3D Design day 3:

In the morning we were given the task of designing the spaghetti sculptures that would eventually hold 3 plastic balls. the sketchbook designs were meant to be bold, brave and experimental which i think i achieved by designing structures using certain shapes throughout i.e hexagons, cubes, triangles and rectangles. we were then asked to draw random scribbles all over the page and make that into a structure that could hold 3 balls, this was a lot of fun and got my brain working. the rest of the morning we spent actually making the structures, we were given 30 pieces of spaghetti and used glue guns to make them. I remember learning that triangles were the strongest shape so decided to make a triangular based pyramid, holding one ball in the middle, one on the top and one at the side. the pictures below show the finished result photographed with a pink filter. i really disliked this activity, the spaghetti kept breaking and the glue guns were really difficult to use, my hands kept shaking when trying to hold components still. however, having said this, i was pleased with my finished product!

3D design week day 2

today our main task was to research bridges and then eventually, in groups, build a bridge for a remote controlled car to drive across. the research consisted of some fieldwork, taking pictures of bridges around ravensbourne, and looking through books in the library and content on websites. we were asked to briefly explore 3 types of structures: spanning, tension and stilted.

Spanning:

http://cenews.com/article/7719/west-virginia-geology-demands-complex-bridge-foundations

Span is the distance between two intermediate supports for a structure, e.g. a beam or a bridge. A span can be closed by a solid beam or by a rope. The first kind is used for bridges, the second one for power lines, overhead telecommunication lines, some type of antennas or for aerial tramways. 


Stilted:



http://www.s4c.cymru/04wal/location-images/large/IMG_0879.jpg


Stilts are poles, posts or pillars used to allow a structure or building to stand at a distance above the ground. In flood plains, and on beaches or unstable ground, buildings are often constructed on stilts to protect them from damage by water, waves or shifting soil or sand.


Tensile: 

A tensile structure is a construction of elements carrying only tension and no         compression or bending. The term tensileshould not be confused with tensegrity, which is a structural form with both tension and compression elements. Tensile structuresare the most common type of thin-shell structures.

Building The Bridge:

we were put into groups of around 9/10 and given 12 sheets of cardboard, a bunch of elastic bands, 2 rolls of packing tape and around 30 sticks of bamboo. as a group we firstly decided that we were going to attempt to make a jump in the middle of the bridge but we had to make it in such a way that it the car could make it over going both ways. this proved to be a challenge because we had originally planned to make one side of the bridge lower than the other to make the jump easier. we started off by doubling up lengths of bamboo to make it more secure, we were only allowed 2 points of the structure hitting the floor so we decided to have many sticks of bamboo coming up from the one spot on the ground. this would be the main support for the structure. the images below show the creative process involved in the building of it. in the end it was successful and the car managed to drive both ways. i really enjoyed this activity, seeing my idea come into realisation was satisfying, and even more satisfying was seeing the car make the jump. however working in such a large group was frustrating as we all had different ideas about how we wanted to build certain aspects or how we wanted it to look, but it all worked out in the end. 

3D design week
our first task was to create a structure that could hold a full water bottle 20cm off the table, as far as resources went we were only allowed 1 sheet of A2 paper and an arms length of masking tape. my initial thought was to make a cube for the bottle to sit on however i quickly realised that this would not be strong enough to hold it up, i then started thinking about a structure that could be stronger than just one sheet of paper by itself, i thought about folding the paper but decided to try rolling small strips of the paper into cylinders, i made 5x20cm long cylinders and taped them all together to create one big cylinder. the next problem i came across was balancing the water bottle on top, by this point i had run out of paper as well, so i just had to go with the task of balancing the water. the picture below shows the result of the task.

our next task was to create a platform to stand on made out of masking tape, packing tape and five sheets of cardboard, i started thinking of designs based around the tube style design i used earlier on in the day. because we were limited on time i just started rolling 20cm high tubes, i made six and they felt very strong, after this arduous task i had to start thinking about how i was going to stand on it. i decided to make a 6 legged table with 3 legs on each long side to effectively distribute the weight. although the legs were incredibly strong, i struggled attaching them to the base of the table top. this became a problem when i tried standing on it, as one of the legs slipped all the others followed and my table was destroyed. the picture below shows the finished product, on its back to show how i attached the legs to the base. i really enjoyed this activity because it was very hands on, however it was very frustrating to see it collapse towards the end of the day.

Fashion + Textiles week: Paper Clothes design:

the picture above shows my original design for my item of paper clothing, its a coat with an oversized collar and sleeves that are detached, i also created some rings that had long thin strips of paper hanging from it. Although it was really challenging, i did really enjoy this activity, seeing my ideas come to realisation was a rewarding feeling, it was also great to see everyone else's methods and ideas that i could adapt into my own work. The image below shows Kadien wearing the jacket i made, although it wasn't very will fitted, i am still immensely pleased with the overall outcome. 

Fashion + Textiles week: Collaging

we were asked to bring in magazine cutouts of models, i used my MASSES magazine for this. I took out the pictures that i found the most interesting, we were then asked to collage, draw, scribble, cut etc to make the images more exciting, in the photo on the right i used bright colours to contrast the black and white nature of the original photograph. in the one on the left i used body parts from other images to create a distortion but kept to the colour scheme of the original, for example i have put hands where the feet should be. In the group crits i found it really interesting what everyone had to say about my work, they all seemed to enjoy it but said it would have been more interesting if the paper stuck out more a bit, i did try to make it slightly 3d by crinkling the paper before taping it down however i think it would have been good to experimented more, next time!

