a return to blogspot?

...probably not, but I haven't blogged anywhere in some time (obviously not here and not over at lj since the beginning of the school year) and suddenly felt the urge to write something that isn't in Danish, isn't in the form of a short story, and has nothing to do with another person's short story. So, yeah. Here I am. On a site that I rarely come to anymore (unless you count lurking around and reading other people's blogs). So it's nothing magnificent. People don't even look at this thing since the class ended. Hell, I haven't looked at this thing since.

Right.

THIS is my actual blog. Don't know if anyone cares and don't know if I really should be putting this info up, but there you go. A peek at this little thing I like to call life.

Yawn. Now I need to go buy some pita bread and translate some Danish.

ioPen Fun - Rendered

Here it is, the big shed section/perspective that was drawn with the ioPen, manipulated in Illustrator (line weights and basic colours), and then "painted" in PhotoShop. I'm pretty proud of it but I won't know what it really looks like until I print it out. Perhaps I'll test it with Foster before I commit to it on my final printout.

More ioPen Fun

This is my baby. I'm thinkin' about using the Dennis (or whatever) technique to render this thing. I'm so happy with how it turned out. Yay!

ioPen Fun

Constructed. Drawn. Line-weighted. About to be rendered. Wee…

Photoshopping SALTS

Random Play. Enjoy.

8.1 Leaves on That Water Thing

An experiment with the layering technique we were talking about in class. Because I don't have a full model of the building I am designing a lighting fixture for (or, indeed, the lighting fixture itself) I decided to use this little water vessel I built as a Nurbz cross section expiriment. Wee…

6.2 S.A.L.T.S. Heritage Shipyard

I chose to use my studio project for this digital drawing exercise. The program is rather complex but is, basically, a new set of buildings for S.A.L.T.S., a program that is based in Victoria, BC. S.A.L.T.S. both builds large wooden ships and teaches young people (18-25) how to sail them. Currently, S.A.L.T.S. has two ships in their fleet and is planning on adding a third within the next ten years.

In the past, I have worked with the idea of inverted shadows (where the black becomes the object and the white becomes the shading) and decided to continue my explorations here. It is an interesting experiment and one that I quite enjoy, but I think that I need to work on it a bit more.

Yay pirates!

5.4 windcatcher by aurora designs

Though the Windcatcher captures light rather than wind, it recalls the beautifully simple design of its outdoor cousin. One can almost imagine this luminaire spinning in a light breeze even while sitting under it in the calm atmosphere of a small café.
The Windcatcher was designed to be used in small cafés or restaurants where a certain mood or ambiance is desired. It is meant to be used in multiples as accent lighting rather than for the main lighting source but that does not mean they fade into the background. Indeed, the Windcatcher calls attention to itself with its soft golden glow and hint of movement.

5.4 Windcatcher Images

Images of windcatcher by aurora designs. The top two are pictures of the physical model; the third image is windcatcher in a room that I built (the picture on the wall is a tiled image of my younger brother's kitten, Hank); and the last image is a simple axon of windcatcher.

4.2 Peacock on My Desk

Like its predecessor, the Desk Peacock is a luminaire that allows for a number of different tasks to be completed be it working in the home office or creating the perfect ambiance for a dinner party. Though varied, the ligt it projects is varied and adds interest to any room or occasion simply by being switched on.
The two light shades of the Desk Peacock is what allows for this variation in light. The heavier, perferated fabric of the rear shade casts shadows back on to a wall in order to create visual interest while the thin, glass panel on the bottom allows for light to fall evenly on the task at hand. In this way, the two different elements work harmoneously together to ensure the user both tranquility and productivity.

4.2 The Desk Peacock (A Teaser)

Like the title said, this is just a teaser of the finished product. No layout yet, but the model is done. I took Jeff's idea about this being a desk lamp and decided to add the glass element. As well, this form was created using Nurbz rather than using the hyperbolic parabaloid of the previous Peacock generation. Wee…

4.1 Nurbz Are Not For Noobz

Some experimentations with the Nurbz Cross Sections tool. After creating a cross section, I used the Nurbz tool to create the shape and then had some fun from there. The first is a simple water vessel placed in a scene of its own. The second is a strawberry I created and placed in the scene from the Rarebit Fiend and Metal Cheese bit from earlier. It is entitled The Strawberry Fiend.

