I alluded to this project on Instagram a few weeks ago, and here it is in the flesh!

My latest project for SCAD was a paint swatch sculpture. Using easily accessible/recyclable items (and the A+B+C modular design scheme), we had to design a sculpture for our hypothetical client’s (the owner of a small chain of organic food stores) waiting area of his/her home office. The A+B+C modular design scheme is basically when you take one item, (which equals unit A), then repeat unit A in some pattern to make unit B, and then repeat unit B in some pattern to make unit C (a good example of modular design would be bricks).

This project reaaaally made my mind work and all week I was racking my brain trying to come up with a good material to use for my sculpture. One day, I took a browse through the hardware store for inspiration and bam! passed by a wall full of paint swatches. Needless to say, I got my idea:)

At first, I wanted this design to be a lantern and have it hang, but the paper ended up being too thick and opaque so no light could shine through. Sad face:( It ended up being a sitting sculpture instead. I’m still pleased with it though!

Materials:

Scissors, white thread & needle, drafting tape (to temporarily hold the swatches in place), and-of course-paint swatches.

I began by folding each 3×5” paint swatch sample in some sort of random triangular origami form I came up with by playing around with the paint swatches while watching TV one night. This created my A unit.

Then, I hand sewed (tedious!) two paint swatches of the same color together to create a diamond form, which was my B unit. After my B units were completed, I hand sewed the outer four edges of each B unit (more tedious stuff!). After the B units were sewn together, they formed a spherical form.

…And then a paint swatch sculpture was born!

I was so pleased with the result, I took my sculpture down to Pottery Barn for some sneaky pictures in one of their staged furniture displays:

I’ve gotten quite a few questions about the creative process of my photo shoots. I’ve slowed down with my photography a bit since I’m focusing on my studies at SCAD at the moment. But I do like to squeeze in a shoot or two when I’m on a school break to keep the creative juices flowing. Since I’m still a student, most of my shoots are unpaid and everyone works together as a trade, meaning that they trade their services for some rockin’ solid photos (taken by me) for their portfolio

This is by no means the end-all-be-all of the way all photo shoots work, but hopefully it’ll briefly outline the steps of putting together a photo shoot.

Step One: Concept

Before I delve into organizing a photo shoot, I have to ask myself, what is the general mood I’m trying to achieve? and what story do I want to tell? This step comes relatively easy to me, since I usually stumble across inspiration by happenstance. Sometimes it’s a song lyric, a photograph, a book, or a movie that inspires me in some way. From there, I create a mood board of images I feel speaks to the aesthetic I am trying to achieve. In my most recent shoot (which was Brigitte Bardot-themed), I made a Pinboard instead.

Step Two: Scouting a Location

Sometimes this step comes easy, sometimes this step is more difficult. For a woodland/fairy/forest shoot, all you need is essentially a wooded area, which is pretty easy to find. You don’t need to ask for permission to shoot there. You just show up, take pictures, and leave. Simple. It gets more difficult when your concept requires a specific venue, such as a ’30s style Tudor house or something. In these cases, I usually post a status on Facebook, asking people if they know where I can find a venue like this. Sometimes people respond, and sometimes I’m looking for something so specific, no one responds. In this case, I have to resort to a Plan B.

Another way finding a location can get difficult is if you need to ask permission to shoot there. For instance, my most recent shoot was Brigitte Bardot-themed and we shot at the Claremont Hotel. I had to get in touch with the general manager and ask permission to shoot there. Sometimes the staff is nice and accommodating – like this past time was a cinch! – and sometimes they are not kind to photographers at all. (note: sometimes if the team is small enough and won’t attract a lot of attention, I shoot guerilla-style, meaning I don’t ask permission to shoot there and pretty much we go to the location and shoot until a. we’re done or b. someone finds us and kicks us out; definitely a last resort and I do not recommend doing this!).

