Today's Class- The focus today was on planes- broad surfaces of three dimensional objects. Planes can be any size, move in any direction, can be flat or curved or move at any angle to other elements. I opened with a few slides of art featuring planes, such as the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright (lots of flat horizontals influenced by the midwestern landscape) and industrial steel sculptures of Richard Serra.
Then we moved onto a portfolio exercise that made use of automobile design as a starting point. Besides being the most powerfully advertised commercial product of this century and our most potent consumer durable (to borrow a few lines from British author JG Ballard), cars have been a source of inspiration for visual art across the last century.
How to make this up- I asked students to select a motor vehicle solely on its visual appeal to them. Any style, vintage- just something they thought looked really cool. The first step in this exercise was to build a three dimensional model of the car using foam core and bristol board- didn't have to be a perfect scale model, but should reflect the observed exterior surfaces. Windows could be open or treated as solid planes. As they were creating the pieces for the car, they were instructed to prepare a second identical set. After assembling the model auto, the second set of pieces was to be used to make a sculpture that was anything but a car. My working theory is that if we find the cars made from those shapes attractive, the same is likely true of anything else made from those parts, and many students in today's class found this to be the case. Below are some student example from previous semesters.
This is a portfolio exercise and can be made up for full credit any time before the end of the semester.
Homework- Nothing new this week. The graded project involving foam core relief sculpture and positive/negative space relationships that we started last week is due at the beginning of class February 23, 2016.
For next class 2/23/16- Although we have not missed any 3D class time this semester to weather, a lot of winter has been occupying our area in 2016. Our next scheduled project had involved using materials found in nature, but I think it would be safer to postpone that one just a little bit. So next week we will start a two part graded project related to the concept of figural proportions. Bring foam core, bristol board, scissors/knife, glue, pencil and eraser, pretty much the same stuff as today.
