Wednesday, August 29, 2018 1:47 P.M.
Today, I went to Forbes Avenue and S. Bouquet Street. As I got off the 61D bus, I found a bench to sit on and took a 360 view around the area. The weather was definitely humid but a few breezes of wind were battling with the bursting sunlight. I could hear construction nearby: drilling, hammering, buzzing. At 1:24 P.M., I heard sirens with a fire truck passing by, and at 2:43 P.M., I heard another siren and witnessed a police officer on his motorcycle chasing a car down the street. I could smell the smokiness and saltiness of sausages from a nearby hot dog street vendor. When I looked straight ahead of me, I saw the modern building of University of Pittsburgh’s Public Health Center. The building was a tan-brown color that had transparent windows mixed with the opaque concrete exterior. There were benches and a small hill surrounded by bushes and trees for pedestrians to rest. To the right of the Health Center, there were school buses and a large chestnut brown building that appeared to be a school. Across the Health Center, I was sitting on a bench where there were about thirty pigeons behind me on the grass. In front of me was a rental bike rack where some bicycles were stacked on one another when there were specific racks for each bike. When I turned to my left, I could see part of University of Pittsburgh’s campus. Students of all ages, races, and backgrounds were walking in different directions. Some biking, walking, riding the bus; laughing, arguing, listening to music.
While observing, students moving about through the intersection seemed to be ignoring the fact that there are many social restaurants, shops, and buildings to interact with. While I was sitting in the middle of this chaos, the movements of transportation and people seemed to be fast-forwarding while I was trapped in the time of my own; it was similar to those movie scenes where the main character is frozen while he or she can look into their future or reminisce about their past. People were independent, free, and unique. Although the general color scheme of the area was mostly dull shades of gray and brown, the public transportation and people made it colorful: both literally and figuratively. Literally, the colorful red, blue, and green buses and the different races and outfits of the people made the streets diverse with color. Figuratively, the colors represent liveliness and movement while the dull buildings seem static and not interactive with society.
9/6 Notes/Feedback:
-make the architectural lines straight
-people saw manmade object, ambiguity of the flowers in front, no sense of “isolation” because too zoomed in on the building and its design
-I need to rethink about the composition, layout, cropping or zooming out image, what my main focus is…
-tip: starting project on bigger size paper and pasting all the elements; then cutting the edges of the paper so it becomes more straight and precise
-try making different compositions through tracing and see if the purpose/composition is better through zoomed out or zoomed in layouts
-put emphasis on what is significant through layers
-layers=depth, sense of perspective
-make sure to never say what I intended to portray before hearing what the audience/opposite person is saying; it prevents them from being able to think about their reaction to the piece
After the feedback I received after my first white-on-white draft, I went back to my intersection and tried to take better pictures by moving around the streets. Looking back at these pictures compared to ones I took when I first went to my intersection, I realized that it was easier for me to take pictures because I have already been to the area. Being familiarized by the intersection helped me to decide which parts of the intersection I wanted to capture in my picture.
Eventually, I chose the picture above as my final pick for this project. I applied a black and white filter so that I could trace the image easier when working on the project. I like how the perspective of the streets is emphasized and how there can be a lot of simplifying done while still being able to include details.
Sept. 11 & Sept. 13
While I was working on the actual relief of my intersection, I faced many challenges and problems. Before I could even begin simplifying, I had a hard time understanding the perspectives of the streets. Since the main road and sidewalk consumed much of the composition, it was hard for me to decide which details to leave in and take out. In addition, there was much ambiguity of how the building, street, and streetlights were as the perspective stretched to the back. When I was working on the back part of the intersection, the white on white and the grayscale on white came out to be very different. For example, even the perspective of the main street signal is different because the white-on-white one was wrong. Due to these complexities, I decided to start over with a new picture and new composition.
Within September 13 and September 18, I worked everyday at the studio to catch up with the class since I decided to start over. My new picture of the intersection is added below. I chose this picture because I liked the perspective of the stretching street along with the tall buildings in the back. I saw levels of depth in the picture and thought this depth that I saw could help me when I simplify the picture for my reliefs.
September 18: Studio Design Class
Today, we had a critique where we hung up everyone’s grayscale + pop of color on the wall. With my new intersection, I felt a bit more comfortable and happy about the work that I made. For my pop color, I decided to use the sky blue for the UPMC building because the color blue was the first color that popped up when I thought of a hospital. So for me, I used color as symbolism. Honestly, I don’t think it was very effective because most people were not able to recognize the building even with the addition of color and the fact that it had more details than other buildings. During the critique, I learned that there were so many different ways that people chose their color:
1. color as focal point
2. indicator of time
3. mood setter
4. color borrowed from the setting
5. color as grayscale substitute
6. color as matching objects in the environment
7. color to emphasize depth
8. color to add contrast
Through these different though processes and reasoning, I learned that I should have been more thoughtful in choosing my pop color. I felt like I was too simple and focused on the audience’s understanding of my intersection rather than choosing a color that can help portray the intersection’s physicality better. If I could rechoose a color and place to replace the tone, I would replace my street with the navy color or experiment with the bold and bright red for the person, light, and cars.
Overall, this project was definitely very challenging because I went through many trials that ended up failing and causing me to start over. The main focus of this project was to translate a photograph into shapes by using 2D tonal and white shapes to create a 3D effect. Our reliefs had to include the main description of the place through our simplification of certain elements and the way we cropped our picture.
By trying to portray this focus for the project, I came through many frustrations and challenges as well as teachings for myself. In the beginning, I struggled with finding a picture that I wanted and could work with. All the pictures that I had seemed to not satisfy me and even through my second trip of visiting my intersection, I realized that I need to take at least 100 pictures in order to choose one satisfactory one. I thought I did a good job in taking good pictures when I was at the intersection, but when I got back to the studio none of them were good enough to work with. Even after choosing a picture, I struggled with sticking with the picture and trying to work with it. Although I eventually gave up on my original picture and started over, I want to try to stick with my first plan and make it work no matter what. I believe that in the future, I may not have time to start over again so I need to learn how to pursue with my first plans.
Throughout these frustrating moments, it was rewarding to see my improvement in craftsmanship skills and understanding of perspective. I also gained insight into design aspects because I was able to take out unnecessary elements and add details to those that required more. I learned about color and the importance of the color spectrum by doing the grayscale + pop of color intersection. I was inspired by my classmates during the process of this project because they figured out ways to portray specific elements such as trees and electricity lights. I wanted to improve on my detailing elements too but I was too caught up in starting over and choosing a composition that I like.
Although the past three to four weeks seemed to be tedious, overwhelming, and challenging, I realized that this is only the beginning and I shouldn’t be too stressed out about how simple mine looks compared to others. Personally, I acknowledge that my project feels almost too simple compared to some other classmates’. However, the process of finishing the project and the many trials I took helped me to realize what I need to improve on. There were so many times where I regretted not learning Photoshop or Illustrator before coming to college because others seemed like they had it easy: they could just outline the shapes that they need, print several of them out for their three separate intersections, and then cut and paste them. But after doing everything by hand, my fingers and hands became used to being more precise and careful while cutting and measuring. I realized how much practice it takes for me to be so accurate and precise as possible to the real physical objects through paper. This project made me more modest and respectful to everyday intersections and streets that we see, along with artists like Reina Takahashi and Lydia Ricci.
