Extracurriculars

Despite my packed studio schedule, at RISD we still manage to make time for extracurriculars. Clubs and sports are of course part of this, but what I consider more important are the excursions we organize on our own -- sometimes spontaneously, sometimes months in advance. In any case, here are some things I've been up to besides working recently:

Devotchka and Gogol Bordello at the House of Blues in Boston
An incredible concert that was well worth the travel time and preparations. Gogol Bordello remains as my favorite group to watch live. Their new album came out April 27, and I suggest that anyone with a remote interest in Gogol Bordello to pick it up.















Z-Day (Or the H1Z1 outbreak)
Every year, hundreds of Brown and RISD students (and others!) join a zombie horde to shamble over Thayer St. and parts of the Brown campus.





Urban Exploration
As part of a 2D project, we explored an abandoned arcade with surprising results.







With finals month gearing up, my amount of free time is already diminishing...but hopefully I'll still have time for a few extracurriculars!

Flight

Flight
Black and Brown Ink, Gesso, and Pencil on Paper (33"x33") and Illustration Board (Two pieces, approximately 18"x24")



This assignment for my drawing class was based on the concept of "journey" and our personal interpretations of the word. I chose to create a triptych depicting a physical and psychological journey of the changes in myself I've experienced while at RISD. The two flanking pieces show my figure in first a coniferous forest (home in the Pac-NW) and later in my dorm room. The middle piece is an aerial view of Providence, from photographic reference, sketches, and invention. The bat is a sort of personal iconography for me - symbolizing the tension of duality as well as my self.

I may go back and work on this piece if I have the time (Hah!) to integrate the influence of Max Beckmann, as suggested by my professor. Also, it is hard to tell with this poorly lit studio photo, but the wing on the left protrudes slightly from the wall.

Modular Wearable Design

I just finished yesterday an assignment for 3D: A modular, wearable design. I chose to use guitar picks in bulk, intending to connect them like scales to form a hat. Unfortunately, I realized halfway through that 144 guitar picks is not quite enough to make a full hat. So instead I made this large necklace from 75 guitar picks. They are connected by segments mono-filament fishing line. Each joint was created by burning one end of the line to form a bulb, threading it through small holes drilled in the picks, and burning the other end to satisfaction.



Wearing the necklace





I may or may not have accidentally flung molten plastic around my room/onto my hand at least thirty times.

I'm Justin Bieber

So. I'm Justin Bieber.



(I do work here. I promise.)

Spring Break

Here I am, back at school, after a great spring break with climbing at the New River Gorge, WV. First, I headed down last Saturday with Jay to visit a friend in Claysville, PA. We had planned to only stay one night but ended leaving mid-Monday morning due to poor weather conditions in Summersville (town near the climbing area).

At Cabela's in Wheeling, WV

Mary and I try on some hats at a souvenir shop. Good luck finding anything without a confederate flag on it.

We arrived later that day at the house of Mark and Kamila Spitzer in Princeton, WV (farther south than the climbing area by about 1.5 hours) after doing some exploring of our own in the Bridge area of The New.

The New River Gorge Bridge - The 3rd largest arch bridge in the world

While we only had 2.5 days to climb at the New, our experience was great. The weather cleared up within twelve hours -- from snow to 70's and sun. We climbed primarily fairly easy sport routes the whole time (5.7-5.10). The sandstone was shockingly good quality of rock but took some getting used to.


Whippoorwill Area. When the lake is filled, the water rises up to the dark mark on the cliff. You can see Mark and Kamila by the cliff on the left.


View from inside a small cave.


CLIMBING IS DANGEROUS!


Jay climbs a 5.9 at Orange Oswald area

We left Thursday after a short morning of climbing. Unfortunately, our trip back did not go smoothly at all. We had some minor navigational errors, but the major problem happened when we decided to stop in Nutter Fort, WV for a lunch at Subway. We hit a vicious pothole at speed and damaged the sidewall badly enough that the tire was completely flat within a minute (note to parental units: I wasn't the driver). Luckily, we were able to put on the spare -- which was only rated to 50mph -- and drive to a tire place in town, thanks to the advice of a random guy with a heavy southern accent who also lent us a tire iron. Although our tire was beyond repair, we were able to purchase a new one and got back on the road.
Quality establishment. Thanks Tom & Keith!


$38 in tolls and 600 miles later we made it back to Providence and school work. Hopefully I'll be able to put up some more school work later on this week, as it is piling up in my room right now.

Computer Animation Final

I realized today that I hadn't posted anything from my computer animation wintersession course. That's partially because I'm very underwhelmed with the work I produced in the class and partially because I haven't put all the videos up on youtube. In any case, here is my final from the class. A disclaimer: I basically put this together in three nights (we only got a week to animate and I had my other course to worry about). So between the shortness, the poor narration (I had half an hour to record), and some awkward animation, I'm not too happy with it. But enough complaints, here's the video:

Comics Class Final Project

This is really late in arrival, but I decided to put up some pictures of my comics final. The first page was scanned in six parts (thus higher quality), while the other five pages were just hastily photographed on my dorm room floor and adjusted for levels. Ideally, I will be able to scan each page whole on a scanner in the computer lab, but I won't have the time nor motivation for that for a while. In any case, my comics final assignment was to create a 4-6 page comic with a title, beginning, middle, and end. Pretty broad, huh?

My piece is about a girl finding a "magic" pencil and how she chooses to use its powers.








I loved the class and hope to make more comics in the future, classes and time permitting. My thanks go out to the excellent professor, Kikuo Johnson, for making my wintersession coursework productive and enjoyable.

Comics Class

Seeing as it's been almost a month since my last post, I thought I'd put up an update while I have the time. Wintersession is going great and I actually have enough free time to get a few hours of sleep now and then. While I enjoy my computer animation class, so far my comics class is much better. The major decision balance is tipping towards illustration...

In any case, I have three assignments I can post from my comics class. The first assignment is visual instruction for a task (climbing!). The second, also wordless, is an interpretation of the Tortoise and Hare story. The most recent one is an assignment involving sound effects and an argument between two characters. I don't want to post every single page on here, so I'll post the first part to each assignment. The rest can be found on my DeviantArt page here. My apologies for the poor image quality...I haven't got around to scanning them in the lab yet.


How to Climb!


Tortoise and Hare


So Says I