The Tessellated Triangle Task

In honor of our fabulous Valentine's day, I decided to create a composition with the tessellated triangle shapes in the shape of a flower.

Using two different types of cardstock (basically one purple pearlescent sheet and one printed sheet), I created a tessellated flower shape with the printed piece at the center and the purple pearlescent shapes functioning as the flower petals, as per the instructions given on the UMA design class blog. I initially pasted the pieces onto a piece of 11"x14" paper, but found that my composition hung off the page slightly. Once the glue dried, I corrected this by cutting around the edges of the paper and pasted the composition onto a new piece of paper.

I chose the jagged edges to function as the hinge where the petals were attached to the center. This allowed the rounded flower-shaped edges to smooth out the outer edges of the composition (since flower petals are generally smooth).

Perspective!

Since we recently talked about perspective in class, and are currently working on it in greater detail in my drawing class, I thought that this little bit from the Wins section on FailBlog was very fitting.

http://wins.failblog.org/2011/02/08/epic-win-photos-perspective-win-2/

It's basically a picture of a room where, when photographed from the proper angle, appears to be taped in the room's entry frame in the shape of a rectangle with an X through it perfectly. But, when photographed straight on, you see that the tape is in entirely different locations in the space of the room behind it.

It's a fun reminder that things are not always the way we see them. :)

The Van de Graaf Canon Caper

The Concept
There's a few different shapes I love more than toast itself. Hearts are one of them. I decided to choose a simple heart-shaped pattern, with a few variations. The left design features a smaller set of hearts with the larger heart from the right hand side at a golden point, while the right design features the larger set of hearts all over.


The Process
First, I created the Van de Graaf canon on the papers, as per these instructions, and calculated the golden points using the unit squares method. Then, I had the major fun of trying to create a decent ink-holding stamp out of various materials I had scattered in my craft boxes. I found that cardboard by itself was no good at holding ink. I thought that maybe if I attached a cloth that could hold ink well to the cardboard I would achieve better results. I then hot-glued some felt scraps to cut pieces of cardboard, and stuck corn cob skewers into the tops of the cardboard pieces to make handling a bit less messy. Those cardboard pieces held ink like nothing else. Finally, I moved my paper to a safe place to dry, away from my psychotic cats (who use anything and everything as a bed).

 

The Concept

Simplicity reigns supreme here. I opted for a simple juxtaposition between vertical and horizontal in these images. The circles of jagged lines represent the golden points on these two pages. In hindsight, even though those were drawn as circles, I can definitely see how they could be construed as hexagons in both designs. 

The Process

I used the same methods mentioned previously to create the two page divisions and to calculate the golden points in each of these. Then, I measured and created the lines with roughly 1/4 inch separations in between them in pencil initially. I drew same sized circles around the golden points to create the area where I was going to divide the lines into those zigzags you see in the image. The zigzags were created and were the first areas to be drawn over in ink. After I inked those over, I drew over the lines very carefully in ink using my ruler as a guide.

Concept Music/Visual Art Crossover: Coheed and Cambria's "The Amory Wars" Saga

(The following is a pretty silly tale about how I think silly things about things and these silly things get turned around by other silly things. Although it was a fairly silly adventure, it was a life experience that, in the end, turned out to be more worthwhile than silly.)


My crazy fangirlism for progressive rock band Coheed and Cambria started in 2004, when one of my high school friends had introduced me to a variety of random music while I gave her rides home from work. At first I was completely put off by lead singer and mastermind Claudio Sanchez's unique singing voice and songwriting style, but then it started to grow on me. Yes, I became quite addicted to this music. I had never really felt any sort of attachment to anything fictional prior to this. Yet, this music, and the storyline within, held something of more significance than just words and sounds juxtaposed together into something recognizable.

I simply had to find out more.

One day, I decided to venture forth on an epic journey through the vast reaches of the Internet to gather more information on the wonders of the music of Coheed and Cambria. It was then I confirmed my suspicions about Coheed and Cambria's music. This music was more than just music; it was also the basis for a science-fiction storyline that was to be published as a series of comic books and novels.

