make a mechanism which spins around with a sun on one end of the stick and a moon on the other side of the stick. As the gear spins the sun will appear to set and rise over and over while at the same time the sun is rising a figure in a bed will rise by means of a CAM and when the sun sets and the moon rises the figure will lay back down. The piece may be subject to change as the building process commences and it should come out pretty nice. I'm excited to see how well I handle this first unguided project.

Duck Pond

Duck Pond

    This week I completed my second kinetic sculpture. It is a basic gear mechanism and runs pretty smoothly for a paper model. Iv'e decided not to build a foam core model of this and instead move onto another project. The new project is going to be completely from scratch with no guidence besides from  my teacher. I feel like I'm begining to be able to better visualize mechanisms and how they work and this upcoming project will surely require this skill. I'm excited to turn thoughts into reality and I really hope it will come out as I imagine it.

Finally Finished

Finally Finished

    This week I have finally finished my flying dragon piece. It's been a long time since I saw the picture of the model in the paper sculpture book to now having a rough draft model finished. The movement is better than I could have imagined. The stgment wings and head (thanks Mr. Runge) add a whole new illusion of the dragon flying through the air. I still have to clean it all up but as of now I am done making new things. I feel very accomplished and happy with how the piece turned out.

Elements of Design Part Two

Elements of Design Part Two

    This week I will explain how the second half of the elements of design relate to a sculpture I found online (I'm not sure what the name of the sculpture is or who made it but I am not taking any credit for it). The first principal I'll look at is balance. There is some asymetrical balance in the peice but it is very hard to recognize, the high point on the top right of the sculpture is balanced by the loop that occurs on the left of the sculture making the amount of mass sort of even on the left and right. Movement can sometimes be easier seen in sculptures and in this peice the movement is how your eye follows the pattern of the sculpture and scans it like a racecar on a track. There isn't much rythm in the peice but this was most likely intended by the artist as the free flowing, random (not so much random after looking at the elements of design) form is amusing to look at and just examine. Unity is very hard to comprehend but a simple example in this peice is how it is all connected and the loop is connected, somewhat like an infinity symbol. The peice is proportionaly large compared to many similar sculptures and this was most likely intended as it seems as if it is displayed in some park in order to get attention. The bas relief tequnique was not used in this peice but it is a tequnique in which the artist carves into an object to make images somewhat like how egyptians carved into stone in pyramids to make images. The whole peice is also free standing. The in-ground support gives the illusion that the sclupture is just balancing on it's own or that it is just free standing. High relief, the tequnique of sculture in which the sculpted objects stand out more than fifty percent of their natural position, is also not a tequnique used in this peice. That is the rest of the elements of design and how they relate to the above peice.

Elements of Design

Elements of Design

    This week I've decided to explain how a few elements and principles of design relate to my sculpture. There isn't much color in the mechanism itself but I plan to make the dragon that sits on top colorful to beautifuly contrast the pure white. Line can be seen in curved form in the CAM's and straight lines can be seen in the walls. Line's are essential to mechansims and must be precise or it won't work properly. There isn't a defined form at the moment as the peices are unassembled but when they are assembled they will take the shape of a rectangular cube. Value, or the general lightness or darkness in a design element, can be seen in the sense of color. The value of color for the mechanism is very light for example. At the moment there isn't much posotive or negative space but when the three dimensional model is finished the hollow center will create a good deal of negative space and the walls and CAM's will create the posotive space. Since the model is rather small it will not occupy much space in general. In terms of scale the sculpture is both small and large, as it is a larger scale model of my original paper model but a smaller scale model of some larger mechanisms. Pattern can be seen with the CAM's as they alternate orientation on the rod. This is just a few of the elements and how they relate to my sculpture.

Coming Together

Coming Together

    This is my foam core flying dragon kinetic sculpture which is slowly coming together. I've got the cam working and moving and it's looking nice so far. I really think that this foam core model is going to be a lot sturdier than the previous paper model. I really want to see the finished project and see it work like it should. I should be done with the structure by next week and I will try to have the dragon "flying" by next Friday.

Foam Core Flying Dragon

    This week I finished the paper flying dragon model. I didn't get the dragon to work however as the paper wasn't sturdy enough to do what I was trying to have it do. My teacher then brought up the idea that I should recreate the model with foam core, a more sturdy replacement. I'm currently in the process of recreating the original paper model now and making it on a little larger scale. It's coming out well so far and I'm just hoping I can get the dragon working this time around.

Flying Dragon

                              Flying Dragon

 This is my first project in my new "Kinetic Sculpture" class. The dragon will eventually move up and down at certain parts of it's body to give the sense that it's flying. I'll eventually put cotton for clouds to sort of hide the mechanism and give it a nicer look. I like how its coming out so far and am really amazed at how well this all paper sculpture works. I'm really excited to get it done and working.

La Llegada

La Llegada

This will be my final piece as a graphics student. Next year I will be pursuing an Honors Independent Studies Architecture class. Iv'e came along way from my first day of graphics to now. I remember my first week when I genuinely wanted to quit and today I'm happy I didn't. I won some awards, made some new friends, and learned a lot. Below is the first piece I made and above is my final piece, a long way.

Rendering

Rendering

This is a rendering of the living room in the house I've been working on this week. It's not finished yet but I still have time to finish. I'm not really done with the house yet but I really wanted to try my hand at rendering images of the house. When I shadowed at the RRW Architecture Firm I learned that a good way to present a design is to take an image of it and render it. I actually got to watch someone render a design when I was there and he did use Photoshop (which is what I'm using). I like the idea of rendering the design in Photoshop because it really allows you to make the image a lot more appealing.

