Projects
This page highlights the design projects that I have completed in school and during my free time.
Journey
This project focuses on showing our daily commute as people from one place to another. It is almost like a documentary about the movement of the world. I am not particularly sure what inspired me, I have just always been fascinated by the movement around me. I can't help myself but to stare out of a window and look at cars moving pass quickly especially when I'm on a bus. What I have found interesting is occasionally I get to see a common landscape in a completely new way.
For this project, I will only take photos of the areas that I am passing through as long as I am on a bus. I will not take these pictures if I am in a car or plane. Most of these pictures will be taken for long-distance travel like 3 to 8 hours long. Some exceptions may be made depending on what I see.
The word "journey" will be merged into each image but in a way that it would fit with the image.
Each image that I will take must look different with varying color themes, they must each have their unique style.
I intend to merge my amateur photography by experimenting with different color themes. Will it cause me to feel something? will it mesmerize an individual but still keep the same story of movement?
These will be my interest in some images.
Journey 1
The picture was taken on 14th August 2019.
Daniel(Sculpture)
This sculpture was completed on 6th December 2019. It is a project for my ART 229 sculpture class. For this project, I was asked to use found objects to create a sculpture.
I got my inspiration from a piece called the "Seven Wasted Men" created by Michelle Reader. She hoarded 1 month's worth of waste from her family and used it to create seven human-scale sculptures of her family. This intrigued me so I wanted to do something similar but instead of making seven sculptures, I would only make one human-scale sculpture of myself.
My found objects were a bunch of red plastic party cups, old shoes & clothes, a coat tree, and an amazon box that packaged the coat tree. Other than the coat tree, each found object was at least a month old, some were a year to 4 years. I wanted to stick closely to Michelle Readers' concept so it was important to use old objects.
The coat tree served as the beam to keep the structure of the sculpture; it was also a stand for it. I made the human body by first cutting the party cups in half then taping( this was duck tape) them together. The duck tape used was a lot so this ruined the color balance painting most of the body red was the best way to correct this.
The coat tree was a huge asset because it was detachable and this gave the sculpture more positioning. It could take the sitting position also not having to keep standing at all times.
This sculpture is very personal to me and has meaning. It shines a light on recycling and volunteering. I felt I could do this by using some of my old clothes and a Samaritans Purse shirt that I got when I traveled to North Carolina. During the trip, I was a volunteer for the Samaritans Purse organization. The task for my group was renovating a bungalow affected by the flood.
The Samaritans Purse shirt is a very bright orange that would catch anyone's attention. My hope was that a person will see the shirt, get curious then search them online.
The reason why I have named it Daniel is because of this nostalgic feeling that I get from it.
Process pictures of Sculpture.
Welding Project
Process video
For this particular process video, I wanted it to be in black and white. I wanted to give you all a feel like you are seeing a flashback.
Images of chain
I placed my right hand through the cuffs of the chain. I had to take measurements of my fist and try different hole sizes before I welded each bar together.
These two images show the organic shapes of the chain. As I said earlier, they represent out different memories, our past. In order to make these shapes, I first had to cut the rods into smaller pieces. The length for each rod varies from 1 foot to at most 2 feet. I used a hammer to hit the rods until they bent to my desired shape. I also used a rod bender but that was for the thicker chains.
I had to bend the metal rod with my hands to make this part of the chains. You will see me doing so 24 seconds into the process video. The metal was very easy to bend.
This project was completed on 31st October 2019 and it is for my ART 229 sculpture course.
The object sculpted was meant to be a prosthetic extension of my body and would be used in a performance. This was my first performance art experience and I was full of excitement.
The inspiration for this sculpture came from my own emotions. I had already been thinking of a drawing to create that would use chains. In this drawing, there will be a man with no eyes but a nose and a mouth. There would be light shining on this man and he would be stretching his right hand towards it as if he wants to grab it. His posture would also look like he is trying to run forward but there would be chains binding him on both his left and right wrist. These chains will be long and will be a hindrance to his movement. What the drawing represents is our past trying to hold us back as we look towards the future. The chains represent our past and the light represents the future.
I wanted to follow this concept in my performance, and also represent the meaning through the chains.
My performance was me sitting down on the floor and trying to break free from the chains. These chains would be attached to my wrist, Breaking free the chains would signify breaking free from your past. In the performance, I had to act sad and seem hopeless then finally gain the resolve to break free from these chains.
In my original sketch, the cuffs that will attach the chains to my wrist will have the words: past, future, and pain scratched on it. The chains themselves will then have different organic shapes to symbolize different memories that an individual had which still signifies the past in a sense. I intended to use thick metal polls to represent the past also. These metal polls will have the word "past" scratched on the body. I also considered adding weight on these polls (the weight could be bricks, stones, etc) because to give an authentic performance of breaking the chains, I may need force. The weight could also add a kind of aesthetic to it. Unfortunately, I could not go by adding these thick polls to my sculpture because they were not part of the provided materials.
Now I had to rethink my sculpture and go for a simpler approach. Instead of attaching the chains to thick metal polls, I will attach it to my legs during my performance. The metals provided for this sculpture where a little thin so I also removed the design of the cuff. I created new kinds of cuffs that I could easily slide my hand through. The only aesthetic that I kept from my original sketch was the organic shape of the chains and my performance.
