First post of the year! I’m not taking resolutions this time, except I need to either post more often or rethink my post strategy. It will probably be the later, soon as I get around to thinking about it! In the meantime, here’s my second collage on treehouses. It’s another tea house by Terunobu Fujimori, an unconventional Japanese architect whose work is playful and clever.
As far as small structures go, tree houses are my favorites. Walking in my neighborhood the other day I saw one up in a tree, and I suddenly remembered how much I liked them when I was a kid. My brother, sister and I would gather whatever pieces of wood we could find, nailed them against each other on four sides, put a cover on top, added a few pillows inside, and it became our sanctuary. Never mind that spiders would find it just as comfortable as we did.
Here's another ahem, not-so-weekly mini: a project I made last summer which I'm only now getting around to sharing, but speaking of crazy little characters made with wire, it felt to me like the perfect time to slip it in. These guys are not drinking coffee like the running man in my last post, but mixing their own drinks from self-serving pods, which I imagined would be the way to go if you were in a bar functioning like the internet.
What can you make with an old can and a couple wire hangers? Aaron Kramer will tell you, a kinetic sculpture! I like things that move, but typically my thoughts go to animation rather than moving mechanical parts. You would think the opposite, since in some distant past I managed to complete a degree in mechanical engineering. But somehow I was better at the math part of it, which is probably why I now write code instead of designing machines. So anyway, back to the sculpture. Aaron gave a workshop last Sunday on how to make a moving one that anyone can learn to put together.
When I moved in my little bungalow three years ago it was much less colorful than it is now. I don't know how the previous tenants did live in there with so much bulky furniture and dirty mini-blinds on the windows, but as long as there was wood floors and nice moulding throughout I was pretty sure I could do something with the place.
A conversation with friends around Sunday brunch inspired this week's weekly-mini. We were talking about the biggest story in the news right now, the disastrous BP oil spill. When I got home I decided to take a closer look at the personal reaction of marine life coming face to face with the spill.
Here are a few drawings of a house I did at a time I was learning about perspective and redesigning the layout of an existing house, thinking about my ideal house. Few years later, I would still like to live in it!
I made a few of these miniature bars inside emptied out TVs and radio. I like how creative you can be with this type of decor, especially at this small scale. The shell is a starting point for my design and I use all sorts of found materials to get further inspiration.
No one will deny painting is a great way to experiment with colors, but there's nothing like collages to reconnect with the childhood pleasure of cutting with scissors and gluing things. I get my colored paper from Color-aid, they have up to 314 colors available in various sets and sheet sizes.
After making the cards I got inspired to use the geometric forms to make other characters. At work we were doing sites for extreme sports magazines and I liked the motion connected to it. Instead of making cards I drew these in illustrator and made them into magnets. Later on I animated a couple snowboarders in flash.
