Final: Drawing III

Our final assignment was an open one, we got to do whatever we wanted. During the class critiques we discovered that I am a manipulator of mediums in a way. My projects weren't necessarily using the mediums as they were intended, not that that is a bad thing. A good amount of the work was based on experiences that I was present for and often others weren't. The only indication was for there to be either photo or video evidence, and in some cases, neither. I want for all of my final works to be able to be displayed somehow, and have consistency.

My project for the final was simple, have others around me give me assignments on what I should do. It could be anything, an action, a drawing, or process. The one guideline that I gave each person who wanted to participate was that it had to be personal to our relationship, i.e. it had to be about how we know each other, or something about the relationship we have as acquaintances. This would overall make a body of work about the friendships and relationships that I have been apart of throughout my life, in a way growing to become almost autobiographical illustrations of my experiences with others. These projects and assignments are on going and the list of them is being added to often. Below is a list of the people and their assignments to me, followed by my responses to their assignments:

Maya De Ceano-Vivas: Maya and I relationship started about a year ago. We first met in an AIGA meeting. Near the end of the meeting one of the officers said that the next meeting will be on January 31st. Maya, at the time, was standing next to me. I leaned over to her and whispered, "The next meeting is on my birthday." I had never talked to her in my life, but figured I should mention it. A few days later Maya showed up in the painting studio where I was working on finishing up a work and handed me a piece of paper. The outside was folded in half with my name on it, on the inside it said "Happy Birthday" with a picture of a cake. Her assignment to me was to recreate that event or experience. She helped me and we collaborated up a plan. We made a birthday card for all of the students in the class so they could be Ryan. I had all of the students sit in a circle and then I whispered into the ear of the person next to me that my birthday was on the next meeting, then they passed it down. Everyone got to experience hearing and telling that my birthday was on the next meeting. After it got all the way around, Maya handed everyone a card that was identical to the one that she had given me a year ago.





Sarah Flora: Sarah and I relationship was formed around being in the studio at night working on paintings. Her and I like to joke a lot, and sometimes about hipsters. Her assignment to me was to make a work of art based off labels in society. My final design for her works are two watercolor paintings/collages. One night she was over and wanted to work on the assignment and collaborate with me on it. We went to the store and she bought these bottles of beer that she said she really liked. As she drank them I noticed that she started to peal the labels off of the bottles, every-time. When she finished there were wrappers all over the table. I kept them and produced these two works. A representation of labels in a literal sense. A representation of mass production. A representation of Sarah's drink of choice. In a way, the beer that labels her.



Rachel De Cuba: Rachel and I worked together for a couple months. She actually got me the job that I currently have at The Clog Shop. She is a good friend and one that has stuck with me through all these semesters here at Flagler. Her assignment to me was to deal with how the relationship that we had as coworkers. At The Clog Shop we have to basically memorize information about each shoe that comes in the doors. The Anna Clogs are one thing in particular that people always come into the shop looking for. Rachel trained me on what I know about the clogs. Things like they are handmade in the USA, that they are great for standing long period for nurses and teachers. For her piece I wrote all of the things that I most commonly say to people when they try them on or when they are looking at them. Because we had to memorize all of the information I made like at "visual note" on a pair of the clogs so it would be easier to remember what to say. I usually look for clues or hints in things to see if I can understand it better. This is a representation of what goes through my head when people try them on.












Whitney Freeman: Whitney and I met in high school at the lunch table. She always brought her lunch and I always brought mine. She always had a can of coke to drink and I always had a bottle of water. I started giving her a hard time about it all telling her that she is going to explode if she keeps drinking all that coke. Her assignment was based off of how we met.What I decided to do with this assignment was set up five cans of coke, I shook them up and set them in the center of a five different sheets of paper and then opened them to have them explode all over the papers. Its more of a literal and actual process that went into this one. I used five sheets of paper because there were five days in the week that we had lunch at school, and thus, five cans of coke. After the coke dried I took some of the left over soda and mixed a little ink into it and wrote with a brush, "you're going to explode" just to emphasize or make aware of the single line that I would say that started a friendship.


























































Jim Freeman: Jim's assignment to me was to make a work of art that was centered around the idea of street art and Miami graffiti. I introduced him to the "Exit Through the Gift Shop" documentary by banksy. He took that as something that I take interest in and assigned me something that was relating. While looking at street art and Miami graffiti I thought about my summer between my freshman and sophomore year, I worked on painting 8 murals. There are similar elements in the two works that I was part of. Angular lines and drop shadows off shapes help to give the sense of illusion and space. The bright colors come from looking at the works in Miami, bright colors and eye catching subject are prevalent. I used tape to help me get straight lines for the geometric shapes and used solid, opaque colors.

Drawing 3: Inspiration

A few videos that I find inspiring in the way I think or they way I like to make things.

Jack Daniel's Does Letterpress from Aggrodesign on Vimeo.

NOVA the film from ROJO on Vimeo.

Studio on Fire: Deeply Impressed from Gestalten on Vimeo.

Wraping & Diagram: Drawing III

For this assignment I'm sorry but I have no visuals. It may seem selfish but I didn't want it to be something tangible like that. My intent was to make a "visual spectical" I guess is what I'm calling it. I can explain it to you but the individual pieces mean nothing if I were to photograph and upload my video I made.

