Box Portfolio

This is something I've been meaning to upload for a while, but I hadn't gotten around to photographing it until now. Last Spring I made a box portfolio that was designed to take with me on interviews, etc. and hold my art samples, business cards, postcards, and DVD portfolio. I based the design/structure after a japanese style bookbinding method that I learned in a class a while back.

It's made out of some thin sheets of wood for the top and bottom, the sides are pieces of plywood that I stacked and glued on top of each other. I lightly painted the plywood so the lines in it could show through and resemble pages. I made the cover by cutting out some windows with a drimmel and covering the wood with paper. The paper is actually only glued on the edges because it kept getting bubbles in it every time I tried to glue the whole thing down. I went through about 2 extra papers before I got it right. The windows are some plastic overhead projector paper. I added a ribbon in the book so the contents of the could be easily removed.

Overall, I'm really pleased with the way it turned out. There are a few little issues with it though. The inside could be bigger, I've had to trim down papers to make them fit. The only other thing is the hinge were the top opens. There isn't enough space between the spine and the cover part of the book, so the top can't be fully opened. I've been thinking about making a second one to go with my Art Education Portfolio that will be made so it won't have these issues. I'll definitely be hanging on to this one though, for my illustration portfolio. I learned a lot by making this box portfolio and actually used power tools on my own for the first time in the wood shop :D. It was challenging and a lot of fun to work though the problems I had while making this and now that I have a better idea of how to approach it I feel like I could make another one easily.

That's all for now! Enjoy!

Isometric Perspective

I did another tryptic presentation for one of my classes. This time it had to focus on an artistic element or concept. The one I chose was isometric perspective. It is a form of parallel perspective that has no vanishing points and all of the axes are equally foreshortened. Also in this form of perspective, the scale of an object doesn't change, so an object would appear the same size anywhere in the picture instead of getting smaller with depth. Since there are no vanishing points there is no optical distortion. Isometric perspective is commonly used in traditional Asian art (it was started by ancient Chinese scroll painters), in technical/engineering drawings, and in some video games. I picked images from Hiroshige and M. C. Escher to illustrate the concept.



That's it for now.

James Jean Presentation

For my Art Ed. class we have to give a presentation on a contemporary artist. For mine. I chose the painter/illustrator James Jean. I really love his work. His color choices, surrealist subjects, attention to detail and overall style really grab the eye and command attention. Jean has a totally unique way of approaching his subject matter and I find his work really inspiring. His website is www.jamesjean.com and his blog is www.processrecess.com. His blog is really great; Jean posts the stages of his art from thumbnail to final piece. It also goes back several years into his portfolio.

Well anyway here is the layout I made as a guide for my presentation board. The board is one of those that has three panels and stands up on its own. I also made a design for the back of the board, but I won't be using it because of the cost of printing the images large enough to fit the board.

This is the front of the display board that I will be using.

This is the design for the back that I won't be able to use. I thought it looked pretty cool though.

That's all for now

- Later

Bunny Card Done!!

I finally finished the bunny card!! All that is left is a test print and then uploading both sides to overnightprints.com! Here is the final:

Side one with party info- I removed the address and phone # for privacy reasons.

Side two- Photos are arranged with the earliest at the top and the most recent at the bottom. The big one is the newest of the pics.

-Later

Bunny Card Update

I haven't had too much time to work on the bunny card, but here is where I am now. I have them drawn up in illustrator, but I'll be adding and tweaking them still... like adding detail to the crowns, etc. Once I got the card mocked up, I tried putting random photos onto it, but the higher contrast of the photos with the flat bunnies didn't flow well, so my sister and I decided to make the bunny portion go on one side of the card with the party information and the photos go on the other side, in case anyone wanted to just frame the photos. I think that will work a lot better, but I haven't had a chance to go that far yet.

Here is a detail of the bunnies, so far. I'll be taking them and putting them on the redesigned-double sided card. They still need some more detail and I'll probably try to give them higher contrast or shading to help them pop out more.

Here is the first mock-up I was trying out. The high contrast photos just didn't work with the flat bunnies, so this version will be scrapped and on the new one this side will be all photos and the other will have the bunnies and party info. The orientation will still be horizontal. The text would have gone over the the big crown in the middle.

-Just a note: these aren't the photos that will be in the final, they were just put in to give me an idea of how it would look.

State Fair of VA

I went to the State Fair yesterday at the new location by Kings Dominion. First off, traffic was HORRIBLE!!! It was bumper to bumper traffic from the I95 in Ashland until we parked. One of the main hold ups was that they stopped incoming traffic to allow outgoing traffic out. They need to solve that problem, with a fly-over or something. Also now they charge $5 for parking when it used to be free at the old location, they must have made a fortune- there were more cars there than I could count. Once we got parked and tried to enter, we didn't know where to go. There were no signs telling which way to go, and the new location is HUGE, its hard to find your way around on the first trip. We ended up just following people and at one point we got directions from a police officer. They had shuttles, but there were no where near enough to handle the amount of people, it was quicker to walk than wait in line for a shuttle.

Once we got into the fair grounds it was much better. We had bought tickets online, so we bypassed ticket lines. We got a map as soon as we got in and that helped a lot. We ended up going through two tunnels that ran under the road to get to the fair- parking was on one side of the road, the fair was on the other, and the tunnels connected them. The tunnels were kind of cool. The fair itself was the same as always, great food, games, rides, the animal area, etc were all there. They were just more spaced out. The amount of people there was unreal, I don't remember the old location at RIR having anywhere near that amount of people. It seemed like triple or more of the amount of people at RIR. Even though the attractions were a little more spaced out, it was still crowded with the amount of visitors. It felt like it would be easy to get separated from your group, cell phones were a must. One cool thing there, is a gorgeous old brick mansion up on a hill before the fair splits from the entertainment area to the farm animal area. That place was awesome, if your there it is definitely worth a look.

When we left traffic was still bad, but we managed to get out a little quicker than when we got there.

Overall the fair itself was great, but the traffic and parking situation was AWFUL. I hope they can work out the kinks with parking for next year. I also think it will be better to take a day off during the week and go during the day. That could help avoid traffic and maybe some of the crowds.

Here is an overview of the new location, there is more parking to the right of the map that is not shown and that was where we had to park.

Here is a detail of the attractions- there was a lot to see!!

B-Day Invitation: Rough thumbnail sketches

Here are a few rough thumbnail sketches for the birthday invitation. The layout is on a 5x7 postcard, the left side will have a big vertical photo and the right side will have four small photos- two at the top and two at the bottom. In-between the four small photos, there will be a horizontal panel that will have the design and party information.

This is the design my sister picked out, It pulled two different designs together - the sizes of the bunnies may need to be adjusted once the photos are incorporated, since they overlap the photo areas a little bit. The crown will be pushed back more (close to the background value) and text will overlay it.

These are the two designs that were merged for the final design.

Other versions- the last three just show the middle panel, cause I didn't feel like drawing the grid again...

That it for now, I'll post some process work as I go.