Also I forgot to add yesterday afternoon we started to be shown how to use photoshop. I have used photoshop before but very briefly, to crop images and smudge. But yesterday I learnt how to paint in small spaces, to change the brightness, colours and contrast, burn and even learnt how to make my work neater and clearer to see by deleting dull spaces off of my drawings. 

You can clearly see that I was having a bit too much fun with re-styling Johnny Depp's look! I think out of all the tools on photoshop, my favourite has to be the smudge tool, it just makes everything from straight and boring to really abstract and wacky. 

An image from the internet of Johnny Depp

A page from a book I was reading on different architects (can't remember the name)

One of my pieces of work tracing over Herzog & De Meuron's famous buildings 

So yesterday morning, I had my feedback from my tutor and colleagues and they told me a various amount of things wrong with my blog. They told me that my blog was very Beige looking. So later that afternoon I had one of my colleagues Patti to help me change the way my blog is shown such as the background. I finally changed the bamboo in the background for something more simpler and easier for the public to read. Also one of the comments was, why the bamboo? Well I said I didn't really know but as I couldn't really work the settings on this blog I couldn't use any of my own photos because there size was too large. Another way too improve my writing I need to reflect more on my work, however I thought I had but in fact I hadn't at all really. So from now on I'll start to reflect more. 

If you like the changes on my blog do not hesitate to comment and say why or tell me what I could improve on. 

Tomorrow I have a formative assessment for this blog. So hopefully I will have some feedback on to how to improve it. At the moment I am steadily posting my experiences from Writtle college such as technical drawings and sketches on to this blog. I will have to start putting different experiences and visits in the future. I think my blog is going well, I know I don't post something everyday because I don't want to over complicate it. I am putting the things that I want to put on here. Also, another reason why is because I have other projects on the go. 

I know that I can still improve the layout of my blog by changing the way the posts are shown and I want to change the background maybe to building or that relates more to what I'm posting on the blog, instead of bamboo. However, I do quite like the bamboo. 

 Technical Drawings 

So yesterday I finished off two site survey drawings of a room called C10 on campus to a 1:50 scale. I started them on Thursday, and we were just told to get on with it but I didn't know how long it would take. I knew these drawings would take along time but I underestimated how long it took to actually finish them. I was supposed to have started them before, but I hadn't had the time to fit it in.   

I also started to draw a plan view of a section of the National Theatre. If you have ever been to the National Theatre in London recently you would have noticed a big red structure in front, however I was told that is a temporary structure so thats why I haven't drawn it on. To finish this drawing I have a plan to draw onto it in a different colour to mark out where the possible places to put a kiosk. However I need to start thinking about costs and materials. I think that my idea is to design a kiosk for under the over hang, (I mean the hexagon shape in the top left.) But I need to do more research in able to make that decision. 

These drawings are for one of my projects in designing a kiosk for the National Theatre, London. I just wanted to expand my research instead of just photos from the London visit a few weeks back.

These are two quick sketches of the area where I could put a kiosk.  Such as the drawing below indicates there is a space in front of the building. And the photo at the bottom, is supposed to be showing and over hang at the front of the building. Initially where I could possibly put a kiosk, in fitting with the over hang.

 Tuesday Morning, 30 minute drawing session. Today's session was taught by Abbie and firstly we were told to draw 5 x 4 grid roughly 2 inch squares. I chose pink felt tip pen to work with, however I had no idea what I was drawing so ironic to have a pink elephant. The task was to copy from the presentation each sqaure at a time. I actually really enjoyed the drawing. Such a different way of working, it felt like it was releaving stress from my course and to relax.

 

Frankly, I wasn't looking forward to the afternoon session on technical drawing because I was so tired, but I was wrong again I really enjoyed drawing a few obvious shapes at one point perspective with a Vanishing Point. Today I felt like I was being challenged to work at a different scale such as 1:50

 So this morning, I took a trip to Langford, Essex, where the Muesum of Power is. And actually this village hall was just opposite the museum so I could find it easily. The exhibition consisted of a photography and graphic design. The works were very inspiring, especially the graphic drawings of the food and drink, I liked them very much because of there attention to detail, I was even tempted to buy one.  

The hall, was a good idea to hold an exhibition in there because it had a lot of light coming in and plenty of ceiling space to put tall walls up.

 

The exhibition was held by Hannah Woods.

 

So yesterday we had our first site survey, basically measuring and recording data about this room on the college campus. I worked with two other members of my class who struggle to work out different measurements so I helped them out in recording the information. After a while I realised that, I had to measure everything. As I later found out that day I hadn't got all the measurements. The photo above shows the information recorded in my own way, showing a quick sketch and the measurements in millimeters. And the photo below shows a view of the room.

At the end of the day my collegue suggested that we share our measurements but that didn't work because everybody had slightly different measurements! Hopefully some time next week I will have time to create an Orthographic Projection of this room, with my measurements.

Drawing Tuesday's

 

 

This morning, I produced a massive drawing of a light bulb on the table in blue and yellow chalk. The blue chalk representing darker tones and the yellow introducing lighter spots. This drawing shows how I saw the light bulb, however when I saw other peoples work some of them tended to draw what they thought they saw.

 

 

This photo might be hard to make out, but it's a Orthographic Projection of the model I made a few weeks back. As this afternoon I was learning about Sectioning drawings. So hypothetically the client could see the inside of the building through an elevation view.

I enjoy drawing so these techniques I can practise more and enjoy while doing them, so I can progress.  



London Visit

One of my newest briefs is to design a Information Kiosk inside or outside one of these six galleries in London. These include, Tate Modern, The Barbican, National Theatre, Victoria & Albert Museum, Serpentine Gallery and The British Museum. I don't know which place I'm going to pick yet but the visit yesterday gave me some clue on what the areas looked like.

 

 

Deadline

I've got to admit this week has gone so fast and I've been so busy in handing in my latest project called the Architect A4. I had to make a model that had to fit in an A4 sized parameters, if not I think I might of failed the project. I picked the architects Herzog and De Meuron to copy parts of their architecture style and I had to make the minimum of six forms in order to create a abstract artifact.

Thoughout the project I experimented with different materials such as plastics, metals, wood, cardboard, paper and MDF. I used my phone to take photos of the techniques I used to cut and shape these materials into different shapes and forms.   

I tried to produce many similar silhouttes of their design not by actually pin pointing their forms, as you can see in the photo above that is my final model, obviously showing that I experimented with certain materials to get those shapes. In that model I was representing seven buildings.

On the other hand, the feedback I had from the tutor was positive and negative. However, they liked my processes and the work produced up to the model. They thought that they couldn't really tell what architect the model is representing, but that didn't faze me because I had researched and enjoyed the project.

Yesterday I brought a book called Archi-Doodle, because it looked a pretty good book to learn better drawing and shading techniques. I brought it from a quaint shop in Alriston, as I was away for the weekend to go see the London to Brighton veteran car run, in Brighton.
I have been to Alfriston many times and stayed at The Star Inn.

 As I was searching for techniques in this book I came across a drawing I did in pencil of The Minories, Colchester and I started to try out different tonal and shading techniques. For a first try I think the tree came out well and I will improve on the house textures later on.