Sketches 3

The last two are from the Basic Drawing class at the Torpedo Factory. I'm really enjoying starting from the basics and learning to draw from the ground up.

The way I see things is-- most often when you want to learn something, you need to put yourself out of your comfort zone. This will quickly expand your horizons. In any case, most things aren't as hard as they look, and once you've done something once it is much easier to do again. Things that seem undoable become less intimidating.

On the other hand, sometimes you need to go back to the basics and be patient and humble enough to pay close attention to

things you have known for a long time. Taking this drawing class, and re-learning things like value and perspective, has been a great experience. There is always more to learn, even on

the most basic level.

Hello, Teapot

I was telling my brother Noah (of "It's Computer Science Time" fame) that I was thinking of making a teapot in Blender, when he told me that making a teapot is the "hello, world" of 3d modeling. For those of you who don't know, its customary for a programmer's first program in a new language to simply display "hello, world" on the screen.

This is called a Utah or Newell Teapot specifically. I couldn't find a good ceramic image for the skin, so I went for a rusted kind of look. I like how it turned out, and I hope you guys do too.

Blender

My first finished image in Blender! This took much longer than it could have, just because I had to watch so many video tutorials first. Also, I spent a long time trying to get the wood image right, and I finally figured out my mistake today. I hope to post a lot more 3d stuff in the future.

Sketchup House

I have been messing around with SketchUp, it is a lot of fun. This is my simple little house-- I had added other things, but then made a big mistake and I couldn't take it back by the time I realized it. Not a big deal, but I had to redo a lot.
I'm also looking more into Blender, which is a much more powerful, and much more complex, tool. I'll post whatever I manage to make.

Guest Appearance- Christina

The guest appearance today is my girlfriend of 3+ years. The pieces are Christina's Minions. There are twelve in all, including some that are actually several melded together. I love these little guys. They are like like creatures, reaching out to eat something. They combine George Ohr-like folding, effortless spontaneity, clean finger rings, and the purity of porcelain. Many have been let out into the world, including one that sits on the top of one of the bookcases in my room.

Plague Doctor

I have not been drawing or sculpting as much as I would like. Partly this is being busy, but also I feel that I really need to get a studio set up.

This piece is just a little thing that I made while watching videos on Google SketchUp (which is pretty ingenious by the way). Doctors during the Black Plague would sometimes wear these beak masks filled with herbs, intended to act as a sort of gas mask. This was based on the miasma theory of disease, where it was thought that disease was carried by noxious air. Anyway, its such an inhuman image, and the idea of a doctor looking like this is cool.

Sketches 2

Some more sketches. The first is of one of my girlfriends porcelain pieces. I'm thinking of doing a post of her work soon. The next is of some blankets, and finally some mushrooms.