Thursday, July 26, 2012

Last day of school

Today was the big wrap up: satisfying yet sad. Mariana and I got to finish our magazine by 3 o'clock sharp. I am really proud of all of the things we did this month!!! It was the best decision to come to Parsons. Both Frank and Paul are incredible teachers which taught me not obly techniques but life lessons I will never forget. I hope one day I return as a transfer student!

Whitney museum

On wednesday we had a fieldtrip to the whitney museum to see Yayoi Kusama's exhibition. There were some things I loved and some I just hated. I thought putting all of the colorful paintings together made them look fantastic. Looking at them one by one was not as exciting. The wierd white things she put in sofas and clothing which I never understood what they were, was not that enjoyable. I just loved the painting called "revived soul". The sizes of the dots made the whole painting look incredible. I was amazed! After the meuseum we went to central park to draw the Alice in Wonderland state which was really fun even if it was a short time we were there. This picture is from google as we could not take pictures inside the exhibition.

Great advance!

Tuesday we spent all day working on our magazines. Mariana and I stayed at school until 7 pm and got a lot of work done. Here is our cover.

Geometric perspective

On Monday, Frank brought Rafael who is a great graphic designer to teach us about Adobe InDesign and how to start our magazine. Mariana and I got really good ideas and couldn't wait to get started.

Paul taught us how to draw geometiroc shapes with perspective. We started in the classroom with grid paped and traced it to te bristol, for homewotk we painted it in a way that te value of the colors made sense accordog with the lighting in the painting.

Homework

My homewotk for Monday came out really great! I enjoyed doing it and put a lot of effort into it, here is the result.

Skyline Fail!

In design class Frank taught us some basic things about photoshop and we practice them all in various pictures. it was really helpful and exciting, although I am now sure I can't be a graphic designer since I get frustrated if I spent too much time in the computer trying to make thinks perfect.

Paul took us around meat packing district to a place were we could ser a skyline to draw it. It was a disaster since it started pouring rain when we got there. We tried painting below a little ceilling but the air was cold and brought the water in so we had to go home. It was fun, but I couldn't get anything done

Long day

Thursday morning we went out to make Barbara's and Fernanda's photoshoot. Barbara was the model and Fernanda the photographer, Mariana and I were just helping with the lights and I also did Barbara's makeup. It was really exhausting but there was a great outcome.

The lucture on industrial design was quite interesting even though I am not really into it. There was a clear emphasis in the fact that we should fight to be the best at what we are doing every moment and acheive every goal.

In drawing class there was a male model which made me a little uncomfortable but I did a really good job catching the important thing in the drawing which was the windows besides the man and the persective of the line.

Shooting

We finally made de photoshoot on wednesday!!! It was amazing! Despite de horrible hot weather, we were really enthusiastic and got incredible shoots. Here are some photos.

For drawing class we made a really difficult project. There were some plastic skeletona around the room with camouflage fabrics as a background. I didn't get a chance to finish it and I didn't really mind since I was not enjoying it that much :)

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Wrapping it up

On Tuesday Mariana and I finished our dress, finally! It was a relief and I felt great satisfaction. We also went walking around the streets near the school figuring out were we should take the pictures. We found a lot of interesting settings.
For Paul's class we had a model posing in a stool and we painted her with a really fun technique, we needed to observe carefully and leave everything lighter than middle gray blank, and everything darker paint it black. I thing I could do better but I tried my best. I really liked Mariana's drawing, it was amazing!

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Photo shoot practice

On Monday we went outside with Frank to learn how to make a photoshoot using the light reflectors and all of those gadgets thst made us look so professional :) all of our classmates that were going to be the models of their dress practiced modeling while the rest used the light adjusters and the camera. We got some pretty good pictures of everyone and the class went by really quickly.

In drawing class we placed our dresses in the center of the room and sit around them painting them, eavh one'a dress being the focus if the painting. I got really tired doing it! I stayed at school until 9:30 pm and i didn't even love my result! It was really frustrating because I liked it when it was just my dress, but as I started with the background and the other dresdes, the thing I loved about it somehow faded so I wasn't really inspired by the end.

Free time

On Saturday, while waiting for a friend I sat by central park and drew Mariana texting, this is what I did

Friday @MoMA

Friday's fieldtrip to MoMA was amazing! The Museum of Modern Art is by far my favorite. We were there for about 5 hours and they went by so quickly I felt like I needed 5 hours more to appreciate every art piece. I've been to MoMA like four times and I can't get enough. There are some really interesting things that I wouldn't exactly call art, for example a fishbowl with basketballs inside or a coat in a hanger. But then I realized that all of those are art because the artists are the first ones to come up woth the idea. I had a great conversation with Paul while observing Jackson Pollock's big painting, it was unbelievable: the colors together, the enormous size! If it was painted on the floor, how did Pollovk reach the middle?? Abstract paintings are cool because theres no scale to wich the forms can be compared.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Color palette painting



 On Thursday's drawing class we tried to paint our color palette used for the dress the best way we could paying attention to the value, hue and saturation of the colors. It was challenging and time consuming but I think I got good results. I was proud of my outcome.






Frank helped us realize that the problem with our dress was that it was in parts and couldn't be seen as a whole so we made quite a lot of changes to it without destroying our original idea. Now we are happy!!!

