Cohort 4
Albers Paper Project
Project 1:
Light & Shadow
Reflection:
My design is based off of a Fall theme, all the shadows represent common things associated with fall. This took me about 2 weeks to finish, i would estimate about 10 hours spent on this project. I love how all the designs worked out although the mushrooms do not translate as fall to some people but the execution of them turned out lovely. I do wish that I would have practice cutting out more round shapes before starting on the final papers because if you look too close you will see some imperfections. I had problems with the smaller details and the structure of them, to fix this I reinforced the paper with a thick tape and then cut the shapes out of the tape as well to not ruin the illusion. The only thing I would like to change is to have harsher more clean shadows.
Click the image for more detailed pictures
Craig Ellwood
.jpg)
Craig Ellwood was born April 22nd, 1922 in Clarendon, Texas as Jon Nelson Burke. Ellwood had no degree or schooling in architecture but when he was offered his first chance to design a home he showed serious skill. Working as a cost estimator for an architectural firm in 1948 a man named Jack Cofer gave him that opportunity. His work was published in the Los Angeles Times Home Magazine in 1950. His career took off from there, he set up his practice Illegally as Craig Ellwood and later changed his legal name to match.
Ellwood's designs were very modern for the time. They had glass walls and diagonal designs that made his work so different and sought after, his clients knew he was not licensed but they did not care. The elegant exposed steel and timber framing in his designs brought the attentions of people all over the world. His famous Maypole Apartments opened him up to the world. His designs became part of almost every exclusive suburbs in Los Angeles. Most of his designs still stand there to this day.
I did not know of Ellwood before this project but when I read about how he was never formally trained but he had a talent that was like no other, he inspired me. It may have been illegal but he fought to get there and based on his incredible designs he deserved it.
Maypole Apartments (1953)
1570-1574 La Baig Avenue, Los Angeles CA
Resources:
Note: Died May 30th, 1992 - no personal website or social media
Scale Miniature Project
This project was quite a bit more difficult than the Light and Shadow project. The knowledge I earned from the former project helped a lot with this project. The joint the the building were a breeze compared to the rounded one on my Light and Shadow. The amount of measuring on the Scale miniature outweighed the light and shadow project tenfold. It helped with the cleanliness of the final result. The Major architecture is made of foam core while the door and window frames as well as the roof were cut from matte board. The brick is a refined image of a brick wall printed and laid with a glue stick. All the paint is acrylic paint and the tarot cards and sign are all printed images laid with a glue stick as well. The windows are made from plastic wrap glued on with hot glue. The concept mainly comes across from the shelf of records on display in the window but the colors come together because of the tarot cards in the top window of the door and below the main display window. I based the scale off the average size of the store windows in downtown Conway which came out to be Four and a half feet and then went from there. The calculations were surprisingly the easiest part of the entire project, it is the execution of those measurements that was so difficult.