Ways of Seeing
In this project, we discover different ways of seeing things from a different perspective.
For the first week, we practised on how to draw portrait without looking at the paper. This task was challenging as it required us to have a very good hand and eye coordination. We were put into groups of twos so that we could draw each other; then we moved around to other tables to draw other people. We also drew the same person three times, each time using a different colour pen, this shows us if our drawing got better from our first drawing to our last. At first, it was challenging to find where I was on the paper, so I tend to lose track of where I was drawing. Therefore the drawings were out of proportion and sometimes even at out of the page. However, as I did more, I found that drawing in a continues line really helps with the location of the drawing as I am constantly keeping in track with where I was drawing. We started off with drawing on an A4 size page, then we moved onto A3 where is a bigger area to work with. You’d think that would be easier, but it made it harder for me. This was due to the fact I didn’t use to drawing on A3 so there were no concepts of how big the drawing needs to be and where the paper is. But subsequently, after doing three people’s portrait three times, I was able to understand the overall facial feature a lot better.
Later during the week, we went on to drawing a portrait while the other person asks you questions, this way, by drawing a portrait we would get to know how the person looks like through drawing and therefore be more familiar to that person, and by asking questions about the person we get to know that person’s personality. For this task we were allowed to look at the paper as we drew, therefore the drawing was a lot better. At the end of the week, we were tasked to draw a portrait and use the conductive ink to integrate a LED into the drawing. The conductive ink was really cool, as it allows electricity to flow through the ink and light up an LED. However, in reality, the ink had a very high resistance, so by the time the current got to the LED, the light was so dim, you can’t tell it was turned on. So, in the end, I resolved to use just wires.
For my second week we were on the reading week, and our task was to draw a map of what I had done that day along with a drawing of the most memorable thing you did or an object to remind you of the day.
For Monday I mostly just stayed in my room playing games. It was difficult to make a map as I didn’t go anywhere. Then I thought that even though I as a person didn’t go anywhere, I went to a lot of places online. So, I came up with the idea of drawing pipes to show where I “went” that day. I started with getting out of my bed in the morning, I went on to YOUTUBE watched a couple of videos, then I played a bit of Battlefield 4, after that I had lunch. In the afternoon I played more Battlefield 4 and, in the evening, I played Player Unknow Battle ground with friends, then I went to bed. The most memorable drawing of Monday was inspired by the YouTube video “ASDF Movies”. This expresses the things you can do on the internet and for me that day was playing games online.
On Tuesday I went to DJCAD to get some art equipment and went by the enquiry centre and the cash office to double check my balance for university fee. I then went to nether Inn for lunch and Oshibori for dinner. For the map, I did a map the area I lived in Dundee, and I marked it out with a red pen where I went. The most memorable thing was Skint in the union that day. The drawing was of my friend passed out drunk on a trolley being carried home after had Vodka, Sourz and Jager Bomb.
For Wednesday, I did a London tube map for the map of my day. This was inspired by the logo for Oshibori. The logo for Oshibori looks awfully similar to the London tube logo. So that day I went to DJCAD, cash office, Oshibori, Enquiry centre, Nether Inn and played on Battlefield 4 and PUBG. I made each of the things I did and went to a station. The memorable drawing, I did for that day was my job interview in Oshibori. In the evening I went for my trial shift.
For Thursday, I stayed at home for most of the day but I went to Oshibori for my first shift in the evening. I did the map in a topographic map style, as I did a lot of hiking through CCF, D of E and ten Tors. So, for each of the peek it was a point where I stopped on the way to work. The most memorable thing that day was the Ramen that was served in the restaurant. It looked amazing, I was trying not to just steal the food.
Friday, I went and played pool and got pizza so for my drawing I did a drawing of a slice of pizza, it was inspired by the light refracting off a glass prism, so it would express the favours that I taste in my mouth. And my map for the day was the track of the balls on the pool table. I went to Tesco and head to Tesco to play pool.
On Saturday, I went to the Dundee science centre to help with the AroDundee. The map was inspired by Harry Potter, in the movie, there is a map where you can see everyone’s footstep. And the drawing I drew was the jet that I spent a whole day flying on the simulator, as I was in the Dundee science centre teaching kids how to play it.
During that week, we were also tasked with drawing a portfolio of another person, and we should be able to see the personality of the person through our portrait.
I drew Mariana, one of my friend. I did an interview of her and found out that she likes Jazz and frank Sinatra was her favourite artist. She plays the flute and the ukulele and her favourite food is fish. She is from Portugal and she works in a Chinese buffet as well as Dominos. She likes the environment and that was why she came to Dundee.
So, I did a pop art style portrait of her face in the middle with the globe around her that has greenery and classic Portuguese building and Chinese writing of Chinese restaurant and paper cut out collage of her favourite thing.
For the third week, we had to draw a visual CV, it would need to show our life up until the present, and also, we needed to show what we wanted to do in the future.
My initial thought was to just have a simple timeline and having split off a path that how my life could end up like. I also had the idea of having the great wall of China, where I will have the far distance wall as my past and the closer part as my present. Another idea of mine is the yellow rive in China where I can put the source of the river as my past and the opening part to sea as my present and the sea as my future. And the last idea was the spiral path, where the spiral off in the distance will be my past and it will spiral off into the distance to show my past.
I decided to test my spiral idea. However, I ran into couple of issues. The segments for each ear can’t be evening split down and I ended up running out of space. And there was a lot of wasted space on the outside.
Therefore, in the end I went with the Great Wall of China idea. I did the drawing in Chinese ink and brush. Then at certain areas I went over with green colouring pencil, it shows the greenery of the mountains. And at each checkpoint on the drawing, I have an important point in life where a decision was made that ultimately guided me to the present day.
Fourth week. We needed to make a paper-engineered Adriano character. The idea is so that we can write the code for the RGB LEDs and make a pop-up character as the casing for the RGB LEDs with a story board to go along side.
My ideas consist of Firefly, police man and a light bulb. For the Firefly I can make the light just light up and go dim again. And the police men I was planing to have a red and blue light to be flashing alternatively. And the light bulb is when I press a button then I would light up. I chose the firefly idea as the making of the paper model will be easier. And my idea was to have the paper firefly in the middle and you fold it in two pieces of paper.
I spray painted the background in matt black, and used white paint and bush to flick some spot on to the paper to make it look like night sky. I then cut out all of my fireflies’ part then put them together. I also did two origami firefly to correspond to the back story.
Codeing for the firefly
const int rPin = 11; const int gPin = 10; const int bPin = 9; const int bgHigh = 200; const int bgLow = 0; int bgNow; int rising; void setup() ( // put your setup code here, to run once: bgNow = bgLow; rising = 1; pinMode(gPin, OUTPUT); pinMode(bPin, OUTPUT); ) void loop() ( //put your main code here, to run repeatedly: if (bgNow == bgHigh) (rising = 0;) if (bgNow == bhLow) (rising = 1;) if (rising == 1) (bgNow = bgNow + 1;) if (rising == 0) (bgNow = bgNow – 1;) analogeWrite(bPin, bgNow); analogeWrite(gPin, bgNow); delay (10) )