Structure: Process

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Research

For this assignment, I conducted research on what architectural features and specific furniture/objects I’d want in my dream studio space. After scrolling through Pinterest, I was able to put together the mood board shown below. Within this board, I tried to gather everything I’d want in my dream studio space. With the circle chairs, skylight and plants, I was trying to capture a bright, bohemian, and nature-esque space. Wanting to add some fun and playful features, I looked into options like a day bed and funky shaped mirror. In conjunction with all of this, I knew I also needed a few practical items, and thus, I researched items like the fridge and tablespaces.

  • Exercise #1:
This is an exercise we did in class to begin drawing shapes that could be similar to those within our final. To start the exercise, we chose a random object and made a quick drawing of it. Next, we traced that drawing onto bristle paper and cut it out so that we’d have a stencil. A single tracing of that stencil is shown on the left above. Then, we had to take that stencil and trace multiple iterations of it. After getting the base layer of the tracing done, I went back and experimented with line weight. This exercise was very helpful in teaching me about blind drawings and how different line weight can impact the overall composition of an image.
  • Exercise #2:
This is another exercise we did in preparation for this project. Here, we chose a scene near our classroom and drew it. We had the choice of drawing it digitally or physically, I chose digitally because it’s easier to manipulate and change elements without having a surplus of eraser marks. I decided to draw a scene that included a lot of nature as well as interestingly structured buildings. I experimented more with line weight here and how it can mimic the illusion of a shadow. Line weight also helped when drawing the more organic objects, such as the plants, as it added depth and a sense of texture. This exercise was great practice for my final project, as they share a lot of the same line, shape, and dimensional properties.
  • Exercise #3:
This is the final exercise we did before starting the design of our spaces. In essence, we experimented with one-point and two-point perspective grids. The process of making these was initially really challenging for me but with practice, it became a lot easier. With these specific girds, too, we were able to make the dimensions whatever we wanted and this was extremely helpful when it came to constructing our actual grid space for our projects.

Iterations

In order to make my studio look spatially accurate, I did a lot of experimenting with different 2oo square foot layouts. This was one of the biggest challenges for me because the dimensions of the space and where I placed the vantage point greatly impacted how and where I could draw the objects I wanted within it. I made countless one-point perspective girds with different measurements, below are three of them. The first drawing I did was all the way to the left, I experimented with creating a space without a ceiling. I thought this would give me more floor space but it just cut off the room and made it look really small. Taking this into consideration, I made the middle drawing. I placed the vantage point closer to the left in order to create a more interesting composition. I liked this but felt it could be improved, so I made some adjustments and produced the drawing on the right. I moved the vantage point more towards the middle but then made the wall space more rectangle than square. I really liked this layout so I made my final one very similar to it.

Production

#1

First, I started digitally with the basic perspective version of my space. I chose to begin drawing digitally rather than physically because I felt as if it would make it easier for me to manipulate aspects within my space and be able to quickly erase or remove them if they didn’t turn out how I wanted them to. Regardless, this is meant to be a 17×12 square foot space and it’s nearly identical to the third perspective grid I showed within the ideations section.

#2

From there, I started adding structural features. Wanting to create a sense of depth, I made my studio space elevated on a platform with steps and storage below. After that, I added hard wood flooring to act as a consistent base layer to my space and then some outlining trim to the edges of my ceiling.

#3

After adding those details, I started adding the simple furniture and architectural objects within my space. I started with the table and following the grid lines, I constructed it to be very long and directly against the wall. Then, I added the day bed and a funky shaped rug. I was originally going to do a big, rectangle rug but after seeing how just my table and couch had very sharp edges, I made it more organically shaped to create a sense of contrast. It was also easier to draw in my opinion, as you can’t really tell if it’s perfectly straight or curved in any manner. Lastly, I added a pair of glass sliding doors.

#4

From there, I added more objects such as a mini-fridge, spinning desk chair, fan, and a tv. The spinning chair was a fun addition, I’m not a fan of traditional desk chairs because they’re often uncomfortable and boring looking. I also liked that including one gave me another opportunity to include an organic shape within my space to help soften its overall appearance.

#5

Lastly, I added wall decor, plants, and details to the ceiling, sliding glass doors, and mini-fridge. I got the inspiration for my wall decor on Pinterest and added the roman numeral number six because six is my lucky number. I added a city skyline into the sliding glass doors to help with depth and hopefully, manifest where my studio will be located in the future. After that, I added plants and cans into the mini-fridge so there’d be a better sense of depth and show more detail in certain areas. Lastly, I added in my cat, Marley. For background, Marley (or bean as we typically call him), is my chubby, nine-year-old cat. He’s pure white with only a little triangle of grey on his head and instead of sleeping in cat beds, he loves to sleep in baskets. He’s an essential part of my life back home, so I figured he should be an essential part of my dream studio space, too.

#6

After getting the digital version of my space done, it was time to transfer it to bristol. I did this by printing out the digital copy and using a lightbox to trace it onto paper. This was a challenge in itself, as the majority of the printers we have access to don’t print larger than 8.5×11 and the paper we had to submit our drawing on was 14×17. In order to fix this issue, I transferred my drawing into a 14×17 document on Illustrator and then separated it into four sections using an 8.5×11 box to mimic the size of the paper I was printing on. When I printed it out, the four papers were heavily overlapping towards the middle but that never became an issue.

#7

 

After piecing it together, I put my drawing on a light box and placed my final sheet of bristol paper on top. I used several pieces of tap to temporarily adhere my project to the table, as any slight shifts could’ve made my alignment wrong and forced me to restart. From there, I did one layer of tracing in pencil and then, another final layer in marker. The one you see above is my final layer in marker. In total, these two versions took me over five hours to complete. I think it was extremely worth it, however. I really liked this outcome and even though it doesn’t look exactly like my digital copy, seeing it come into fruition after weeks of work was super rewarding.

Link to Portfolio Project

Now that you know how it came to be made, here’s a link to my portfolio page where you can see my Structure assignment. Enjoy!

https://u.osu.edu/fricke-60/portfolio/structure/