Step Three: Rounding up a Team

After I come up with a concept and location for the shoot, I have to think about who would be a good fit for my team. My team includes a makeup artist, a hairstylist (sometimes the makeup artist does both hair and makeup which makes my life easier!), a wardrobe stylist, and a model. My mom is usually my assistant and does all the nitty gritty stuff, like lugging around my equipment and holding my cameras while I shoot

The more advanced you get, the larger your team can get. For instance, it may include more specialized artists like a manicurist, art director, and assistant wardrobe stylist, etc. I have a few go-to people I’ve worked with numerous times and feel comfortable working with that I contact about the shoot. I can usually find a person for each styling job who is both interested and available on the specified date and time.

Step Four: Picking a Model

This step is pretty fun! I usually take a browse through the models of my local modeling agencies (I work with Stars Model Management the most) and make a list of conceivable models who could pull off the look I want. I could look at pictures of models all day, dreaming up ideas for shoots based on their features, but that’s another story! From there, I email the modeling agent inquiring about the models I’m interested in with a brief proposal/synopsis of the shoot (this includes my concept, date, time, location, and mood board). Usually at least one of the models is available and I pick my favorite from there. If the model is not available, it’s back to square one and I have to come up with some secondary choices.

I hope this gives you a little insight on the creative process behind my photo shoots. Stay tuned for Part 2 next week!

(photo from drifter & the gypsy instagram feed)

This quarter at SCAD I’m taking a 3-D design class. That means I’m creating models out of different 3-D materials, like clay and wire and foam board and such, (aka nothing I’ve done in my life, ever.) This wire sculpture was my first project.

The purpose of the project was to study the different types and functions of line and construct a 3-D sea creature out of two types of wire: 1 thick for the primary – or exterior – contours, and 1 thin for the secondary – or interior – contours.

We were given a hypothetical scenario: The client (the owner of a regional aquarium) is opening a new exhibit titled “Creatures of the Deep Blue Sea.” As a part of the installation, they would like to have a large-scale sea creature underwater as the focal point for the exhibit. While they want to have a signature structure that catches the patron’s eye, they do not want something that interferes with the viewer’s engagement with the actual exhibit. Therefore, they would like a composition that uses line to depict the underwater creature.

I chose to construct a whale and have it hang from the ceiling, as if it was leaping out of the water. (if you want to have a bit of a laugh, this was how the whale looked when I first started)

I know this isn’t really the type of stuff I blog about, but I’ve spent so much time working on this little whale guy… err girl (I’m calling her Orla), I thought she deserved some recognition here on the blog.

This project was alllll about taking our knowledge of 2-D drawing and translating it to 3-D. Since I like to do a lot of crosshatching and mark-making when I draw, I depicted the whale with wire loosely, trying to mimic the same style of my drawings and to create texture.

This project was really challenging and stretched my imagination, but that’s what learning’s all about, right? All I know is after working with wire for two weeks straight, my hands and fingers are definitely feelin it.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do with Ms. Orla now that she’s all said and done… perhaps I’ll hang her in my room. If I keep it up with these sculptures, after my 3-D art class, I’m sure my room will look like a hoarder’s!

For my final drawing project in my (can you guess it?) drawing class, we had to choose a contemporary artist who we admired. Then, we analyzed why we admired their work so much; was it the materials they used, the subjects they drew, the quality of their brush strokes, their overall aesthetic, etc.?

I chose illustrator Mercedes Helnwein. I had the privilege of meeting her in LA a while back and photographing her studio. Ever since I saw this video of her for Lula Magazine, I’ve been a huge fan of her dark, moody work. I love her use of crosshatching and the anonymity of her compositions; like broken fairytales.

For our final project, we had to create an original drawing of our own using our contemporary artist as our inspiration. Since I especially liked Mercede’s hatch-making and eerie setups, I used a photo of my own of model Jessica (from this photo shoot) and modeled it after Mercede’s style.

This drawing actually didn’t take me that long to finish… not nearly as long as this one, at least. It ended up coming out a bit more Dorothy from Wizard of Oz than Wednesday Addams-esque (the latter being the inspiration behind the original photo). Another one of my classmates said it reminded her of Laura Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie. So here’s to you, Dorothy, Wednesday Addams, Laura Ingalls, and of course, Mercedes Helnwein.

