Lets Talk Nano Science

Here is some work I did for a friend of mine on campus who organized an event teaching high school students about Nano Science.  If you’re curious about the event itself feel free to check out their page.

It was a pretty fun, quick project to work on, I sketched the image out, scanned it into the computer, and added a few colors and text for effect.  I will post some pics of the design in action if I can get my hands on them!

I tweaked the beaker ever so slightly from the drawing, adding an extra reflection line in front of the scientist so that he reads as inside the beaker, rather than on top of it.

I sent off two versions, one with the red halftone effect added, and another without. (the latter seen above)  I couldn’t decide which I liked more so I just sent them both off to my friend and left it to him to make the decision.  Problem solved!

Walk in the dark

Here is a painting I’ve been working on lately, it’s the interior of a warehouse I got to check out a few weeks ago, pretty cool!

I have had a lot of freedom in the last little while to really explore my style when it comes to painting.  I love that I get to play around with expressive brushstrokes, rubbing away layers of paint, and other techniques I’ve never really used.  For the first time all year I’m starting to uncover a bit of the same elements that were present in a few of my large drawings from a year ago. (Here for even more.)

I’ve Included another photo below to try to give it some scale, but I’m not sure it helps that much.  Oil on masonite board, approx 43″ x 43″.

Let me know what you think!

brush. canvas. paint.

Well!  Its that time of year again, students all around the world are hitting the books and preparing for final exams… or in my case, painting.  Here are a few things I’ve been working on (almost exclusively) over the last few days, I hope you enjoy!

Above is a partially completed work, you can check out the bottom of this post for the finished product.

Painting really was a challenge for me this year.  Just the amount of work required is quite staggering, each painting ranges more or less from 1 to 8+ hours. (Well okay, only one was 8+.)  I’m sure I could have dropped all my other courses this year and still have been busy with it, check out the pile of stuff I have on the floor too.  My focus in school is definitely design though, so I think there were a few times where painting took a bit of a back seat to other projects.  That being said, I did work really hard, and there are some where I surprised myself with what was done.

This one above is the ceiling of the studio, the goal was to capture a sense of architectural space.  I like it because it seems almost abstract at first, but there is still a quality of depth and area.  This was done fairly early after midterm and I really began to notice an improvement in my work after this painting.  It was a bit of a turning point from the stuff I was working on before it, which was, I must say, extremely frustrating.

Below is a reproduction from a Jenny Saville section and I love the way it turned out.  The colours are a bit low-key, but thats okay, its a pleasant change from my normally bright work.

And finally, here is the completed version of the very first image I showed.  It is a reproduction of a Catherine Kehoe self portrait.  A big, yet subtle, change from the image at the very top is the sizing, placement, and colour of the eyes.  Its amazing how the smallest alterations can move an image from something that doesn’t read well to a more finished coherant piece.

The quality of the photos is lacking a bit, I took them with my cell phone camera.  The studio is locked for the next week or so while we are graded though, so this is the best I will probably have until after the Christmas break.

Blast from the past

I’ve decided to post the application portfolio I used two years ago to get into my program at school.  This is definitely some older stuff, but thats okay.  Keep your eyes open for the bird with the dinosaur tail!

Brand New Soapbox

It seems like I’ve been posting a lot of school work up here lately!  Classes have been really picking up for me so it’s been a bit easier throwing some projects up that I already have digital copies of.  (Though I’ve just scanned a bunch of sketches for this post.)

This is a project we worked on in class a few months ago.  We were to create a podium for a standard classroom environment, with enough room for a monitor, desktop computer, keyboard, mouse, and everything else needed for day to day instruction.

I tried to create a modular system that allowed shelves to be added or removed depending on how many were needed.  Each shelf has a cutout on the back right side to allow for computer cords to pass through, bundling them neatly.

Check out the thumbnails below to see a few of my ideation sketches.  Some of them were pretty fun to come up with!

 

This final image shows the keyboard tray extended.  I left the computer hardware un-rendered in the first image to bring a bit more attention to the podium itself, so I decided to render it all in the image below.  

D-d-d-drawings!

Here are some drawings I did a while ago in a few model sessions.  I found that during the periods where I was doing live model sessions my drawing skills improved faster than any other point in my life.

I loved working on this top drawing.  It just has a freedom and looseness to it.  Some days I feel like I really need to fight with the piece I’m working on, but this one was a joy.

Working large, and fast, was a great experience, and doing it all from a live model meant that I really had to develop the ability to make tough decisions involving perspective and value.

I still have a difficult time with faces.  (Check out my first post ever for more on that) But I have been noticing that the process is becoming more and more intuitive.

In these bottom two drawings I tried to manipulate the background to add contrast to the figure in the foreground.  Where the figure is light, the background is dark, and vice versa.

So!  Christmas break is coming.  I was thinking of maybe challenging myself to sketch a face a day, or 50 faces or something over the course of the break.  Not sure exactly what I will do, 50 seems a bit ambitious, but it would be a great way to keep my hand sharp over the holidays.

Let me know what you think!

Toyo Ito Dog Bed

Here is a project I worked on with Christina Sicoli.  We designed a dog bed based on the the work of contemporary architect Toyo Ito.

One thing that this project taught me was the importance of planning.  We spent a ton of time drawing out ideas and possible designs. It was great working with another person, it forced us to communicate our ideas well and make sure we were on the same page for each decision.  As you can see below, we had a lot of decisions to make!

Here are some of our many sketches:

The idea was to create an architectural form that emerged out of the ground, much like Toyo Ito’s design for Grin Grin Park in Japan.  These are some views of our sketch models:

We ended up using blue foam to shape the form, and covered it in fiber glass.  It was so much fun!  It was a crazy learning curve as neither of us had used fiber glasses before.

Below is a video of our process.  If you look closely you can see my hands in some of the shots. ;)  I have to give a huge amount of credit to Christina for this, she edited the whole thing and did a really good job.

 Here are some more images of the completed bed, click on them to enlarge:

We ended up selling the bed at auction during ‘Pets in the Park,’ a fundraiser for the Edmonton Humane Society.  Glad to see it going to a good cause, I hope the owner is happy with it!