Fashion + Textiles week:
Life Drawing: i really enjoyed my day of life drawing, the wide range of techniques, materials and methods i used was really liberating and fun. We started off doing 5 5min drawings on top of eachother on a sheet of paper, i used a different pen each time and i was really pleased with the outcome, although i did not at the time enjoy drawing over my first drawing the final result was worth it. We next did some drawings where we explored ways in which to keep the proportions of the model correct, we did this by holding up our pen and using our thumb to make a measurement of the head and then count how many heads fit into her body. we then mapped out say 5/6 sections on the page (it was similar to gridding techniques) which was really helpful because proportion is something i usually mess up. we then tried drawing the model standing up with the paper on the floor using a piece of charcoal tied to the end of a bamboo stick which was really fun, it made me think about the movement and positioning of my whole body a lot more than usual.

Lens Based Media- Storyboard

we were asked to bring in a series of six images that followed a beginning middle end structure, the image above tells my story of a penknife who cannot make friends because it cuts up everything it comes across: paper and a water bottle, the lowest point of the story is box 5 where the knife is nearly close because it feels so alone, the floor is covered in water and there is torn paper everywhere. I enjoyed this activity because it was fun and challenging, trying to animate inanimate objects into a remotely interesting story is not easy but i appreciated the effort that i put into it. We had crits on our work, we worked in groups of 5 and asked questions and gave feedback on eachother's work, we asked about things such as lighting, colour and story. It was very useful to ask myself the questions other people posed and i found it very interesting what other people had to say about my work. In the afternoon we sat in circles of around 9 people and we would take it in turns modelling in the middle whilst everyone else drew that person. By the end of one drawing we had a 360 degrees animation (it was scanned later) of a person, it was really cool. drawing under time pressure has been something i have struggled with since starting at ravensbourne but i think i have finally grasped it and stopped worrying about what i think about my work and instead appreciating it for what it is.

tate modern and white cube gallery visit:

we first visited the tate gallery, then the white cube, the purpose of this trip was to be the main research of our essay: comparing and contrasting and museum and an art gallery. The main idea that was held in my mind throughout was that the white cube's main aim was to attract wealthy buyers, whereas the tate, which is mostly free, tries to attract tourists and art lovers. This contrast between the commercial and non commercial fascinated me and will be one of the main focusses of the essay. The two pictures i have chosen to include was an aim to describe the difference in art being shown, the top picture is at the tate, an interesting piece but not a very aesthetically pleasing item one would have say in their home, compare this to the modern white neon lights and revolving palm trees at the white cube.

drawing people in our lives that make us ask questions, this man seems to spend all his time at my local pub, we were doing this to come up with characters for a story board in our group, although we didn't end up using my character, i still enjoyed drawing him and highlighting certain features of his personality. the storyboard was interesting to make, we made the storyboard by first drawing the beginning then the ending, then filling in the middle, to make sure the story had a good structure. Also in the afternoon we were making 1 minute films using a vhs camcorder without editting, using what we learnt in the storyboarding session to create a clear storyline. 

cropping my drawing using another sheet of A1 paper to frame an important part of it, this taught us how framing in photography can be so important, whether highlighting certain information or removing certain elements. we looked at a four part series of photos which had been cropped from one photo, each separate image determined the person laying on the floor's death.

drawing from photos in lens based media, tom hooped was talking to us about the significance of what to and not to include, and it was interesting to see which aspects i naturally left out and which insignificant details i subconsciously chose to include. i chose to use a blue biro because i thought it would stand out more than black ink or pencil, i like the way the blue looks.

experimenting with different ways of collaging to create a full alphabet in graphics, the letter D was my favourite, because as soon as i saw the image, the D appeared. I experimented with collaging, using yellow and black ink, using straight lines, i did enjoy this exercise however i was slightly disappointed when letters weren't so obvious as to what they are. Although, Andy showed us some work from a typographer who had made an alphabet by removing edges from a cube, and although it was hard to make out, i still thought it was really engaging, which made me feel better about my less obvious letters.

photoshop lesson, placing myself underwater. In this lesson we used illustrator to create text, photoshop to edit images and InDesign to create a clear layout. Although i had never found the need to use illustrator up until this point, it did seem quite useful for certain things. I am experienced in photoshop so i found that part relatively simple and using InDesign for the first time wasn't too tricky. InDesign is used for layouts and will be very useful in the future when making posters, booklets, magazines etc.

interesting typography + graphics in the library 

saw some cool old architecture magazine designs at the ICA today 

masking tape on the cover of my finished passport, the tape that messily covers up the black cover represents a scramble to hide or cover up certain aspects of life, whilst still providing an interesting and eye catching aesthetic 

what is luxury exhibition review:

the what is luxury exhibition explored various themes of exuberance in many different mediums which I thought was interesting, for example the words passion, which was accompanied by some expensive looking jewellery. the pieces themselves within the exhibition seemed slightly critical of today's capitalist society, the most obvious being the vending machine (see picture attached) which was filled with DNA samples, perhaps suggesting the capitalisation of people's identities. also featured in the exhibition was a table cloth made entirely of little girls' hair, this poses the question of: 'luxury, but at what cost?' Another artist in the exhibition imagined a world where plastic was as precious as gold is today, he constructed a set of a table and a chair made out of melted down chips of plastic in a very individual and geometric way, I found this very interesting. 

            

experimenting with different techniques and materials in my passport to try and create a picture of identity 

interesting piece of clothing at the V&A, looks like feathers (?) (luxury exbtn)

contrasting colours and themes at the serpentine gallery (oil on canvas) 

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