Personal Chair

Hey Everyone,

As I've mentioned a few times before, we have been working on creating our own chair designs. The two main things we had to do to create this chair were: make it exude our own personality and make it a functional piece of art. I believe I have reached these goals.

I wanted my chair to be simple yet elegant and interesting, which I think was achieved. I wanted these qualities to be a part of my chair because I think I am a pretty simplistic person. I enjoy nature and peace which is exactly why I knew I had to make my chair some sort of flower. Not only do I like flowers, but I think it also shows my femininity. The chairs curves and simple shape help make it all of these things. Most of all, it makes it a uniquely functional piece of art.

My chair is a very functional piece. It serves many purposes, but only the chair version was displayed in the model. Obviously the main function of this piece is a chair that has a recliner for your feet. I envisioned this piece to be made out of molded plastic, preferably recycled, to make the piece environmentally friendly. The seat would be cushioned out of upholstering materials. These two elements would make the piece more comfortable and a more usable piece of furniture. Another functional element to this chair is that the reclining part of the chair can be folding up allowed the chair to be flipped over. The opposite side could be used as a small table or stool, held up by beautiful flower petals. For me, I love to have multipurpose objects to fit my needs, so why not make my chair that way.

The chair's smooth sides contrast with the angular points of the petals. If this model were build out of plastic and upholstery these two materials would also contrast. My piece has many curved lines that create movement and rhythm. The clean, curved lines move your eyes up and down the the piece as the form of the base gently lifts your attention to the main focal point of the chair, the seat. I think it was important for this to be the focal point as the seat is the whole reason for a chair. Without a seat, how can you sit?

I believe my chair is a functional piece of art that exudes who I am. Comment below and tell me what you think!
~K

Converting MP3 to AIFF for FinalCut

Hey Everyone,

We are creating music videos in FinalCut and that means we need to import sound files into our projects. This is easy, but FinalCut is weird in the way that it likes to accept sound files. It does not like MP3 format and requires AIFF or AAC files. In the end, this is better for the video as the sound will sound better, but how do you do this? Check out this site. It clearly instructs you, step by step, on how to convert the sound file. It is actually very easy. In just two short minutes you can have sound file converted and imported into FinalCut. Take a look below at the screen shots I took if you don't understand.

Step 1: Click Preferences under iTunes.

Step 2:

Step 3:


Step 4:

Step 5:

Step 6: Make the settings look like this.

Hope this helps :)

~K

Plants and Creativity

Hey Everyone,

Spring has finally arrived and for me, that means its garden time! This Sunday I began to plant some seeds indoors and it really inspired me. It reminded me of how creativity begins. Action starts with just one idea. LIke a plant starts with a seed. That idea grows and develops like seeds turn into sprouts. From sprouts, flowers bloom as creativity and action grows from ideas. Eventually ypu'll get so many ideas you'll have a garden full! I was reminded of this while I was planting those thirty or so plants. Look at the pictures below.




Flowers and gardens are beautiful and so is art. Let your ideas flourish! Its spring time!

~K

Frida Kahlo

Hey Everyone,
For the last sketch book assignment my class had to create, we had to make a page from Frida Kahlo's or Leonardo de Vinci's journal. I thought I was going to do de Vinci's journal, but once I researched Kahlo I was hooked. Personally, I find her art rather grotesque, but the shock of it drew me into it.



This is one of her paintings. She often painted herself in her art. She was injured very badly one day as a metal bar from a train collision pierced her breaking her pelvis and spine. I think this painting shows how she felt, broken. Her journal is full of images like this and many more disturbing. I can't seem to understand why she painted herself the way she did. Some of her paintings made her appear very ugly. Perhaps she had low self esteem. I'd be interested to know why she created what she did.

I think she based her art of self-reflection where as De Vinci's art was more technical and mathematical. She is inspiring in an odd way. I think her art is depressing yet it inspires me to be more self-reflecting. tell me what you think? I may just read her biography to learn more about her.

~K

MysteryGuitarMan

Hey Everyone,

As I was aimlessly wandering youtube, I decided to check out MysteryGuitarMan's latest videos and came across this video. Check it out!



I chose to put this up here not only for entertainment purposes, but for inspiration. Check out his talent at editing! In the coming weeks we will be editing our own music videos and may need to get some inspiration to keep going. I say, Watch MysteryGuitarMan!
He uses so many different editing technics and tricks something is bound to spark some great idea. Check out some of his other interesting edits.





I hope this sparked some imagination!
~K

Philipe Beesley

Hey Everyone,

Recently I was talking with a friend about design and he told me to check out this designer, Phillipe Beesley. He is mainly an architect, but also designs sculptures among many other things. Here is a link to his website. I found his work very interesting. It reminded me of some of El Anatsui's work when we worked with him last year.

This is one piece I found very interesting. It is called Hylozoic Soil and resides in the Netherlands. I found all the intricate details and movement on this piece to be really inspiring. It really is a work of art. It reminds me of an under ground cave and the beauty all the rock formations make. Beesley is really inspirational to me for creating pieces as complex as this. I also admire that he creates, not only unique pieces of art, but functional buildings. His buildings are beautiful and functional which is something I think all designers should inspire to do.


This is his plan for the University of Toronto, Southwest Campus House of Study. I find it to be a very clean and interesting layout. I really enjoyed his use of space and how each part of the campus has purpose.
I hope you found this designer to be interesting and inspirational. Comment below with any other designers I should check out or anything you'd like to say about this one.

~K

Sketch Up - Attempt #2!

Hey Everyone,

As you can see my first try at making my chair was not so successful, but after a second round of trying, (Consisting of many undo moments), I was able to produce something like my design.

Here how I started the base this time. I created a solid triangular prisim and went from there. I think this alludes to my real design much more than my first attempt. I still cannot figure out how to make the lines into a solid face.


Here is the basic form of my chair. The idea of a flower is there, just not very detailed like a handmade model would be. I am really proud that I could figure out how to make this form as it is very, very hard to create organic lines in Sketch Up. Maybe I just need to find the trick!

Comment below if you have any tips for using this program.

~K