The Portfolio Project

I'm currently working on gathering a body of work that I've done with my hands. A body of work that would most likely consist of photography and maybe a few sketches that I've done in the past. Its a work in progress and I've sandboxed the work in aarondelani.com/portfolio.

Building most everything from scratch has brought me to discover certain challenges that comes with designing an interface that is intuitive and hopefully does not take away from the experience of the art itself. I want to create a framework that helps the artist showcase their work without disruption. I'm still in the early stages of development of a simple way of presenting this. I have a small set of requirements so far:

• Has to be intuitive to navigate
• Should not distract viewer from work at hand
• Should be a seemless and intuitive experience on various devices
• The framework must be extensible to various content management systems including blogging applications

This is a long overdue project I'm glad to have started undertaking. I'll be updating the site, changing things and continuing to prototype a possible open source framework for visual artist who would want to showcase their work in the same way.

I'm excited, and if you're reading this and interested in collaborating (mostly with code implementation) let me know.

Eva Gardner Collage

Circa 2002 in art class. A collage of Eva Gardner. Each shade of gray was taken from various magazine clippings to emulate the gradations of her skin. It took me a long while to actually find pictures in magazines that closely matched them.

Pulling Teeth

Some interim art while I find time to sketch.

Kristie

Kristie, November 1, 2005

Sketch Project Week 1: Trying

So the first week fo this project came and went. I felt that fear as I was sketching. I came to a point in my first sketch where I gave up on myself and just started doing. Just sketching... sketching. I don't think like it came out like anything good. I was looking at my friend and drawing him at the perspective I was looking at Brandon. In my second sketch with Chanelle, I got a little more comfortable, but then again, the angle to which I was looking at her was slightly skewed. But as I sketched along, I got a bit more comfortable with not being perfect... and just doing. It felt good.

From Left to right, Channelle and Brandon.

I also realized that as I was sketching, I was deciding on starting from different points in the lines I was looking at. With brandon, I started with his left eye, and with Chanelle, I started sketching from her hair. If you look at the sketches and skew them quite a bit... It would probably make for a better portrait.

The last two sketches from that evening, were of Jason and Jessica. I felt slightly comfortable with making the wrong strokes with Jason's lines... it ended up looking disproportionate from reality... and I guess I'm okay with that. Jessica's image was rendered with full line gestures throughout. Letting my pencil lightly touch the paper as I went along with each line.

Her image came out the most accurate of the first four sketches I've done. I'm glad.

The next day, I decided to force myself to sketch again with some color, and also sketch some strangers at a nearby coffee shop that I used to frequent. The results are quite different but the feeling was the same. I started from right to left, the figure in the middle is Jared.

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The Sketch Project started with this post and the Manifesto is here.

Cristina

Sketch of an old friend Cristina.

The Sketch Project: Manifesto

Here's my initial draft of the "Sketch Project," manifesto:

• Every week, I will post a sketch.
• It can be old, or new.
• Every week, I will write about progress or regressions toward this project.
• Everyday I will remind myself that it's not about the mistakes I make, it's about how much I can grow and be wise about the mistakes I'm not willing to make.

If you want to find out some of the personal motivations for this project, please visit this post: The Sketch Project.

Burlap Sac Seating

So, I've really neglected this portion of my website. When I started this log, I was really motivated to create, to make, to do... Then I didn't end up doing. It was quite misanthropic experience I had with myself, I even lost the motivation to take photographs. So, later last year, I've taken my first step. The first step involved some forrest green patterned and mustard cloth and a sewing machine. The second step started when a friend gave me two burlap sacs.

(Pictured above are the two polyester filled pillows intended for sitting on the floor and the two recently made burlap sacks.)

When I recieved the burlap sacks, I immediately started brainstorming on possibilities for them. I was thinking about making a messenger bag out of one of them, and then making a cushion for the other. I realized how daunting and time consuming the project was so I decided to make both of them into large cushions.

It started out with the first sac:

plus some polyester filling...

and some polyester coated nylon thread...

It took about two hours filling and stitching up the burlap sacs. They feel a little rough to the touch, but they're definitely "sit-able." I'm pretty happy with the way they turned out. Another few things about this project was that I love the character of these burlap coffee sacs, not just because I love coffee but because they gain more character the more they get worn down. In addition to this, seeing them filled up, they look like coffee bags in our livingroom.

Finishing this project has been really encouraging for my creative funk. I'm looking forward to working on the last burlap sac that I have... maybe I'll make that one into a messenger bag of some sort... who knows?

Have you made anything lately?