Story!

They arrived here not too long ago. I picked them up from the airport and greeted them both with big hugs. They were probably happier to see me than to be where they were even though they just spent 18 hours on a plane ride, traveling from Vietnam to the states, where they have always wondered what it was like. I helped them with the luggage and drove them back to my home. On the way back we spoke about general things like how was school and what were I up to these days. “Long and sleepless nights,” I replied with a chuckle. We continued talking until I pulled up and announced to my grandparents we were here.
We carried the luggage inside and I set it near the staircase in front of me. “Are you guys hungry,” I asked. “Let me fix you something to eat, come to the dining room.” I lead the way to the kitchen and grabbed some water for them and entered into the dining room. It was a separate, open space, with windows all around it. It was like a half enclosed rectangle with 6’ window frames separating the outdoors to where the dining table was. On each side was two large windows, but the most fascinating thing about it was that when you sat down to eat, looking up was like being outdoor, camping, for instance, due to the windows installed as the ceiling as well. It was one of those places that I loved being in because of its ability to be an enclosed space but also seems like it is one with nature. The dining table was a bit more oval than most dining tables, and could seat 6-8 people comfortably. Everything was handcrafted, elegantly detailed with red oak finishing.
I signal for them to sit and told them I would prepare dinner for them as the sat down and recovered from the jet-lag and overjoyed of seeing me.

COLOR WEEK!

Color week was interesting. At first, I thought, this is going to be difficult! Matching up what to what now? I totally did not see how Tommy demonstrated the color sheet to find out the middle color. But after a few hands-on experiment, I started to understand what he was talking about. The color seems to just pop out and came to me like I've always been good with colors.

Our first assignment was a 3x3 square with 3 strips of color sheet within them. 2 different colors with a middle color that they would make. The next one was a + sign like color scheme with 2 different colors and it's neutral color in the middle, as if the colors rolled on top of each other. I found this one to be quite successful because you really could see the blue or the yellow rolled over and into the other color. The next one was a bit more complicated, as we had to match so many colors and put them into one layout. I chose some colors that I found interesting, with green being the middle man because it's my favorite color :)

The next assignment wasn't hard, but I believed it was the first step to achieve the assignment after that one. It was simply to pick three colors that would go well together, and find it's medium, all in triangular shapes. Now, the one after this one gave me the most trouble, as I picked too light of a color scheme to start out with that when it was reaching into the middle area, it was very difficult to pick out a color to go with its surrounding. I thought I would have had to start over but in the end I toughed it out and was able to finish it. The last assignment we had was to create the 4 seasons of the year, only able to use the colors we had in the previous assignment to do so, but without being too literal as well.

Overall, I enjoyed color week as it kind of gave us a break because it was what we did in both classes, instead of having two different assignments. And I deal with colors everyday when I wake up and decide what to wear that day. The colors have to match!








(The color wall.. photo by Hailey Taylor)

Light Box.. Make it shine!

Our first project was to design a box 12x12x18 to which we had to cut/fold or anything other ways we can think of to produce 4 layers of lighting in the box with a light source. My model at first was a simple X shape cut-out. Shinning the light on top of it displayed an X inside the box, splitting it into four different quadrants. Simple enough, eh? Maybe too simple, that now I have to make it a bit more complicated in the next step with skewers involved.

At first, I wanted to still somehow keep the X shape, because that was going to be the key to my 4 different lighting inside the box. I decided to change the top up with two rectangular cutouts instead, and had them bent inward. I then realized I can put the skewers through them, forming an X shape, without it being too obvious. But after a few trail and errors, I noticed that another skewers would not only help it become more connected but also form a better shape inside the box so I stuck with that. Pretty much I was done at this point after several cut outs that I thought it was complete. I kept looking inside the box and notice the skewers inside the bent cardboard box cutout and it didn't look very attractive to me. I messed around, measured, and finally came up with a triangular figure bristol board cutout and glued it on there, giving it more depth and also covering up that unwanted space.

Overall, I'm pleased to how it turned out. I managed to get my point across and still maintain some aspects of my original ideas in place.