
Design Studio — 1
Some quick background information: I grew up in Liberty Township, Ohio (or as I like to call it, “Cornfield 101”), a small area in the southern part of the state. Because of my suburban — and lavishly dull–environment, I’ve always subconsciously wondered what living in a city would be like. And as I walked through the bridge towards PNC Park, I started to feel like I had a small idea.
I perched myself down in front of the Roberto Clemente statue, and without hesitating, began to illustrate its form. It was quite interesting producing work of an already-produced work. But it didn’t feel strange, as the statue’s position captured Clemente’s stature and body movement so accurately. I don’t know much about baseball (and to be honest, I know absolutely nothing about Roberto Clemente), but to be artistically represented in such a way — especially in that proud space–clearly speaks to his character in more ways than one.
I kept thinking about that as I made my way down some stairs in search of more to find. Before I knew it, I was overlooking the river which flowed softly under the bridge. I watched a boat move quietly, while geese followed from a safe distance. Pittsburgh’s cityscape bordered the bridge, and each building dipped and seemed to almost dance across the sky. Behind me I heard the sounds of joggers and dogs, I heard cars and the laughter of children. I just kept staring at the water. It sounds cliche, but I was completely at peace. Regardless of the environment–usually cities are deemed chaotic and fast-paced–I felt serenity, clarity. It was the most wonderful juxtaposition I think I’ve ever experienced.

First Iteration [Crit — 9/11/18]
For the second part of the project, I began to look for improvements I could make to my next piece. I decided to use the 6x8 composition instead because I felt the horizontal spread allowed for more space, and I could tell more of a story. Not only was there more improvement with space and depth, but I took my time with each cut, and really focused on craftsmanship. Lastly, I added a cloud in the background — but I personally think if I were to do this again, I would remove it or add more detail to make it look more cloud-like.

Looking at the two side by side, it’s safe to say that there was a lot of improvement in the second. I took Stacey’s advice and decided to talk about the place through my design, instead of talking about myself and creating interpretations of what’s there.

Tonal Iteration [Crit — 9/13/18]
Yesterday I spent my day creating the second (well, third if you include the first draft) iteration of our intersection project. I decided to use the exact same composition. I didn’t change anything — I really didn’t feel like I needed to; I thought the interaction of the statue, bridge, and buildings was appealing and accurate to the place. To help me get a sense of the large chunks of brown, I converted my image to black and white and added a sepia tone in Photoshop.
Once I saw the separation of tonal “chunks,” I went to Illustrator and simplified those shapes. However, I didn’t end up using a lot of what I had traced. I found that it was a lot easier for me to draw out the shapes by hand instead of cutting them from a reference in Illustrator. I only ended up cutting out the bridge and statue from my Illustrator reference, everything else was freehand. For my next iteration, I’m not using Illustrator because it was a waste of time and didn’t influence the entirety of my piece.


Now that I’ve seen my work against everyone else’s and how it looked from far away, I’ve been able to see what worked in my (as well as others’) piece, and what I can do to improve. For starters, as Steve pointed out, there’s a disconnect in the tonal code I used. Instead of having the ground be white, I should’ve maybe added the cream or light tan to indicate it was the ground. As well as that, I think the perspective gets lost with the dark brown piece that covers the front of the bridge and connects to the gate. Not only does it mess up the depth, but It makes it seem like the gate is floating, and I should probably either make the gate or the ledge a completely different color to separate itself from the statue.
Color Iteration [Crit — 9/18/18]
The last part of the project was replacing a tone with one single color that best reflected the place. Some people chose to represent their intersection with reds, blues, and greens — I myself decided to use gold. I chose this option because of both literal and cultural reasons; when I think of Pittsburgh, I immediately think of yellow. Steelers, Pirates, and the bridges. I also felt it was appropriate considering the bridge that sits in the background is gold itself, so it was partly observational as well.

Out of all the pieces, this was my favorite. I think the yellow balanced out nicely with the warm-toned grays, and had a very Pittsburgh-y feel to it.


