Research

For the beginning of this assignment, I collected different sceneries that I found interesting and spaces that had multiple layers to explore.

Examples of paper layering that caught my eye.

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>Exercises/Activities

This exercise taught me how to hide images within a form by using positive and negative spaces. I began by making a list of things that I like which helped me explore further into the shape. Using my middle initial, R, I created a scenery of the beach which is a place I love to be at.

View other exercise 1 iterations

Iterations

After exploring all of my options, I chose to do nostalgic points within St. Louis as my main scenery areas.

In Notability, I jotted down notes and did a ruff sketch of one idea that came to mind.

Taking that sketch, I used Procreate to make a better outline of the points I wanted to incorporate.

In illustrator, I explored different ways to communicate the city of St. Louis while still using the same elements.

I chose 5 different spots that were meaningful to me as well as spots that I thought would communicate St. Louis the best.

St. Louis is well known for a frozen custard stand called Ted Drewes. I thought it was unique to put the layers in the ice cream cup to look like ice cream.

In 2019 our hockey team, The Blues, won the Stanley cup. I took the elements and placed them inside the cup as a different way to illustrate St. Louis.

I chose to go with the Ted Drewes ice cream cup as my main element and began changing the arrangement of layers.

To make the composition look more like ice cream, I added a spoon in the farthermost layer.

I felt like it didn’t communicate a spoon very well so I added two and flipped it over so you could see the bottom.

I didn’t like how it looked with two, so removed one and adjusted it.

I changed my value scale to have black as the background to make the layers stand out more.

Concept Statement

My goal for this project was to communicate space by layering components to create a sense of depth. I wanted each image to have a background, middle ground, and foreground so I could experiment with different perspectives. By researching images based on a specific theme in mind, I was able to narrow down my ideas. My intention was to compose a space that I connected to and that I can visualize the best. This would allow me to give meaning behind the placement of the elements in my composition. Using points throughout St.Louis that are nostalgic created a variety of elements to explore. Having the layers overlap one another and selecting a certain value scale, helped bring emphasis to the little details. These little details are outlines that are significant to what area I am communicating within St. Louis. From the start of the project, it was important to me that each layer would stand out on its own, which I did by having each one lower than the one behind it. I was able to bring the whole composition together by placing the Ted Drewes ice cream cone on top of the layers, while also having the layers look like ice cream.

Production

Page selections

I selected 7 different shades of grey from my card-stock for each layer of my composition.

The maximum size we could use for this assignment was 10×10, so I took my 12×12 card stock and measured it out to be 10×10.

Setting up vector files

Once I had my final vector file ready, I created the outline version to transfer over to the cricut.

When transferred over, I re-colored the layers to help visualize which layer to cut first.

View each individual layer

Final construction

The blade of the cricut didn’t fully cut through the card stock for some of the layers so I had to take my exacto knife and carefully cut it out by hand.

On this layer the spoon was fully cut out except the inside parts of the Ferris wheel were not.

The Budweiser layer was the one I expected to be the hardest to cut out from the start.

Because the letters are so thin and small the blade didn’t cut the words as a whole.

However, I saved the pieces that broke off and was able to glue it back on once I put all the layers together. Rather than having two cardinals above the words, I chose to make one the dot of the “i”.

I glued each layer one by one starting with the arch.

In this part I was able to glue back parts of the “r” and “e” that broke off of Budweiser.

For the final layer I had to make sure it was aligned to match up with the Ted Drewes detail behind it.

Finally, I tucked the thumb behind all the layers as well as a part of the middle finger. I felt like this made it feel more like it was being held.

Final Layering

Overall, I really enjoyed the freedom we had throughout this whole assignment. Starting from exercise 1 we were told to design a composition that communicated something about ourself which is something that I always have fun with. So I took that idea into my final composition by designing a space that I know the best and feel comfortable in. I was also introduced to the cricut which is a new tool that I adapted to fast and hope to use in future assignments. Although in the beginning I struggled with visualizing how the layers would be cut out physically, I was able to visualize it better once I looked at each layer by itself. The part that I wish I focused on the most was my construction but in the end, I am really happy with how my final composition came together.

Portfolio Project

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Layering Space: Process