website/new blogging site

hey! so i've finally updated my site -- www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/rcyang

im going to be blogging there under "recent" but if do check out past projects in the portfolio section. enjoy! :-D

Fish faucet!!

I need to retake the studio photos because most of the details don't show up, but I decided to post these up anyway! So we finally finished our faucet project, and I'm so relieved we have a break this weekend.

I created my model out of regular buoyancy billet foam (blue foam) with 7-8 coats of wood putty to fill the pores. I applied two coats of latex primer, which I found to sand horribly (should have known!) so I had to reapply 2 coats of wood putty to smooth it out. After all those layers, I applied three coats of graphite gray acrylic paint. Usually the top gray primer coat is sprayed on, but I wasn't able to find water-based paint, so the only option was to paint it on :-/. Regardless, I think the results are satisfying.

faucet

so our first project of the semester is to create a faucet, based off of a particular setting. i got a pet store.. more specifically an aquarium/fish pet store.

An aquarium pet shop houses rows upon rows of aquatic tanks, filled with an exotic assortment of fish, reptiles, and crustaceans. A dichotomy exists bewteen the fluid curves of the fish and the harshly orthagonal containers they are kept in. Overhead lights from each tank capture the dyanmic forms and colors of the contents within. Fish scintillate, scatter, and congregate in a flurry of order and chaos.

I'm trying to emulate the tension between the fluid forms of the fish and the rectangular form of its container.. literally. I'll have pictures up soon.

plant vessels!

So I'm doing a pretty horrible job at updating this thing, but this past month has been hectic. It's so exciting to have this finally done! I went through a period of two weeks where my design was not exactly cohesive, but I think the final pulled through, thank goodness.

My design was inspired by the shifting of static material, just like concrete sidewalk slabs, when in contact with a dynamic and organic form.

rotoform: initial sketches

These are scans of the first couple of sketch compositions for the rotoform. The two concepts are based off of the golden ratio and seed pods respectively. I know its a bit contrived, or maybe cliché to find some inspiration from the golden ratio, but I feel confident that this will drive a very structured and meaningful response to the project statement. Also, my other proposal is more subjective, so it balances it out. Anyway, this project should be really fun, will post more as things progress!

new project: vessel/rotoform

We're starting on the vessel project which sounds utterly fantastic! The assignment:

In this project, students developed processes for generating objects with rotationally formed profiles. Through critical observation and experimentation, students created watertight, three-dimensional volumetric vessel forms that were inspired/informed by the plant form they contained.

Each vessel was required to contain and present the plant form in an appropriate and aesthetic way, and interface well with the contextual environment. This project focused on the formal qualities of sculptural objects and functional art.

I was assigned a dracaena plant (which is a nice leafy plant). More to come...

stool project (har har)

JUST finished this project. So we were given a ridiculously thin piece of poplar wood (dimensions were 10"x60"x<1"). On top of that, we could only have four pieces constructing the form with simple connection points (no punch-through cuts). The major limiting constraint was the fact that it had to be completely orthogonal; everything had to be ninety-degrees to each other. There were several approaches that our class took -- some people made a conventional stool. My room mate and I leaned towards the more architectural/space/light/shadow approach.

We had a couple mishaps during the course of this project -- a senior had some kick-back action on the table saw and nearly lost his finger, and one of my classmates seriously nicked his finger on the router. Fortunately, I didnt have any misgivings throughout (phew!)