Claudio Sanchez is a flipping genius, I thought to myself.

Prior to this I had never imagined anyone who could successfully translate a story, and more importantly a concept of a universe, from a musical-based format to a graphic-based one. (Of course, I was young then, and didn't understand the workings of the world. Maybe if I had a bit more imagination and like, thirty times more faith in the minds of modern artists...) The barriers that previously existed in my mind had shattered at that moment, and I would never look at music the same again.

From what I had gathered, each album corresponds to either a series of comics (for example, Second Stage Turbine Blade), or with a novel (Year of the Black Rainbow). I'm not going to bore anyone with the gritty details regarding the entire plot, but the musical, written, and graphic forms detail the trials of the Kilgannon family and the other denizens of the fictional universe of Heaven's Fence. It's an adventure that goes beyond the music and into the depths of the imagination. If you're looking for a different twist of science-fiction, you definitely won't regret checking this out.

If I've piqued anyone's curiosity, I'm fairly certain you can satisfy that by visiting:

http://theamorywars.com
http://coheedandcambria.com

Operation: Emphasis!

 

For this image, I chose to begin at the upper left hand corner, draw the focus to the bottom (and perhaps to the right, as the circles trail off into smaller sized ones), and lead the viewer's eyes back toward the center again. This was done using several proportioned sets of various-sized black circles arranged in a linear fashion diagonally down the page. The white circles (again, proportioned similarly as the black circles) were then stacked atop the sets of black circles to give those black circles an appearance of depth. 

Design elements: Contrast, repetition.

As for this image, I chose to bring the viewer's eyes from two opposite corners to the center. This time, I used the symmetry of the image, as illustrated through the placement of the white and black circles, to achieve this effect. I started by creating two identical black circles, then identical white circles to be attached to the black circles on the ends. Then, I created the larger black circle in the middle, and the two white circles that accompanied that. Each white circle has exactly one other white circle that bears the same dimensions.

Design elements: Symmetry, repetition, balance

Failed Package Design: Magnetic Magnets

I've never come across magnets that weren't actually magnetic.

Criticism - Peter Precourt: "The Katrina Chronicles: Volumes I & II"

Recently, I have had the pleasure of visiting what was perhaps one of the more interesting graphic novel-style displays of artwork I've seen. Peter Precourt's "The Katrina Chronicles: Volumes I & II" were on display in Jewett hall. While I had taken many glances at them in passing, I never fully understood its true meaning until I decided to take a closer look at each of the panels, and piece those together into a greater meaning. In this work, he provided a serious, yet humorous perspective regarding the events of Hurricane Katrina as shown through his life experience in the events leading up to, during, and after.

The concepts of the uncertainty and frailty of life, as well as the many gains and losses one experiences were reinforced successfully with the choice of materials (paper, Sumi-e, acrylic, among others). The style of the artwork and arrangement of elements on the pages seemed to be rough, while the various materials used were fairly fragile. Each page showed an ever-changing variety of materials, with not a single panel composed of a similar amount of the same media. This reinforced the idea that his life was indeed fragile and in flux.

Particularly, I was fond of pages two and three in Volume II, in which he describes his wife's reaction to an offer for a position that paid far less than what she had desired. This specific set of pages showed a picture of the map of the United States turned upside down on one page accompanied by a small, detailed picture of his wife in the lower right hand corner, and a few panels of the author sitting in the darkness wondering what to do on the other page. On the first page, his wife was less than pleased that he wanted to accept a job offer in which he would make less than the job he was working previously. She was actually furious that he would think of turning the lives of his family members upside-down merely to revive his career. Her disdain was shown in the colorful, detailed painting of her holding a less detailed depiction of his daughter, along with the viciously but brilliantly illustrated upside-down map of the United States. The second page conveys his ambivalent feelings toward the situation, as well as his reaction to the decisive words of his wife. A strong sense of discouragement, frustration, and a slight force of lighthearted anger was exhibited when he was trying to come to terms with his wife's rational opinions. The two panels held an appropriate juxtaposition, as the cohesive and decisive feelings of his wife and the chaos, frustration, and rage towards his situation complemented each other fairly effectively.