Magazine Layouts

Have you ever stopped to look at the layout of a magazine? I don't think I ever did before this assignment. We were supposed to look at the layouts in magazines and create a page that discussed what made our studio space special. I was inspired by a few magazine layouts but in the end I came up with my own. I like the crispness of black and white and I enjoyed pages that had a burst of color, so that is what I used for my layout. I used drawings I did of the studio space and students working. It was also fun deciding which font to use.

A Place For A Memory

How do you design a place for a memory? Do you take it literally and use pictures and actual memorabilia; or do you make something more symbolic and abstract? It's much more potent in my mind to design something with textures, colors, smells, and other qualities that remind you of the memory rather than using a literal approach. For this project we had to write a narrative and make a place for our memory. I like to remember the good times and one of my favorite memories is picking raspberries with my sister. Here is the narrative, I hope you enjoy!

Early in the morning she bolted out the door grasping her younger sister’s hand. They were headed for Stan and Margaret’s raspberry bushes. The bushes were in the far corner of their neighbor’s yard, the closest corner to the little girls’ house. All they had to do was sneak through the crack in the fence and slip behind the bushes where no one could see them. The younger one was five and her dark brown hair was cut in a bowl cut like most children her age. The older sister was twice her age and her long brown hair reached down to her waist and flew past the younger one’s head as they ran towards fence.
First the sisters peeked through the fence, checking to see if anyone was in the backyard, then with their hearts racing they sprung through the tiny opening in the fence and jumped behind the raspberry bushes. They scanned the raspberries and tried to find the plumpest, juiciest, and best looking ones. Their mouths and chins soon turned red and the youngest one’s white shirt had red stains at the top. Then the girls heard across the yard, “Cathy?...Molly?” It was their mother calling them. They quickly jumped up and stuffed as many raspberries in their mouth as they could as they tried to make it to the other side of the fence before their mother could find them. Their mother knew exactly where they were; it was hard to hide the evidence on their guilty chins and shirts. She just smiled and told them that Stan and Margaret had invited them to tea that afternoon and that they should probably get changed.
The youngest took a sip of her tea and then tried adding more sugar and milk, a lot more sugar. Her legs were dangling at least a foot away from the floor as she kicked them back and forth, back and forth. The older one sat slouched, stirring her tea over and over. They both glanced at each other and smiled, both thinking of the raspberry bushes and their little secret.


Below are three different iterations of the project. I have two pictures of my first two iterations at the very bottom and the rest are photos of my final. My idea for this project was to use textures, colors, and smells that reminded me of the memory. The textures of the leaves, raspberries, and dirt from the garden were a large part of my memory. The lush reds and greens of the raspberry bushes and the smell of the tea stuck out in my mind as well. My first iteration was a simple box covered in red paper and lined with real leaves. The paper seemed bland to me and didn't remind me of my memory at all. The leaves, however, really spoke to me and that's where my second iteration came in. I did the entire box in leaves for my second iteration and changed the lid slightly. Although my memory is "secretive" I felt that the lids on either box were not working. Also, the leaves were very difficult to glue onto the box made of chipboard (a material similar to mat board but significantly cheaper). I tried mod podge (a simple white glue) and then hot glue. Neither did the trick. For my final box I used rubber cement to glue the leaves. This worked wonders but smelled quite pungent. I still wanted my box to smell like tea. I mixed a very small amount of Mod Podge, red paint, and earl gray tea to make the textured outside of the box. I was really pleased with the way it turned out. The smell may not be what I had planned on exactly but the textures really work well together. Overall this is one of my favorite projects so far!

(FYI: The scroll with a leather tie is my narrative)

Final Memory Box

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First Iterations

My 'Parti'

Light and Shadows

If you couldn't tell this is a self portrait I don't blame you. This was an interesting project that I was hoping would turn out better than it did. We had to sit in front of a mirror in a completely dark room with a light hitting one side of our face. Using black paper and white colored pencil we were supposed to focus on the highlights and shadows cast on our face. I really enjoyed doing this portrait and maybe I will go back later and try this again. I am a beginner at drawing, no doubt, so maybe next time it will turn out better.

