2nd Text Assignment

The idea of this assignment was to involve text in a design. This was the first one I did. I used a letter G and created this tunnel composition and tried to create a sense of depth.


This is the second composition. I used letter A and M and got carried away in a symetric, staind glass piece. I had fun doing this one.


This was the final piece I put together. I just let loose and put lots of objects on the page. It is almost too busy and has no real focus. I'm not thrilled about it.

Involving Text

The assignment here was to begin involving text into out designs. I was stuck trying to solve my problem of getting a breaking wave in to the computer. This is the first attempt at making a wave look more 3-d in the computer. It is very easy to loose much of the texture and interest gained from drawing by hand. This shape was created by translating and shrinking a shape as you build layers backward. I felt I could do better so I tried again:

This was a much more successful wave in my mind. It really pulls you in an creates the feel of a wall of water breaking. I misunderstood the idea to involve text as a design instead of involving text in the design and ended up with a possible surf shop type ad. The colors ended up looking great but I'd really like to get some foam and more texture in the design.

A friend and I went camping up at 6,500 outside Sisters on a very cold 20 degree October night. In the morning I saw some pinecones laying around the campsite and realized that this is what I'm searching for. Being a glass artist, this reminded me of the Italian technique, reticello, where you have cane and bubbles going in two opposing directions. People have mentioned the Fibionachi sequence to me after seeing some of my glass and paintings. After a bit of research I found that pinecones do follow the sequence for the most part. After tweaking curves in photoshop, I added colors and interest to nature's patterns.

3 Colors

For the 3 colors, I wanted to stick to the basics and give primary colors a shot. I was playing around with brushes, lines, and circles in Illustrator.

This work took consideration of the Northwest's volcanic landscape. This is no place in particular as it was created from imagination but reminds me of some places on Hood and St. Helens. There is one color brown, a light blue used for screening layers, and a dark blue used in the sky. It was an experiment in atmospheric effects, using a light blue layer to build distance between the 3 layers of the same color brown.

This is a wave I painted using watercolors with 2 shades of green, blue and black. Again, this is on my tagent of liquidity in art.

Assignment 2

The goal with this piece was to get a piece of paper to be as liquid as possible using two shades of oil pastel blue. My idea was to just have fun with the pastel and let it move as it pleased.

I then tried to take the energy of the fun pastel piece into the computer and create a turbulent, liquid environment.

CranBrook

Cranbrook Academy of Art, known as the cradle of American modernism, began in the 1920's in Michigan. Outstanding artists, architects and designers – the Saarinens, Ray and Charles Eames, Florence Knoll, Jack Lenor Larsen have been a part of Cranbrook’s community of artists.

2 Founders:
George Booth - Believed that it was the arts that propelled advancements in human culture, and he wanted to create a place where art and design could be studied intensively, with a one-on-one relationship between student and teacher and a close and supportive community.
Eliel Saarinen - Finnish architect who occupies a major position in the history of modern American design and architecture.

Both were inspired by the vision of the Arts and Crafts movement, which began in England in the mid-nineteenth century and soon spread to the United States. George hoped arts and crafts movement would influence and banish tasteless, mass-produced goods from American homes. He believed that craftsmanship would result in superior products and provide the foundation for an ethically responsible life.

The goal in life is to quit responding to societal pressure, fear, and desire, and to attempt to gain a deeper understanding of one's true nature, then have the absolute courage and "stupidity" to work ceaselessly towards that ideal. Concern over one's peers is misguided and is a creative noose. There are two types of students: those who feel that the responsibility for their education lies with the school, and then those who realize that the responsibility for their education lies within themselves. We adhere to the advice of Joseph Campbell: "Follow your bliss."