This project I have been assigned to an art piece to which I am to get a good look and feel from and use the art piece as inspiration to my creativity. Once I have an idea in my mind, I am to put it on a paper and sketch different forms of our idea based on our art piece, until we are content or are given the sign that our best sketch can move forward to the physical form. We are to make our best model with whatever material we think is best suited to make it come to life. Our mentors check up on us throughout the making of our sketches and models and after which they notify us that we are able to move forward with our project in Rhino and Photoshop till our presentation. This whole project tests our creativity and capabilities.
The most challenging aspect of this project has been the sketches because I am very biased and feel very unlucky to have gotten this art piece “lavender mist” as I can’t seem to make any successful sketches that show creativity or inspiration. To me this art piece doesn’t leave much to the imagination and it’s tricky to sketch things based on what I see in this art piece. I hope to be able to create something without falling behind because I was really excited to work with Ramsa again and so far I am regretting it a bit solely because of this part.
I hope to learn to pass through challenges like this to clear my mind and forget how I feel about certain things so I can really use my imagination to sketch without my feelings clouding me and not being able to work. I know in the architecture field this will probably happen again, and I can’t let this happen every time. I also hope to learn how to use Rhino more than I do now and Photoshop because they will be useful in college.
On a scale of 1-5 I am a 3 because I have been doing sketches, but I haven’t been happy with them though my first week was very nice. There’s a clear plan and it seems to be fun. I’d like to improve on the sketches so that I can have all the time to put together a physical model. I will be seeing my mentors soon for a lecture and check up, but I don’t have any questions I can think of at the moment.
Kiara Ceballos
My first week working on Ramsa has been somewhat challenging and stressful. On Monday we had our first meeting with Alp and Alyssa, and we all were able to present ourselves to them and tell them why we were interested in the program. Then we had our first lecture that led to our first assignment, called A1 Artworks.
This assignment was given to us randomly from picking a number and that number had a random artwork attached to it. When we were given the artwork, we were told to analyze the artwork, thinking about light and dark, volume and void, patterns and shape at different scales. After a few minutes we were told to start sketching or writing what we saw or what we could put together from our artwork. At the beginning, it was hard to come up with what I could’ve sketched out and even until the moment right now I am still struggling even with our meeting with Alp and Alyssa.
This assignment is going to take a lot of thinking and mistakes and sketching. I hope to achieve the deep thinking skills this project is providing for me to take it with me in college in August. This program is really challenging and even gives me a sense of what I could expect in college for my architecture major. Additionally, I’m expecting to continue improving my presentation skills.
I would rate my productivity for the first week as a 4 due to having to stop and take breaks to come up with ideas because I would just in general space out due to not having ideas that to sketch. It just took a while. This Monday upcoming we will be meeting with our mentors, and I would like to ask if I’m going in the correct path with the new sketches that I’m going to present with the feedback that I had gotten at Thursday’s meeting. I want to ask this because I don’t want to evolve an idea which might not be what they want so I want a green light from my mentor to be able to proceed.
Jennifer Segundo Ramirez
This year is my first time working for RAMSA. At first I didn’t know what to expect but once I started working, I realized that it would revolve around team effort, thinking outside the box, professionalism, and constructive criticism. For the first week we focused on sketching and making our thought process more abstract. In order to achieve this we had to rely on our peers for feedback. There were many hours where we would just present our ideas and have our peers, as well as Mr. Crockford & Mr. Rodriguez, help dissect and digest detail by detail to help create new ideas and not get attached to one. This is to help us with our project later on in which we make these ideas come to life using rendering software.
The most challenging part so far has been thinking abstractly. This is because we as humans tend to think very directly or try to connect what we create to a single idea/thought. In this workshop we are trying to move away from that and have one idea be the start of multiple similar yet different ideas and then somehow reflect that into our art work which later will become a 3D model.
Thankfully, this week we were able to meet with our mentor Mr. Demiroglu. He was able to give me feedback on where I should further develop more abstract thinking, as well as where I got a good grasp and continue my sketching towards it. Overall, I enjoyed this week since it felt like my way of thinking was slowly changing and becoming more abstract. I’m looking forward to working with RAMSA.
Cynthia Luna-Marcelino
My first week of RAMSA was not that bad. It was way different from last year because we started with the sketching and drawing and not with the Photoshop collage, but so far it is pretty good.
My painting that I was analyzing was Absence Revealed 004 by María Martínez Cañas. It’s the one that has flowers and some black spaces in the painting. It looked like it was a perfect painting and somebody broke it and put back the pieces in random places while discarding some of the pieces.
One of the biggest challenges with this project was trying to see what the artist was trying to show in his art piece and how I can implement that in my drawings. At first I did not know what to do. I was just looking at the art pieces through different perspectives and then it hit me. I thought the painting was broken and the artist was trying to put it back together but did not know where the pieces went so he put the pieces back in random places and the pieces that did fit were thrown out, and the end result was the painting. I started to draw the pieces in random places, some that looked broken and some that did fit in with that part of the painting. As I was trying to fill in the black spaces of the painting, I got lazy and started to add some scribbles to the black spot and it had some rhythm and pattern to it. Then I thought, what if the black spaces are trying to pull the pieces apart and the pieces are trying to pull themselves together, creating this tension between light and dark. So I started to draw the black spaces trying to pull the piece apart and trying to consume the pieces and the pieces trying to pull itself together to fix itself and come back to it originally from. Ms. Louis liked the idea so I continued using it and added more volume to make it look like what my 3D model would look like.
Currently, I am working on my physical 3D model. I don’t see where it is going right now, but I feel like I will soon like Mr Crockford to see it. I wasn’t expecting this project to turn out this way, but I am happy it did because it’s surprising what the artist was trying to do, how what he did was very intentional, how he perceives his own artwork, and how it relates to his life.
On a scale to 1 to 5 I would rate my first week a 4 because it was very fun. I got to learn a little more about abstract art, how what the artist did was intentional, and what elements they implemented in their art work. It was a bit confusing at first and some of it I don’t get but am getting the hang of it. When we have that meeting Ms. Louis and Mr. Demiroglu, I will understand more than before when I started the drawing and the physical 3D model. Some questions I will ask Ms. Louis tomorrow are what are some things I need to change, what color I should add, how I can better improve this, and what is the next step in my project? So far I’m liking the RAMSA program again, and I can’t wait to see what is going to be the next thing on Monday.
Jordan Louis
My first week overall in this program of RAMSA Design foundation workshop has been interesting and tiring. For one, I think it was actually cool the way we can work with a firm and that really piqued my interest which is why the first week was cool learning all this and as well as the activities we did for designing which was so much but really unique.
In the end we have to complete a project about a design we create but with the intentions of how we learned certain things that are architectural concepts such as space, form, and structure. In order to complete this project, we start in groups and give feedback to designs we create for what we want and what can help achieve our goals. Aside from this I think the hardest thing was getting use to getting early to the building and staying focused during one hour meetings.
In the end I really hope to learn a few skills over structure and modeling since I have drifted from the idea of wanting to pursue architecture and lean more to construction. I know architecture has elements of constructions so some skills I hope to resonate with me. I believe on a scale of 1-5, my productivity was at a 4 to almost 3 since at some points I felt foggy and didn’t know what to do and it took a while to start working. Even so I manage to complete many things and explore.
For next week I’d like to improve my sleep schedule since that’s what gets to me and bites me in the butt when I try to do work cause I get tired then foggy to think of anything. Every week at least two days we meet with our mentors and I don’t necessarily have anything to ask but maybe some things about my sketches and models since I want to know if I’m on the right path.
Steven Lazaro