The final drawing, complete with steps…

I must say, I’m a bit sad to see my drawing class go by so fast. The projects for this class were much more open-ended than the last class and I think that’s why I enjoyed it so much. Plus, seeing your photographs take shape in the form of drawings, how cool is that? Next quarter at SCAD, I don’t have to take any drawing classes, but I think I may take a few elective drawing classes in the future!

Here’s my latest drawing for my drawing class at SCAD: my first foray into drawing with pastels!

Coming from drawing in only black and white, drawing in color opens up a whole new can of worms. Mixing colors to try to achieve the same hue of the reference photo is very time consuming.

However, I learned quite a bit from this project… like how to not ‘compartmentalize’ colors, but instead to repeat colors throughout the composition in order to create a unified piece.

The biggest eye opener for me was when my teacher told me to avoid using blacks and grays in the shadows and to instead use colors like blues and violets for the shadows and yellows and oranges for the highlights. To me, that just sounded bizarre (since when are shadows blue and violet??), but I can see now how it unified the color scheme of my drawing. And crosshatching! Wow, does crosshatching do wonders for the texture of the drawing!

Here are the steps of my drawing: (and here’s the reference photo if you’re interested)

This past week was spent drawing. Drawing for what? Drawing for my drawing class. We’re into week four at my 2nd quarter at SCAD and this was our 3rd project. The assignment was to create a charcoal drawing showing atmospheric perspective. We learned about the technique of reductive drawing (covering the entire paper with charcoal, then erasing out the highlights) and we had to render our composition in a similar manner.

I chose to draw this picture Emma took of me because I love the mood and it’s pretty cool to see your photos come to life (even though technically it’s not my photo, but still).

This was my first time drawing the human form and woweeee it ain’t easy, folks! Coming from drawing still lifes of fruit and vases and other spherical objects, I can still picture myself saying, “Well my face isn’t showing, so how hard can it be?” Answer: Hard, very hard.

I cannot tell you how many times I felt like drawing mittens over my hands and shoes on my feet so I didn’t have to draw fingers or toes. Then there was that time midway through the drawing I decided I didn’t like the legs and erased them and completely started over… (note to self: leave well enough alone).

Humans are hard to draw. Lesson learned. Moving on…

Here are all the steps, from start to finish!

Et le final product…

All trickiness aside, I am very proud of this little piece of artwork I’ve created (am I allowed to say that? Oh right, it’s my blog; I think I’m entitled). I spent so many hours blending and erasing and smudging with my fingers, the skin on my fingertips is raw and sore. BUT. BUT I think this is my favorite drawing I’ve created yet! I am happy, very happy.

Well today is a bit of an exciting day! Over school break, I did a Wednesday Addams-themed photo shoot for Flur Magazine, which came out today!

We shot at an abandoned farm place/area/not really sure what you’d call it, which I’ve blogged about before. This place never ceases to amaze me. It looks like the set of a horror film and you’d expect it to be in out in the boondocks somewhere down a dirt path in the middle of nowhere, yet it’s right across the street from Safeway, of all places (here’s an Instagram). And I’m pretty sure it’s abandoned, but there’s a cat that lives in one of the houses and every so often, I see a lady go inside to feed it. So maybe it’s not abandoned? Whatever it is, it has the most amazing eerie feel to it and it photographs really well and I just really really love it. The end.

Photography: Me
Styling: Audre Van Broers
Makeup: Page Schorer
Model: Jessica at Ignite Models

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Here’s the mood board I made for the shoot. As I mentioned, this shoot was inspired by Wednesday Addams and I wanted to capture that moody/dismal feel, but with a Lula aesthetic. So I guess you’d call it a refined version of a ‘haunted-fairy-doll-forest-nymph’ feel?

I’ve been feeling a shift in my style lately and this time, I just went with the flow. I channeled a different type of mood for this shoot (not my usual romantic girl in the meadow with fawns and unicorns in the background and whatnot) and I am really quite pleased with the results. Really really quite pleased. As in this is probably one of the shoots I’m most proud of ever. You can check out more images from this shoot on my website and on Flur Magazine.

moodboard image credits (left -> right) 1, 2, 7: brittany markert, 3: marco torres, 4: rebekah campbell, 5, 6, 8: aaron feaver