For this project one of the metal rods was easy to bend. I used this rod to make most of the chains. This metal also made it easy to break the chains during the performance. All I needed to do was not weld some of the jump rings(the single parts of a chain) and just bend them close enough to form a circle.
Original sketches
Me in the chains. It binds my legs and arms
From Minimalism Onward
If you look closely at the sculpture, you would notice the phrase "solve me" on one of the canvases. This was used to let the audience know that they can interact with the piece. It was to challenge them.
Sculpture when solved.
The landscape drawing used on the canvas. I was running short on time so I had to draw the landscape on paper then glue it to the canvas.
Model of the image
This project was completed on September 27th, 2019.
This is a sculpture I made for my ART 229: Introduction to Sculpture 1. I was asked to create a sculpture using a sheet of plywood with the idea of minimalism in mind. My inspiration for this piece was a picture of a hut I saw in a class lecture. The intriguing aspects of the hut were the wedges and joints. With these, there was no need for screws which gave the hut a minimalist appearance. I wanted my sculpture to have this kind of appearance but I could not fully accomplish this. I was able to keep my screws to a minimum of 4 in my piece. These screws were used to join the stands to the central bodies of the sculpture.
The sculpture consisted of 3 main parts: the central bodies, the canvas holders & the canvas. The central bodies were two parts, the canvas holders were four and the canvas were ten in number.
I wanted my sculpture to be interactive so this greatly influenced the design. This was accomplished by cutting up an image of my landscape drawing into segments that fit each canvas. This made the sculpture a puzzle when the canvas is rearranged. I also wanted the sculpture to be assembled by the audience so the simple design was a necessity.
To create my sculpture, the first step was drafting the 2D linework on Rhinocerous (Rhino). This was then transferred for CNC cutting. Because I was considering wedges & joints, I decided to create holes in the central bodies. The canvas holder will pass through one hole of the central body and rest in the other. The canvases also had wedges behind and they were attached to an L-shaped object. This object will help the canvas to rest on the canvas holder.
One lucky accident in the entire process was designing the L-shaped object, and screwing the stand to the central body.
I did not consider the relationship between the width of the canvas holder and the width of the L-shaped object. This made the canvas shakey and made assembling the entire sculpture longer. An individual would need more tries to keep the canvas balanced, in some cases, it would require a group effort. The unpredictability made the experience exciting. The sculpture wobbled because the stand was joined at an angle.
Look closely at the back of the canvas. The L-shaped object is fitted in the wedge. I had to sand the l-shape object to fit it into the wedge. This was because my earlier measurements were wrong.
Visual Illusion Series
Introduction
In this project, I intend to create different images of nature. These images will be formed by blending my drawings with nature images that I have shot, or just a complete drawing. I would most likely use the GIMP software for most of my pieces. These nature images will form an outline of a part of the human body/complete human figure which can only be seen when the eye traces out these forms.
The visual illusion series will have at least 3 pieces, and all will have a different landscape of varying vegetation. They will all have unique color themes that will be peculiar to each piece. I challenge you to form different figures with each piece or to see how long it will take you to see a form.
Visual Illusion Series (Old Photo look)
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Nature Man
Synthesized Meaning
This project was for my ART 250:
Introduction to Digital Arts. It was created with Adobe Photoshop. It was done within January-May 2019. I completed the first part of the project(the photo montage) around 13th May 2019( I can not remember the exact date, unfortunately).
I created a hyper-reality (photo) montage using eight images that captured natural disasters ( tornadoes, wildfires, volcanic eruptions. The inspiration for this project was my final project for my ART 111 course. I was still very interested in the idea of a warped landscape with natural disasters.
These images were used to form one landscape image. I really wanted to keep the images balanced, so I felt turning it to black and white was the best option.
The photomontage
source images
Art 111: Drawing Fundamentals 1
Completed by 10th May 2018. My intention was to create a warped reality of natural disasters. I have always been fascinated by these natural phenomena so I was very excited while moving forward. My reference images were of two volcanoes, an icy mountain, a rocky-desert and a cliff with a beautiful sunset.
For this drawing, I used positive and negative space shading for the rocky-desert(upper left corner of the image) and applied charcoal to form something resembling a barrier at the center of the image. The ash cloud from the volcano at the bottom right was drawn with white and reddish chalk with a layering of charcoal. I also used this white chalk for the clouds at some parts of the drawing.
The last material I used was a graphite pencil to complete the other areas of this drawing.
Modern Space in Miniature, ARC 121: Introduction to Architecture
This project was done in the second semester of my Freshmen year (August-December 2018). I was asked to make a diorama of a home (the interior). I decided to create the interior of the Falling Water Home. What drew me to this house was the colorful design especially with the furniture. I was also captivated by the natural rocks used to construct the fireplace near the living room.
Initially, I found making the diorama difficult as it was my first try. Some materials used for the diorama: shoe box, whitepaper, color pencils, cotton face towel.
I used white paper to cover most of the interior of the shoebox. This was in order to improve the reflection of light.
All the furniture were created with paper and creating the fireplace followed the same process. For one furniture ( a chair) in particular, I used a cotton face towel to cover parts of it because I wanted the chair to look similar to my reference image.
I wanted the diorama to look almost like a replica of the original home so I tried to achieve that by coloring the furniture and other areas of the interior.