Basically, these forms began life as a series of lines. Rather than just drawing a couple of random lines, I chose to create one and then rotate it to create something that looked like a 3D object. After that, I selected all of the objects before applying the Cross Sections tool. Once I had the cross sections, I selected the circles that were created and applied the Nurbz tool to create the solid planes. After that, I decided to have some fun (ie, add water and leaves, respectively).

(Okay, so somebody else claimed the Nurbz tool, but I needed it to actually do something with the cross sections. Sorry to whoever claimed it!)

3.2 Inspiration Pieces

Peacocks: The Oregon Zoo's majestic vermin and the inspiration for my luminaire.

(images from www.albanyhill.com and gallery.hd.org, respectively)

3.2 The Peacock

The Peacock is a luminare of many faces. It can cast sharp shadows or emit a simple glow; it can illuminate a place of work or stand on its own as a piece of functional art. In this way, the Peacock can enhance the ambiance of any restaurant, bar, or private home.
Though simple in form, it is a piece that attracts attention by the same elegance and poise of the majestic creature it was inspired by. The tail of feathers, so to speak, sweeps out from the body of the luminare to illuminate the area below and celebrate the area above.

3.1 lightfixture.ohone

One light fixture. Three different ways.

2.2 Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend (or the Metal Cheese Lamp)

Light is power and reflections tell us stories; shadows speak to our darker nature and colours emote. Light and its variants make up our world and without them we would be lost. Here, there is still light but there is also an odd softness to it all. It is as if stepping into a strange dream where worlds continue beyond solid surfaces and everything has a smooth quality to it rather than the harsh edge generally created by light. In this particular image, shadows create the scene and colours set the mood. Though the main fixture is reflected in the smooth surface of the backdrop, those reflections are secondary to the way the light is reflected and how it seems to go on beyond the surface of the mirror. This world is limited, that much is clear, but that does not mean it has to be bound.

("Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend" is borrowed from a comic strip of the same name that is written and drawn by Winsor McCay)

2.1 YOU MUST ALWAYS HAVE A SECRET PLAN

For this image, I was inspired by the message that is projected onto the backdrop: YOU MUST ALWAYS HAVE A SECRET PLAN. I found it on an electrical (?) box in Finland and thought it brilliant. Anyway, what I wanted to create was the feeling of isolation that comes with having a secret plan. This isolation, however, is not the lonely sort for one can have a secret plan while being around others. Still, I wanted only one figure that could be read as an actor while everything else in the scene is read as set. The glossy pieces are not only to reflect and refract the light, they are also there to literally show the inner reflection one must have while creating this secret plan.

1.2 Sketchy SketchUp Shadows are Sketch

There is a certain exoticness to layers upon layers of rounded arches. Perhaps this comes from the halls of arches seen in many Islamic temples or from the masonry screens seen in the same part of the world. Whatever it is, I wanted to explore the use of this form in my project by first creating a model out of layered arches and then casting shadows to evoke the special nature of my chosen form. Through experimenting with the time of day and the orientation of the camera, I was actually surprised by the number of new forms I could create from the single model I built. There are towers, there are piles of arches; everything can be jumbled together and everything can be separated clearly. This is what I wanted to achieve with this project: to create one form that in turn could create many, many different forms.

1.1 Lights, Camera…

These are the images I was unable to bring into class due to my studio site visit to Victoria, BC. My inspiration came from the arches of Islamic Temples and, specifically, Cordobas La Mezquita. The image of this temple is shown here with my shadows.

I suppose that when I was choosing the different shadows to use I thought about how the harsh light of the Islamic world would fall upon the abstraction I created. In the middle of the day the statue would be most clearly read through it's shadow while during the extreme parts of the day—dawn and dusk—the shadow would be elongated and elegant.

These images were created in SketchUp, hence the rather static and rather uninteresting shadow. I do not currently have FormZ installed on my computer which would have given me the ability to cast a much more interesting and varied set of shadows.