Blade Fin

This is the final product of the project we recently finished which was to create a superhero. My superhero is Blade, sort of a ninja. I changed what I originally wanted his superpowers to be from mowing lawns to kicking butt with ninja skills. The face is actually a student in my class who gave me permission to use his picture. I myself am pretty happy with the finished product. Although I'm calling it finished any piece could use a little work so I might make adjustments in the future.

Superhero

Superhero

This is the superhero that I am working to create. His name is Blade and he mows lawns. It's not the most flashy super power but maybe the most helpful. He can fly through the air at a super speed and with his samurai swords slice any lawn to an even height in less than ten seconds. He helps any lawn in need. Crabgrass or sod he cuts it all, if you need a mower give Blade a call.

Vectors Finished

Vexel Finished

This is my vexel piece all done with all the adjustments made. It turned out pretty cool and I'm definitely happy about the result. Now I'm back to working with Archicad and doing what I like best. Im currently trying to, not recreate, but follow the images I saw of a house recently in the Architectural Digest. It's gong well and not to brag but I feel like I'm getting pretty good.

Vectors

Vectors

This week our project is to create a self portrait using vectors. It looks like a simple picture yet it takes a bit of work. I really like the "cartoonish" look the piece has also. It's a very cool way to create a self portrait. The project is due on Tuesday and I hope to be finished by today. 

No Nukes

No Nukes

This week I am finishing up a .gif animation Iv'e been working on for a week. It's an animation on nuclear warfare and what I'm saying is it shouldn't be allowed. It isn't allowed to begin with but I'm just agreeing. Of course this wouldn't happen in the real world, it's just a dramatization to persuade people of my idea.

Spring Luncheon

Spring Luncheon

This is my first piece Iv'e created for submission for the Spring Luncheon competition. All of the computer graphics students are creating pieces representing Spring. Eventually they will go on an invitation for the Shorecrest Spring Luncheon. In the piece I created the sunlight, selected the large sunflower from a different image, selected the field of sunflowers, selected the sky and created multiple layer overlays and layer adjustments. I'm working on more submissions now but this is my strongest one and I hope this one wins.

Color Adjustment Layers Tutorial

Color Adjustment Layers Tutorial

This is the original image open in Adobe Photoshop 5. As you can see it is a nice image but it just needs something. I would argue that this something missing is a little bit of color adjustment. This is where the color adjustment layers come to save the day.

To find the color balance layer follow the directions: Layer --> New Adjustment Layer --> Color Balance... Once you click on Color Balance a window will open...

Click "Ok" and then a new layer will be created...

Now look above the new layer in the toolbar there should now be options to adjust the color layer...

Now, there are three different areas that can be adjusted, the shadows, the midtones and the highlights. I  like to play around with each one, one by one until I get the right combination. Start with the midtones first as they are the dominent color source. After you get the right midtones then play with the shadows and highlights, both of which shouldn't be altered too heavily as this can lead to the light source not matching up with the shadows and highlights which will in turn make the image look less real. Here is the before and after of my beach sky.

Golotology

Gelotology

This is a poster I made having to do with a project were working on this week. The objective of the project is to create a poster for a word we randomly chose from a hat. The word I chose is "gelotologist". A gelotologist is one who studies the subject of gelotology. Gelotology is the study of laughter and its effects on the human body, "gelo" the Greek word meaning laughter. So you can see now where I got the idea for this poster.

Surreal House

Surreal Room

After working on this project for so long I began to think to myself, is this really helping? Is this really helping me? Then I looked at it and thought, what have I learned? Then I realize I know how to do things I never though I would be able to understand. I now look at the toolbar at the top of the project as a bunch of recourses rather than a jumble of symbols. I understand the software so much more. So I've learned a lot but still, this project is kind of odd. Then I really thought and considered this could be something new, using an architectural software to make more art than architecture. Using architectural basics to create some things but putting it all together to create a piece of art. Now I see that this is helping and is more interesting than I thought.

Remember

Remember

This is a piece I began working on last week and I'm approaching finishing it now. The idea of the project is to combine two images to create a meaning different than both images individually. I took a picture of the skyline of New York and then a sketch on paper (which I drew in photoshop) and put it where the world trade center would be. The two images combine to create a sense of remembrance and remind people of what happened.

Scholastic Art Award

Scholastic Art Award

I recently entered these three pieces of mine in to a Scholastic Art competition and did fairly well. Each piece won an award getting a gold key, silver key and honorable mention. This is the first time I've ever received an award for my art and it's pretty sweet. The third piece was actually also entered in to the Beth El art show (sorry if the spelling is incorrect) which is again, a huge accomplishment for me and im very pleased.

Archicad

Archicad

This post also corresponds to my most recent blog having to do with my current progress in archicad. Recently, as you can see in the project, by pure serendipity I discovered how to create terrain. What I have so far represents northern Russia. The housing represents the large cities and massive population, the church (a model of Saint Basils Church) represents the strong religious devotion, the ships represent the strong naval and really just overall military force of Russia if you look closely in the air to the right of the church a satellite is there representing the devotion to the field of astronomy and of course the famous "space race".

Archicad

Archicad

I don't have an image this week as I have been working very thoroughly on my architecture and didn't have time to get a screen shot. I have actually figured out my latest problem of creating terrain which is a very big step in my learning process. Now my creations can have that official look of a green grass yard or sand on a beachfront property. I will upload an image as soon as possible next week but until then, until then...