"READ" Geo Melee behind the scenes

 

(Listening to Panda Bear's Tomboy in the background + drinking a glass of Wrongo Dongo Monastrell wine).

  I wanted to share a behind the scenes look into how I approach the geo melee work.  I used this piece that spells out "READ" as an example.  I started out tracing a border with a ruler then lightly traced each letter.  Afterwards, I randomly added simple geometry to follow the letter paths I made.  There are squares, circles, rectangles, arrows, triangles, semi-circles, parallelograms, and trapezoids with a rare appearance of ad-hoc geometries I used to fill in non-symmetrical empty spots.

  The 'A' wasn't as wide when I originally traced this, so I compensated and measured how much space I had to make the 'D'.  I had the room, but I couldn't make the 'D' any wider or I'd be out of the border.

  Once the shapes were outlined with a pencil, I followed up with a thin point sharpie.  This is my 4th time outlining tiny geometries with a sharpie and I felt pretty confident.

 I specifically chose the word 'read', because it's back to school season.  People are school shopping and I wanted to  make a piece to reflect the learning vibe many kids will experience.  I personally am a temperamental reader.  I can get through blogs fine, and short stories, but I have a horrible attention span for long novels.

  This is the fun part where I do a marker round robin.  I began coloring in the 'R' in 1 geometry for each letter and follow with the other colors.  I soon realized I had used too much brown, I bumped it out of the rotation.  To speed things up, I colored 3 shapes at a time.  When the majority of shapes were filled, I gazed at the gestalt and figure out what is the best color based on the neighboring colors.

  I go through and fill in the geometries I missed, erase the pencil lines, and fill in the border.  My wife suggested I try doing a green border and like a good husband I listened. ; p

There are additional things on the computer I could do, but it is complete and shows the process for how I've approached slamming random colored geometry together or what I call a Geo Melee.

Geo Melee

I'm working on my portfolio and trying to get about 200 pieces represented. I've primarily done the first part with photography, but lately I've taken a try at illustrating the next set of works. These pieces will come from a love for simple geometry I've had since I was in high school, and the first few pieces reminds me of a satellite map of Manhattan, NY.

I remember watching a Hitchcock episode with my wife where Salvador Dali and Hitchcock teamed up. What a weird combination! The most prominent memory I have from that episode was a table with eyes printed all over held up by feminine legs. Salvador Dali has always fascinated me with his spooky poses, but his work drove me to try drawing eyes myself. The third piece with a blue border takes the geometric melee and adds the eye of an observer. The colors are picked based on a neon trend I've seen lately and I left the eye in pencil to be a quiet rebellion to this trend. Both the eye and geometry oppose each other and yet they join forces to polarize the illustration. These 3 illustrations templates are available on etsy. I say templates because I will make a few variations of the piece and you can choose one that resonates with you. This keeps each piece unique and allows for the best match between you and the geometric melees that will ensue.

Trip To Vermont

This photograph is for sale and was taken while driving south on Rt 91 to Brattleboro, VT during a sunrise.

This past weekend, I got to sleep twice in my minivan, got less than 5 hrs of sleep 3 days in a row, and spent the weekend driving around and photographing Vermont with my son, bro, and sis.  Seeing mountain ranges that span so far you have to turn your head, and literally being so far out cell phones are useless has to be the most exhilarating experience.  

There was as much in the grand views, as the simple fragile landscapes with red rotting barns in the valley of green mountains that summons rivers to parade to the sea.  Witnessing how expansive the rivers are and how far they span, is truly remarkable.  Even a relitively dry river ways create rocky open caverns to show evidence of it's power during the spring.  Driving across narrow roads placed on dams, and be scared is such a great thing.

The Brattleborough's farmer's market brought out the best artists in all arenas (bakery, soap making, farmers, jewelry makers...) and have musicians playing an instrument in the square then seeing the same musicians play different instruments downtown in the same day.

We secured unfrozen meats and seafood from the local butcher and fishmonger, and tossed them on a fiery grill.  I've never been so fascinated by the sound of sizzling meat!  The flame did most of the work, we just sat and watched the show.  My taste buds were handing out first place ribbons to the wild salmon + hanger steak!  

These experiences can't be found in a book, on the web, or within 4 walls.  They can only be found in the wild.

ahh!

i'm really having a hard time balancing blogging and design experiments.  If you would like more updates, like my facebook page.  http://www.facebook.com/ZeroDistanceDesigns

I also have a shop where all designs can be purchased: http://www.shapeways.com/shops/zdd

Peace

Sculpteo

Just checked out Sculpteo.com.  It is very similar to i.materialise.com, shapeways.com, and ponoko.com in that it lets you set up shop if you have CAD files. The nicest feature I found was a little report you can download showing the dimensions of your final product and how it will look.  Here are some screen shots from sculpteo using my Hammerander design files.

There is a nice little window that lets you spin the model around and resize it.  You select the material and see the model change to reflect your selection.

After you've chosen your selections, you can download a pdf of your final results.

I didn't place the final order, because the prices were slightly higher than I expected.

Recent Twitter acquisition of posterous

I'm not feeling too confident about the recent twitter buyout of posterous.  I will stop posting at postereous and continue posts at http://zerodistancedesigns.blogspot.com/.  My store is still at http://www.shapeways.com/shops/zdd.

Any questions let me know.

Available at Shapeways

I can take orders or you can browse the material selection yourself at Shapeways.com (NYC).  If you want to alter it in a way you don't see, let me know.

Current materials are:

Shapeways: Plastic, Stainless Steel, Alumide, Gold Plated, Bronze, Black and White Ceramic (final list of materials)

The largest size is 163mm long and the smallest as 74mm long.