Thursday, February 24, 2011

Wash 2D: Mark Making Homework

  2D—LINE 
 
Mark making

  • draw 100 parallel lines with your eyes closed
  • attack the page with a mark making tool
  • draw 200 lines. 100 with each hand at the same time
  • crumple paper and smooth, then draw lines (4 minutes)
  • fold paper and smooth, then draw lines (4 minutes)
  • tape your page down, write your name 100 times with your eyes closed
  • tape your page down, write a thought over and over until the page is full (~10 minutes?)
Bring drawings to class on Monday. Photograph each carefully (no arm or camera shadow). Experiment with cropping and/or zooming. Post 5 most interesting photos before Friday.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Modular Madness: The Finally



The critic for my Modular Madness piece, "Child's Play" went well I think. I got a bunch of positive input about the piece. I had choosen to make some mock-up built pieces on my little square rafters, something that was whimsicle and fun. The idea came from my fellow classmates really. I saw that most people enjoyed playing with the pieces by stacking them up and building with them, so I did just that. It made me feel like a child again, just playing with something for the fun of moving it, no other reason.

I remember one point someone gave me on my presentation -- that I should have brought in a portable pool and presented the piece in it. I wasn't sure I could do that, and I should have asked if I could bring one in, without assuming that I couldn't.

Next time, as I think about what to do for my project, I'll also think about WOW ways to present it.


In class:


Modular Madness: Presentation Preparation (edited)


Materials

For the Modular Madness project, I chose to use pool noodles as my subject. I decided to cut them up, because I felt that it added a bit more dynamics to the artwork. Dynamic in such a way that you had to look at it for a second before you realized that the piece was made using pool noodles.

I had some troubles in the beginning of this piece. For one, I tried not cutting the noodles up, and using a wire interior. The initial test showed that wire wasn’t going to work in holding the noodle in any fun wiggle shape or loop. They are surprising strong for something made out of just foam. I even tried tripling up the wire, but to no ail.

In the end, I decided to turn the cut pieces into another pool object, and by keeping to form what the toy was – a kid’s pool toy. I thought that it was great for a recycled piece, where you can turn on toy into another.

Process

The pool noodles did not rise to scale from the initial pieces. It kept to pretty much the same size (just slightly larger). The multiple noodles got turned into one piece. There wasn’t too much use of space within the piece. It was all pretty solid.

The piece did change a lot from the original idea. I had stated out wanting to turn them into a more simplistic piece, where I was to cut and glue them onto a piece of white foam board.  The idea was to create an abstraction of Fruit Loops in Milk.  The second idea was to put wire in the middle, and make a fun, squiggly knot of pool noodles. The third, I was to make a moveable sheet. The forth, to make a PVC box and hanged the pieces, where people can walk through it.

The final was to make a raft and have it so that kids can stack the noodles into fun buildings and things.

Craftsmanship

The craftsmanship was good, but the overall piece wasn’t mindboggling. It was all pretty average in my opinion. I put it together using hot glue and made it so that you couldn’t see the glue unless you are sitting right close to it, looking for the glue. I even disguised some unglued pieces into the work of art, so that it can be moved around and played with, in the same aspect that I wanted children to come and play with it.

Form

While talking about the elements and principals of form in this Modular Madness piece, I’d have to say that point is the main element. The noodle pieces come out looking like colorful doughnuts all stacked or glued together. There is a mixture of abstract and geometric in the piece that can look a little messy, but still feel functional. It compares greatly to a child’s room. There is function in the room, but a child has come and added a bit of chaos into it. It’s functional and playful.

Concept

In searching the back ground of pool noodles I hit a snag. There wasn’t much online about the history of the noodle, just what it was made of and who makes it. There wasn’t much that talked about when it became a child’s toy, and how was it developed for children. The only name I could get was that Stephen Motosko came up with the idea in 1999.
I was able to keep the same function of the piece as it was originally meant for; a toy for children to play with in a pool.

Presentation

In the presentation of this piece, I should have presented it in water. It would have changed the outlook of the piece. I was, however, uncertain I could do that in a classroom setting. Instead, I displaied it in an area where it was the most secluded from the other artworks. I also picked out an area where there were monochromatic artworks. This way the color of the pool noodles didn’t clash with the surroundings. I also pressed the piece where a white wall could act as a nice background.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

[Life Drawing] Best of: Weekly Drawing



After Class: Modular Madness Final Rush


After class today, I worked on finishing my project. I started off working in my apartment, making several 16x16 square sheets. I was going to turn all 1300 noodle pieces into 5 sheets and make a box or something. I was getting pretty desperate after the pvc idea fell through.

I finished at 5am Wednesday morning, but staid after to keep a fellow classmate company.



Monday, February 21, 2011

Modular Madness: Day 2



Day two of Modular madness found me sitting in the back with my noodles, cutting them up into tiny little pieces. At first, I was marking the noodles twice with the ruler, then wrapping tape around them, before I sawed it in 1 inch pieces. This was because I really wanted a uniform division of the noodle. I got tired of that after spending so long on 8 noodles.

I attacked the noodles after that, with a come-what-may attitude -- only marking the inches off once, and just doing my best to saw it evenly. It saved me a bunch of time, and the final cuts looked even enough.

After class, I ran around Home Depo to try and get the PVC pipe box in order. Only to have an important piece go missing. Drat.

Wash 2D: Gesture drawing practice


In WASH 2D today we practiced gesture drawing by using fingers, wrists, elbow, shoulder, and even our bodies to make one singe movement repeatedly while listening to a few pieces of music. It was very fun and very tiring. I found that using only my shoulder to make a repeatability moment was super difficult after a minute into it.