Baby prototype of overall form, sitting on prototype of seat. The cardboard structure is about 14" wide and 12" tall, I can stand and jump on it without it giving way.

Overall all the different pieces that went into the structure.

Taping together all the different parts to make sure everything fits together as it should. I held everything together with painters tape before the horizontal panels were added so it would stand on its own.

Travis drew a banana on the bottom of the lowest panel.

Just to show the scale, that's me beginning to tape it all together. I'm 5'3" on a good day. With shoes on.

Our whole objective for this project was to build a chair out of cardboard without adhesives that represented a relationship in our lives. I chose my best friend, Travis Young. We met just over a year ago and have had one of the strangest relationships I think I've ever encountered. He draws bananas over everything, and I draw rocketships. Then they get left laying around in hiding in other people's lives. Hence my rocketship, and the banana he drew on it. On face value, that sounds completely absurd. But it's probably one of the best representations of us. We're both really stupid and cliche, and swear like sailors. I trust that kid more than I have anyone else. He got me through my transitional phase when I moved out of my house, and he's been there for me for everything else since then. 

That's us. Asia and Croatia. 

He's also a photographer. Hence my fancypants final project photos. 

    

 So I fell off the rid last semester, which was fully unintentional. Here's some of the work I did in my Spring Illustration class.

Colored Pencil on Canson Paper. The focus was to create human faces using the grid system. Taking the same grid and applying them to different faces and bending the lines in ways that create entirely different human forms. 

Our teacher had a book full of character descriptions. This little fellow is a Squank. Their species lives in the swamps and marshes and are always crying because they are so ugly. Squank hunters try to catch them at dawn. When they are caught they get so scared and cry so much that they can turn themselves into tears and drip out of the hunter's bags. Rather morbid, and kind of creepy really.

Ink and Colored Pencil. 8.5x11"
We chose different characters and printed out big sections of color onto drawing paper. The red of the hair and lips, the blue eyeshadow, and the darkness of the shirt are all solid colored shapes that I printed, and then drew all the details of everything over it. 

This was my final for the class. I took the same approach as I did on the Red Queen and printed off all the colored shapes. Once I had my solid colors down, I detailed everything over the top in colored markers. 

Materials & Processes Field Trips 1 & 2

My Materials & Processes class has taken two field trips since the semester started. The first was to Reuter Organ. It was probably one of the coolest field trips I've ever been on, second of course to the Russel Stover Chocolate Factory in the fifth grade. Reuter Organ is one of the only places that builds organs start to finish all on the same site. They finish about 5-10 per year and the average cost varies between $450-$500 thousand dollars. The selling market specifically targets churches, colleges and universities, and private residences.

Seeing the way everything was created and built was so crazy. The interior pieces are primarily made out of poplar, the metals used are mostly copper and zinc. They also case their own spotted metal for the small pipes. The keys are bass wood with coatings of either plastic, wood, or cow bone overlays. There was a super huge gluepress and a ridiculous CNC router. Everything they had was just crazy to see.

Our second field trip was to Star Signs. They build all sorts of signs for different companies. After all the drawing, info management, and graphic design, the building process breaks down like this:
Materials: PVC, polycarbonate, steel, plexiglass, vinyl, aluminum, acrylic, maple, walnut, foam, automotive grade paint
Building: Routers, extrusion, welding, screws, glue, sanding, grinding, and everything else you can imagine.

Something i've never learned about was the was braille is applied to signs. Braille is an ADA requirement for all interior directional signs. It's made in a photopolymer process where the plastic hardens when it's exposed to light. It goes in a funny looking box with all sorts of drawers. It goes through layers of UV rays that raise the plastic before it goes into a separate section to get washed and finished.

It's been a little while..

I fell off the blogsphere last semester. Then summer happened. But a new semester is here! And (theoretically) I'll be back on here showing the world (or at least the four people that may actually care about this) what I've been up to.

Hey World, I'm Back

So that was quite the hiatus, my apologies. Christmas break happened. Then second semester happened. All new classes, picked up a new job. Things are going good. Here's my latest project from BDS.

The Assignment: Build a Chair out of Cardboard
Requirements: Must sustain your own weight, must represent a relationship in your life
Restraint: Prohibited usage of adhesives
Rocketship: Because I'm Sara.

We're now working on drawings of them. More photos will be up in a few weeks. Process stuff will be turned in on the 6th, so when that's finished I can show the world. Or at least the three people actually taking the time to read this.

YEAAH!

All of my final projects have been completed. All that's left is to endure two critiques. One of which starts in about four hours..

For BDS I build a light fixture out of paper. Two and four-ply bristol board, specifically. Inside is a covered 60 watt compact fluorescent lightbulb. We were required to turn in fifteen working photos of our process, as well as five of the finished light.

This is my final light.

Non-illuminated in a natural light source

Illuminated, no external lighting

Illuminated, no external lighting

Detail

 Illuminated, no external lighting

Detail of bottom view

 Illuminated with a natural light source

This project and I definitely had our differences. It was a lot of fun to build. Although because of the stitches on my hand the whole construction had to be delayed about a week. I'm happy with my finished product, but was really looking forward to being able to spend more time on it than I ended up being capable.

My other big project was for my drawing studio. I previously stated the premise of the assignment and posted photos of Gorky's original works. Here's what I ended up with:

Mimic of Gorky's Self Portrait

My own interpretation 

Mimic of Gorky's Nighttime, Enigma and Nostalgia

My own interpretation

Mimic of Gorky's Cubist Figure Standing

My own interpretation

So there it is. I have survived my first semester of college. My first A&D classes. And my first round of college finals. I've decided at the end of the year to declare my major in Industrial Design with a minor in French. I don't want this to come off as super corny, but it really has been a great first semester. I've learned a lot and met a lot of great people. I love calling Lawrence home. And I can't wait to see what's next. In the meantime, I have to wake up in three hours for my drawing critique. Once that and the final walkthrough for BDS are finished, I'm sleeping for at least twelve hours.

Robot Mode: In Overdrive.

The next twenty-four hours will conclude my work load of my first college semester. Western Art History test at 8am. Then to finish one last drawing, finish the light, and compile photos of everything. My stitches came out today. But my hand has to stay wrapped until Thursday. Building the light took a hiatus since i got cut. I knocked out a lot today. But it's been a pain (both physically and metaphorically) to construct it with a gimp left hand. Tomorrow is the final push to get everything finalized. And then I will drop into a sleep that more resembles a coma for about twelve hours or so. Goodnight world, I'll see you in six hours to take on a history test.