Musings on a Shoe

Shoe?, your going to yourself, what shoe and why musings. For my 3D design class our next assignment is to create a 20 inch (or larger) cardboard shoe. One that could sit in the window of a shoe store. It is suppose to replicate an existing shoe, but be both large and eye catching. From the examples we have in the classroom of previous students work I can tell you that indeed giant shoes can be eye catching. My first problem in achieving this goal is that I think I have the most boring shoes. I have mostly gotten rid of all my heels, and the rest of my shoes tend to be simple loafer lookalikes.  Not that I ever really went in for fancy footware, I value comfort too much. However circumstances could be worse, I could own only a couple pairs of shoes, as I did back in the late 1970's, so I guess I must not complain.

Last year I was drawing shoes for Color and Design I, this year it is reproducing them, obviously Art Instructors love to use shoes. Anyway to make a long story short I still own a pair of shoe boots, see image below, and this is my subject piece.

Our first challenge was to draw the shoe from various angles straight on, sideways, top down, and to trace and outline of the sole of the shoe. I won't bore you with my drawings. Then we had to take measurements of the actual shoe and using a proportion wheel convert the measurements to what they would be if the shoe was 7 inches or 20 inches long instead of its true length. Using the smaller measurements we were then to construct a space sketch out of planes. Below are images of what my shoe space sketch looks like.

Then we had to do charcoal drawings of the finished space sketch (model). Below is one of mine, not wonderful, but as I was almost the only student in the class that had both the model and the sketches I am hoping I got an OK on them. Other students seem to be a bit confused about these sketches and why we do them of the built piece when we have already done drawings of the shoe. I think it is to verify that our models look like the shoe, you sometimes don't really look at something until you have to draw it.

So that is where I am, space sketch done, drawings of space sketch done, and today in class we started building the final 20 inch version of our shoes. Well, I started building, a lot of my fellow students were catching up, either doing their charcoal sketches or their space sketches since they hadn't finished one or both.

I have 3 more images for you today. These are from my Illustration I class. Our last assignment was to use a natural object for an illustration. The instructor brought in a box of objects and allowed us to choose one to illustrate. I chose a shell, see picture to the right, not a great one I know, but the ones without the flash were too blurry, and at least this way you can get an idea of what the shell looks like.

Then we had to draw it on drawing paper. Mine was a bit smaller then he wanted me to use for the finished illustration so I had to copy it and increase the size about 12%.

Next I transferred this image to Bristol board and inked in the lines using mainly stippling. There are a few lines but not many on this Illustration. Instructors comment was that it should be a bit darker in areas. I may go back and do that. Originally I was going to use Micron pens to do the stippling, but I ended up purchasing a set of Mechanical Pens. I probably shouldn't have, but I do love mechanical pens. I have owned sets in the past, and will try to take good care of this one so I don't have to toss any pens do to ink clogging the tips.

One last image for you, between my classwork projects I have been working on another Mandala, this one with a theme of trees, I am using leaves and seeds so far from various tree types. Colors are what I would consider fall colors, sky blue, reds, oranges and yellows with some greens.

That is it for this post, as always comments are welcome. 

Graphic Design Posters Done

Tuesday I finished my designs for my first Graphic Design project, and took a thumb drive over to Staples to have them printed. The size is 18 x 24 inches, so they were expensive to print, add into that the charges for having them mount the prints it all added up to a bit more then I would preferred.  As for the results, I was pleased with the posters when I first picked them up, but after our class critique on Thursday, I am not so happy. The instructor was generally not pleased with how the class did. I know I messed up with the position of the text on the 2nd poster, and in hindsight I should have lightened the table and the floor color.  Ah well, I really don't want to spend the money to reprint but.... will see what I get for a grade on this and then maybe decide. Because of the dark floor on the 2nd poster you can't see the lost button which is down in the lower left of the image. One reason why I am not happy with the dark floor. I am pleased with the graphic designs, I like the drawing of the doll, and I am happy with the family "photo".  I think if I had had a bit more time, but then isn't that the usual complaint with art projects.

I do have some other images for the blog. These next two are from my Illustration class. This time the instructor brought tools from his home and we each had to pick one to draw and then ink, using lines only. The tool I chose is some type of shears, not sure if they are for pruning or for metal. They aren't huge, but not small either. Anyway first image is my drawing. I think I drew this object at least 3 times with all the erasures and redrawing I did. But I feel the resulting image is fairly accurate. The last image is my pen and ink rendering of the tool. I feel the lines on the tool body and head work fairly well, I am not totally pleased with the line work for the handles or the shadows. I think the shadow work would have been better if I had used a finer pen nib. Oh well we are learning and part of learning is making mistakes. Homework for my next Illustration class is to use stippling on a natural object, in my case a shell.  So come back next week some time and I will hopefully have that image posted for you to see.

Pencil drawing

Final inked image.

I have also been doing some work on a new mandala. This one has a tree theme, I am using images of leaves and some seeds so far. I may have an in-progress photo for you next week. That's it for now, as always comments are welcome.

First 3D piece finished

Well it is done, above is just one view, scroll down for more views. Because E-board, which we used to construct this planar object, is white on one side and cardboard colored on the other I took quite a few pictures.

First here is a picture of my workspace before I started gluing.

Sorry about the high contrast, the sun was coming in the window onto the table that I work on, I didn't want to wait to get started so the picture had to be taken under less then optimal conditions. On the left and toward the middle are the 2 stacks of E-board pieces, on the right is the stack of cardboard rounds that I used as separators. I cut the rounds in half and glued one half to each E-board section, then glued those sections together. I ended up not using the smallest units as the finished object would have been a bit larger then it was supposed to be, and I just didn't like the look, take your pick as to which was the actual deciding factor.  

Side view, showing white Side E-Board

Top down view from the Cardboard Colored side.

I have four images for you this week from my Illustration class. First two are from last week's class assignment of the berry basket, first my drawing of the basket.

Next my pen and ink version. Note these are all being done with quill pen points and bottled India Ink. Usually I prefer working with Technical type pens, not the real ones (too hard to take care of) but the disposable Micron's, the same as I use for my quilt labels, though of different tip sizes.

Over the weekend we were assigned two projects, one to reproduce a bottle that was part of a class hand out on various ways to use pen and ink, and the other was to finalize the drawing of a tool. My tool drawing is done, but inking the result is my homework for Wednesday's class so I will post the pictures next week. I did finish the bottle so I have the drawing and the pen and ink version images to show.

Pencil Sketch

Final Drawing Inked

I am not totally pleased with how this came out, I am finding myself getting impatient with the process and rushing it a bit, which isn't good. Still it isn't too bad an effort.

I was telling the instructor this morning, how I am finding myself a bit surprised at how I don't really like doing this type of drawing. I do and have always done what some might consider finicky detailed work, take the mandala, lots of detailed areas, and I had to do repeats, which does get a bit old. Still I don't have to use as much control to do those as I do when I do the illustrations. With illustration things need to be exact and tight, I am finding I don't enjoy working that way. Detail can be fun sometimes, maybe when I don't have to be quite so exact, I guess, have to think about this a bit more. I suppose it might just be the subject, but somehow I don't think so.

That is it for this post. I almost have my first Graphic Design I project done. I will have those printed this week so should have pictures for you next week at the latest. I also have a Fast Friday group challenge that I should be working on. That I am thinking about but not sure if/when I will finalize the design and actually sew. I am also making progress on another mandala, it might be far enough along to have an in-progress photo taken.  So there are several things in the works as it were, stay tuned for my next update, and as always comments are welcome.