SOFA

This weekend Navy Pier was host to a wonderfull art exhibit called SOFA ( and no it is not a display of different couches. SOFA stands for "Sculpture Objects and Functional Art" Fair. While I have heard about this exhibit for many years, I have been unable to attend for one reason or another. However, this year I was able to go. Northern Illinois University provided the transportation and we bought the tickets.

While there were a variety of media ranging from clay ceramics to crayons used the same way Seraut painted, my favorite portion and the most prominent was the glasswork that was on display. The pieces ranged from blown glass bowls to intricate pieces of jewelry. By far the most stunning piece was this blown glass chandelier.

No photos were allowed to be taken in the exhibit so these images were taken from the catolog that I purchased.

In addition to the exhibit their were several demostration that took place throughout the day. My favorite was done by the Corning Museum of Glass and consisted of a glass blowing demonstration. Here you can see the demonstration in progress.

Definitely worth a visit again next year.

Salute to a Master

This weekend's drawing assignment was to create a copy of a master's painting, drawing, etching, etc. I chose to do this piece by Cezanne.

Here is my drawing done in charcoal using a reductive technique.

Striking Silhouettes

In this project we were to take the sillouettes of everyday figures and by overlapping, enlarging, or even reversing the images we had to create a patern.

People are accustomed to receiving visual information in a systematic and organized manner and yet some viewers associate order with institutional rigidity and will reject visual communications that seem too highly structured. The point is to develop judgment about your audience’s preferences and tolerances with respect to order and risk.

In the second part of this project we were to choose a word a place it over figures to come up with a compelling compostition.

Value Value Everywhere..

Value is one of the most important tools available to an artist. With it an artist can define forms extremely well. In these drawings the lights were turned out in the room and spotlights were placed in places to get dramatic contrast. These drawings are put in the order that I created them. All of these drawings are reductive drawings, meaning that a mid-tone gray is placed on the paper and the highlights are then erased away from the paper.

Some 3-d work

My 3-D class has turned out to be really interesting. It is more like a drafting class. In this assignment We had to cut out designs of each side of the shape.

Here it is before I glued it together.

And when I spray painted the cube i got these awesome shapes that i had to show.

Modern day Values.

Finally we have begun value drawings in my Drawing 1 class! This is a very rough first piece becaue we were only given 15 minutes.

It is a reductive drawing, whereby I placed a midtone gray over the entire piece of paper and erase the highights out of the drawing and put in the lowlights into into with a charcoal pencil.

At the bottom of the page is a value scale.

All Good Things Must Come to an End

Here it is, the final drawing dealing with the idea of line. In this drawing, one-point perspective was the main objective. In one-point perspective all lines converge into one vanishing point. Also in this drawing we were required to use create a surreal environment by placing objects that would not necessarily appear in the space. Can you guess the theme I chose for the surreal portion? This surreal portion contrasts a great amount to the rigidity of the one-point perspective.

I am not sad to see the end of the line drawings. Line drawings tend to feel incomplete. Up next are some drawings using value, as well as some 3d work.