Blog Post #1

Last update 2/23/2015 (moved to 2/19/2015 to align chronologically)

I'd Like to Start this Blog with an Anecdote...

My love for art began with my love to create. Throughout my life, this love led me to drawing and origami, and began when I was little. When I was in elementary school always had ideas that would leave as fast as they would come.  This lead to me drawing... all the time. But a problem, that frustrated me beyond belief, was that I could not draw with the detail that was fabricated with my mind. For a period of my life, I was obsessed with constantly drawing on and folding post-it notes, to the point where my desk, pencil box and backpack had been littered with post-it notes. I am sure I burned through more than 3 or 4 packs of just doodling and folding. And now I only recently am able to draw with the proficiency I have always desired, but was a product of many years of practice and determination.

I know that this passion lead me to my skills in drawing and origami, and I am very satisfied at the level that I am at now, but I want to see where else this passion can lead me.

The Decision

I had three primary activities I wanted to “master,” which were painting, whittling and chiseling. And as you can see, I have chosen whittling because I believed it was the most convenient in terms of materials. Also for the reason that I knew chiseling is a skill that takes many, many years to become good at, while painting is something that I believed was too close to what I am already doing with drawing. My goal for these next few weeks was not to master whittling, but master another way to make my ideas into reality.

The materials I need to obtain include a knife, basswood, sandpaper and possibly a mineral oil (used for preservation). I have already obtained minimal information on whittling such as cutting away from myself (instead of towards) and always going with the grain, ,or else the wood will splinter. My three large goals for the following weeks are going to be projects that ramp up in difficulty. Each project will have a number of steps, which include obtaining an idea, drafting (sketching out the image on the wood), creating the major shape, adding dimension and more details and smoothing out the piece with sandpaper.

Progress

I will measure and document each projects’ progress with photos. The first projects will be a fairly simple shape, without any textures on the surface. It is very likely that it will be a spade, formed by an upside down heart and a cone that arches inward. It is only designed to get me being comfortable using a knife, I will probably try not to accidentally cut myself more than trying to finish the shape. The second objects will have a more complicated shape such as a bird or other animal. The purpose for this object is to get a firm grasp on how to whittle more complicated shapes. The final project will be a replica of an item from a show or an object of my own creation. If it does become an object that I designed, then it will require the extra step of sketching, creating a solid idea through multiple drawing of the object from different views.  The purpose of this final project is to show my progress on whittling, by comparing the result with the intended object.

Weekly Comments:
Joshua Chu
Matt Autieri
David Weiss