The first part of this assignment was to "wrap" when I first thought about that I came up with what I'm sure most people did, things like wrapping paper, saran wrap and string. I wanted to try and push past those things to create something more, abstract, or conceptual. I thought to myself about things that couldn't be that tangible and came up with light. I knew that I wanted to wrap something in light but didn't know what. My thoughts kept racing back and forth to different materials and such and finally I realized that I wanted to use the projector in class to help me. To use that to shine light I would need to suspend something. In that challenge I came up with using Styrofoam panels because they were light enough to hang, white, and relatively smooth, or at least flat. That took care of my portion of wrapping for the assignment.

"Diagram" was the second part of the assignment. All I could think about was ven diagrams of things and I couldn't move off of the idea of something somewhat scientific. I got stuck. I looked up diagram in the dictionary and it more or less is the simplification of something. In thinking about it like that I gathered some new ideas. My final solution for a diagram was to take a song and simplify down a visual of changing colors. I used an up pace song, Cuntry Boys and City Girls by The Fratellis. I loaded up the video on the computer in class of the song and the changing colors and wrapped my styrofoam in these colored lights. The only problem I ran into was that I went to the studio and hung up the styrofoam panels to see them cut down in the morning. It took me to long to set up in class so I had two stand-ins hold the panels for the time being.

While they held the panels they interacted with each other which to me made the experience better. I wanted it to be fun! The other part of it was that I didn't want it to be experienced the same if you have to recreate it again. With them holding the panels I think that was achieved.

Wood: Drawing III

In this assignment I felt that my concept was stronger than my actual final product. I got cut short on time for the project and had to make to with it being dark outside. The assignment was to use wood. Again I tried to make myself use wood in a way that most other people in the class hadn't even thought about using wood. My concept was centered around having imaginary friends when you were younger. They were there and only you could see them and interact with them, you controlled them and what they did. Because everyone has their own imagination there was no wrong way to portray these cutouts. Wood was a medium that allowed me to follow through on this idea I had. It was strong enough to stand in the ground but durable enough for me to cut and shape into my desired forms. I mimicked different poses of children in the wood cutouts and wanted the child to play next to them and interact with the figures, like it was their imaginary friend.

Transparent Layers: Drawing III

This assignment was interesting. It was one of the first assignments that was ambiguous as far as medium or subject to use. Other assignments have been specific to medium like thread and wood but "transparent layers" opens up new mediums and choices in designing. I chose to use transparency sheets. I had a friend pose for me in different areas doing different things. I photographed her, put the pictures into photoshop and erased the background. I printed the figure by itself on the transparency and then had the model hold the transparencies in the places she was before. I wanted to recreate "ordinary" sites that someone would see happening. In the photos though I wanted the viewer to really wonder what they were looking at. Was someone holding a blank transparency or filter or was something printed? Was something completely photoshoped into making the viewer think that no part of it is real? I wanted it to make the viewer stop and think about how they photo they were looking at was constructed and furthering my theme of manipulation.

Thread: Drawing III

For this assignment we had to make drawings using thread. I wanted to make something that no one else would do in class. Not that our class comes up with typical things, but sometimes the most obvious solution is the most boring and unstimulating creatively. I decided to use thread not as my medium or surface. I chose to use it as a tool in the process of these works. My concept was art by nature and things that I had no control over.

Side note: These projects aren't in order on my blog and I can't get them in order.

Anyway, throughout the entire time I was working on these assignments for class a reoccurring theme of me manipulating my work, whether that is me using the assigned material in an unconventional way or with me taking a concept and stretching and pushing boundaries and limits on what can be considered "drawings" with the assigned medium.

For this assignment though I pushed the boundaries and made these drawings that I had no control over, I only manipulated, in a way, how the thread was used for the assignment. I didn't wrap anything with thread or connect things with it. My process involved me going over to a friends house where they have smaller palm trees with palms that hang lower to the ground that I can reach. I tied some thread around the palm and let it hang down to the ground. From there I wrapped a sharpie marker to the end hanging on the ground and placed my paper on a clipboard under that. From there the weather made all the choices in mark making. It was a windy evening that made the marks specific to the day it happened. I am very pleased with how they came out and that I was able to do a mini series of them. I would love to be able to set up a large scale version of one and have it sit for an entire day or longer.

Cardboard: Drawing 3

For this project we had to make 8 drawings using cardboard somehow. I chose to go with using cardboard as my surface to work on. I used laser printer transparencies on an inkjet printer and transferred my images on to the cardboard since the ink didn't adhere to the transparency. Each print has two subjects. One constant and one variable. The constant was an outline of my head in profile which symbolizes me, and my head literally and my thoughts as well, what goes on in my head. The variable is different works of art. They vary between Barbara Kruger and some of my own work. I wanted to convey the concept of my own thoughts and inspirations on my work. I think that Kruger makes amazing works and she has even influenced a few other artists that I look up to like Shepard Fairey. Her work is very impact full and somewhat in-your-face or very direct in accusation to the viewer. In my prints I didn't want them to be about they specific works of hers but more of an awareness that her work is influential to me. Thus why her works are reversed and unreadable looking straight on. I first made 5 square prints and then finished with making 8 fit on rectangle panels.