Contour Profiles

These are contour profiles of two of my friends here at UNCG. The first one is my friend Michael. He was pleased with the outcome of my drawing of him. He then tried to draw me, and lets just say that it made me feel a lot better about my drawing skills! haha. He wasn't serious about it though. His portrait of me now hangs on my door to my dorm room. Like Tommy says, "It's so bad it's good!"
The bottom contour is of my roommate Hannah. This is the first contour I’ve done of her that actually looks somewhat like her!

Pencil Box

Design a place for your pencils using only mat board and paper.

I had a lot of fun with this project. I was very low on cash and decided to use newspaper instead of buying paper like I usually have to do. The newspaper was hard to work with at first but once I got the hang of it I really liked the outcome. Consciously placing the words and images on the newspaper was fun too because I got to decide what my box was going to be about. Making a sturdy, well crafted box was difficult at first, and making many iterations really helped me. I tried different methods of joining the sides and the lid. My first iteration was the gray box that looked like it could hold shoes better than pencils. I divided the inside into sections though so it really did hold pencils quite well. Although my first iteration was extremely sturdy, it wasn't crafted as well as I would like and the size wasn't quite right. I scaled down the size for my second iteration and experimented with paint and newspaper. I liked the size of the box and the newspaper, but the paint was messy and didn't give clean enough lines. My final iteration I am very pleased with and I use my box everyday. I think I did pretty well on this project because it is functional and is aesthetically pleasing.

Final Box

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First Iterations

Profiles

The top profile is of Megan Schwartz and the second is of my roommate Hannah. The second one was drawn at about 4 in the morning. Every Friday my roommate and I have a radio show for the college radio station from 4am to 7am. It's really hard to get up but we absolutely love working there. We get to play whatever we want, as long as it's in the station. We look pretty rough in the mornings and drawing that early doesn't help with the technique of the drawing. There is such a big difference between these two drawings and I think it's interesting because they were done in the same week, just at different times of day.

Contours of People

People are so hard to draw! Especially when they keep moving. :/

The drawing above was drawn in my philosophy class. This was one of the few days where I didn't fall asleep! haha. I had trouble with the angle of this drawing. It looks like the people are leaning over.

I really enjoyed drawing in the coffee shop at the euc. Again, the angles in this drawing make the couch look irregular.

This is one of the first drawings that I was pleased with. I think I am getting better!

A Place for an Egg

Design a place for an egg that celebrates a quality of the egg, using only paper.

I really appreciate the originality of our assignments, especially this one. This was the first project we were assigned and needless to say it was the most challenging so far. No glue or adhesive was allowed on this assignment and working with paper is challenging when you are trying to make it fit together and hold, while still maintaining a well crafted object. My original projects used white paper with pops of color in the pillars around the egg such as red. I strove for a more natural look with another prototype by making the pillars into leaf shapes. I think this took away from the juxtaposition of the 'space age' shapes against the natural egg. Using white in the end for all of the paper made the project clean and made it seem lighter and gave a crisp contrast against the brown egg.

I focused on celebrating the delicacy and shape of the egg. The curve in the paper mimics the curve of the egg. Having the egg float in the air and almost touch the two pillars on each side but not quite reaching either one makes it precarious and shows off its delicacy. The very bottom picture I took because it was suggested that the curls at the bottom were unnecessary. I personally enjoy the curls and think they enhance the shape of the egg. They also are necessary for support, otherwise the project would lean to one side.

I really wish I kept my original prototypes for this project. I hated them at first, but during critique I realized how unique and interesting my design was. It reminded me of a space ship, and the final prototype still does, just not as strongly.

Downtown Greensboro Contours

I want to ride my bicylcle, I want to ride my bike...

This was done in pencil first and then gone over in pen. I think it really does look a lot sharper. Thanks for the tip Stoel!

College Ave.

Sadly, this is my 2nd drawing of College Ave. I'm going to use it as my first, though, since my first drawing is so bad. I'm going to go back and do a third because I'm just not happy with it. I guess you could say that my biggest critique is definitely myself.

Frustration

I've been having a really hard time with these drawings where we can't use rulers and tools other then pens. I will start a drawing and as soon as I see one bad line I quit and start a new drawing. Needless to say that my sketchbook is almost all of the way full because of this. I'm also not used to drawing buildings. My high school didn't have any interior design or architecture classes. I took art all through high school but instead of drawing I painted mostly abstract and expressionist art-which is nothing like clean and precise architectural drawings. I know this is what I want to do, there is no doubt in my mind. I guess it just takes practice right?