Color circle




 On Wednesday we made a color circle which was actually pretty hard to do, it was more difficult than the gray scale. To do this we needed to compare the value of each color with a gray scale and since I messed up looking at the incorrect values, I needed to start all over again, so double the work!
It was not easy to maintain the gouache inside the lines so my work was not so neat, I need to improve that and my patience.


My dress ended up like this on  Wednesday, Mariana and I were not so happy with the result so we came home and thought about it and planned on changing it the next day. We thought something was missing.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Gray scale

Today we started the day with a lecture from Frank about how the mind groups different images together depending on the shapes, distance, colors, etc. which I found really interesting.We continued working on the paper dress but we figured that we needed something that worked as a base where we can paste the paper. I had been avoiding sewing all along but there I am doing it, I hope it works out.
 








 In drawing class we first did something that I really liked which was commenting on the homework that we liked the best. I don't know why I enjoyed it as much as I did. I guess I always receive grades with a little feedback but not a whole group commenting on my work. 







Creating a grey scale can seem so easy! Paul made us a demonstration on how to make a grey scale and how to use gouache correctly. It's not that easy. Getting the perfect shade of gray that goes between each set of shades is really complicated. The shade may be a little lighter or a little darker than it should and that's enough to ruin the whole scale! Another problem was that once I got the correct color, I used it once and then the paint in my palette dried off and I couldn't use it again. Making this required a lot of patience.

All work day

 I did my homework on a statue of Central Park. The point of it was to focus on the background instead of on the actual statue and if I were to criticize my own work I would say the colors of the leaves and the shapes of the tree branches blend quite good. I liked that the statue even though it is not highly detailed, stands out as the main part of the drawing but the whole page looks like an environment. I could really improve my gouache technique and the form of the base since it doesn't look realistic. I exaggerated the colors a little bit, the base is not actually pink for example, just to make a better effect in the painting.
Today we spent the entire day working on our garments and Mariana and I advanced as much as we could. Frank encouraged us a lot on our idea and Paul gave us really great advices. We had an idea but we weren't too excited about it, something was missing. We decided to change the design adding this extravagant tail to the back of the dress, made of paper for sure, and we began getting inspired so we didn't stop making it until we got it exactly as we figured it. I missed a great part of the class going to this Visa thing but I still enjoyed it a lot.
 


Sunday, July 8, 2012

Friday at the Met



Friday has been the day I have enjoyed the most. The Prada fashion show was not as exciting for me since I am not that much into fashion but the rest of the day was amazing. I've always love visiting museums wherever I go, but when I do I normally go searching for the modern paintings and skip all the sculptures and ancient art. Stopping on different exhibitions to chose a statue to draw was a new experience. Drawing statues made me appreciate every detail and effort that was at some time put into it which I had never done before, not that much. I didn't finish any of my drawings in the hour that we had on each one, but I really want to go back to the museum and finish them. From now on, when I go to any museum I will carry with my sketchpad and pencil and do what I did this past Friday.

First gouache painting

On Thusday, the design class with Frank started getting more hands on and Mariana and I began thinking on materials to make our garments. We thought that it would look really good if it was all made of colored paper and spray paint. We made some sketches on our ideas that looked beautiful. I am a little nervous on how we  are going to connect everything together and make it wearable but I know we will figure it out.
On our drawing class with Paul we learned how to use gouache and it is completely new to me. I find it really hard to  make the painting look real but it obviously takes time to be good at it. I like the way I created distance between the man and my classmate, I think that is a nice touch to the piece. I am looking forward on learning more about color and gouache.

4th of July

not same angle as when drawing it
On the 4th  of July, I took advantage of the free day to go to Central Park and sit down for a long time to take a good look at a statue that I chose and draw it. It was so relaxing that I forgot about the hot weather and just sat there for about an hour and a half. I walked around the park searching for a statue that would make me have a hard time drawing it and got to the one posted above. I thought it was a good choice because it is a human body where the muscles on his arms and legs are not easy to draw; also the man is in a postion were I had to try and give it the same weight on his right leg and make it look like it was bended. I think my result came out really good even though I avoided drawing the dog and concentrated more on the man.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Start drawing



Today was a really great fist complete day and a really challenging one as well. In the morning when I realized I didn't have my pictures in my camera I felt like everything was starting wrong and got a little bit nervous, but once I had them with me, the whole day flowed smoothly. Making the color palettes in the design class was easier than I thought and I enjoyed it since the palette came out to be really interesting and I got excited to use those colors in my project. The Drawing class was the best! I had never drawn still life before, not to say a human body and I figured that I love it and I'm not that bad. I have a good feeling about this course!

Monday, July 2, 2012

Getting to know all of it



Our first day at Parsons really helped me to have a more concrete idea on what to expect for the drawing and design program. I got really nervous realizing that it will be a real challenge since a lot of creativity is required, but I am positive that working with my partner and watching the progress in my classmates' work will make me learn a lot. Paul and Frank are fun and serious at the same time so that will help us to have a good time while working hard to meet with the teachers' expectations and get the most out of this experience. Mariana and I got cool ideas for our project out of environments around NYC and took many pictures composed of different colored and shaped objects, and I am excited to choose the final theme of our garment tomorrow.