Month: March 2016

My name is John Williams and I am a Junior doing a double major in ME and ECE.

I like to draw all kinds of things, from cartoons to still lives. Sometimes I like to use chalk pastels on cardboard because it makes shading more fun and you can add both lightness and darkness, whereas you can only add darkness to white paper.

My main interest recently has been exploring the rules of perspective drawing. I love geometry and compass/straightedge constructions as a way of ‘graphical calculation’. As a few examples, I figured out a way to draw icosahedrons in accurate perspective without using calculations (not sure if my particular method was previously discovered), how to rotate a line in any direction while preserving its length (projected length may change), and how 3 vanishing points in mutually perpendicular directions can be used to graphically locate the vanishing point in the direction perpendicular to the page. I could go on and on! I love perspective. I also like to play with anamorphic distortion(such as the wineglass below) and nontraditional perspective such as fisheye and cylindrical. The other picture below is a room assembled from three pieces of cardboard in different planes (one for each wall) and appears to have depth when viewed from the right position (for example, the floor lines match up, even though the pieces of cardboard are in different planes).

Although I am studying ECE, I have never done a significant hobby project just for fun.

As for programming, I know java, C, and Matlab. I have also done artistic visual programming projects. The most interesting one was Moiré pattern animations. The idea is that two transparent patterns moving on top of each other, such as window screens, produce a moving interference pattern. This can result in a planned animation if the two underlying patterns are computed. If one of the two patterns is vertical bars, the other can easily be treated as the frames of the animation. This idea has been used before, but I came up with an interesting addition: If one pattern is a grid, the animation can proceed differently depending on the direction that the layers are sliding. I have uploaded Photoshop files of these – to view them you simply drag one of the layers. I couldn’t embed the Photoshop files here but I uploaded them to the media library. Check them out, they’re worth your time. I have also printed these out on clear acetate and they still work. I have also done programming projects that involve 3D glasses.

As for other creative arts, I like to read and write poetry, although it’s been a while since I’ve written anything.

My creative inspirations are math, nature, and the artists I find on the internet.

My artistic goal is the satisfaction that comes with creating something new.

My name is Max Levine. I am a 3^rd year student working on my BS/MS in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (BCB). My major is very interdisciplinary so I work on many different types of projects from biology to math to computer science.

I haven’t worked on much art making out of art classes because I’m not a very good at drawing and have trouble finding time to work with more elaborate media. However, I really enjoy more digital forms of art and find working on computer modeling relaxing. I have worked with many different modeling/animations software including Cinema4D, Maya, 3dsMax, and Zbrush. Below is a model of my hand that I made.

I have worked with many programming languages for my major such as Java, Python, Matlab, and R. However I have not worked with programming electronics, although I would like to.  My experience with electronics is small, I have only done soldering of simple circuits and putting light strips in my room.

The types of art that I enjoy most are fun and visually stimulating. Light art falls right into this category. I am also a big fan of interactive/changing art which tempts you stay and enjoy for a little bit of time. I find most of this art on the internet which is also where I draw much of my inspiration.

A recent project that I am proud of is the 3D modeling project that I worked on for an art class last year. I made a buff humanoid chameleon. It was a lot of fun to make the model, texture it, paint it, add clothing, and finally pose it.

In this class I would like to make something that is whimsical and fun. I hope I can add element of interactivity so that it isn’t just a static piece.

My name is Virginia Massa, but I prefer being called Ginny. I’m a sophomore Biology/ Biotechnology major. Art is something that I practice in different ways. For example, I love baking. I enjoy making things out of pulled sugar, or just twirling sugar threads and seeing what happens. I have also worked with fondant a bit and actually made the cake toppers for my brother’s wedding a few years ago. In fact, a lot of my art is done in the kitchen. My family gets pretty serious about pumpkin carving, and I’ve carved one for as long as I can remember. I have experience with digital art and 3D modeling. Although digital art can go past boundaries and be very creative, creating physical art is also fun.

I don’t have much experience with coding. In high school I took a computer science class where we were taught the basics of Python and Java, most of which I have forgotten. My roommate and I have messed around with her Arduino a little bit, so I have a small amount of experience with that.

Music, video games, and cartoons are some of my largest influence. I really enjoy listening to and singing along to music. My favorite songs tend to be classic rock and alternative. Although I am a bit rusty, I can play the flute and piano.

This is an example of a symmetry project that we were assigned in an art class. I really like working with the unique shape of the octopus. They are really interesting creatures.

These are the cake toppers I made for my brother’s wedding. They are only about two inches tall, and it was challenging to get small detail in. I am happy with the end result though.

My name is Robyn- I’m a 3rd year Computer Science major. I’ve done digital and traditional drawing for about 7 years now, primarily pencil/pen sketches, digital art, and pixel art on a tablet. I primarily use the program Paint Tool SAI, but I’m also comfortable with Photoshop.

I have ~4 years of programming experience, and some basic electronics experience working with smaller electronic systems. I’ve worked on business systems at Pratt and Whitney for an internship, as well as general comp. sci coursework at WPI. I also play the oboe in concert band, and like to make plushies occasionally!

I like to draw from games a lot, as well as some of my favorite books and songs- I also enjoy drawing animals, like cats:

Recently I’ve been wanting to improve in my digital painting skills and expand my general drawing skills, as well as trying different types of art that I haven’t used much (e.g animation)- I’d like to be able to draw more interesting backgrounds and scenes to frame characters in.

I’ve had a few recent project where I was pretty happy how I painted the lighting, or captured a style well (such as the Gameboy Color pixel style below). As part of an inspiration from video games, I like to do create pixel art that matches the particular style or palette of a game/system.

 

Hopefully by the end of this term, I’ll have created something interesting with light that I can learn from, and hopefully expand into similar project even after the class is over. It will be interesting to combine technology and art together, given my experience in each of the two individually.

My name is Tony Garside. I am a Computer Science student currently wrapping up my Senior year at WPI. I’m fairly experienced in software engineering having interned at Cimpress (better known as VistaPrint) and having done my MQP in Silicon Valley with NVIDIA as well as doing general computer science course work at WPI.

I have experience with many programming and scripting languages including Java, C#, C, and Python. My electronics background is basic. I took electronics classes in high school and I spent two summers working at an electronics manufacturing company, however, most of my experience is in assembling circuits rather than designing them. I’ve played a little bit with Arduino and Raspberry pi.

My experience with art is mostly digital. I’m very comfortable with Photoshop. I would like to expand my artistic ability with light and possibly music mediums. I think it could be very interesting to create art that utilizes programming, perhaps merging artificial intelligence with music creation.

This is a surreal scene that I made for a digital art class using Photoshop. It pictures two very unlikely friends hording a stash of Halloween candy in an alternate universe. I’m not quite sure what I was thinking when I made this, but I think it looks pretty.

This is an art project that I created with two other WPI students while taking the Essentials of Art class. The goal of this assignment was to create a work of art using similar methodology to how Andy Goldsworthy creates sculptors. Andy Goldsworthy is a British Sculptor that creates temporary works of art using only objects that he can find in a particular environment. Pictured is a colorful combination of liter that we found on WPI’s campus. Featured at one end of the colorful liter snake is a used condom, hence the name of the piece is “Reused Condom”. (Don’t worry, none of us actually touched the condom and we washed our hands thoroughly after cleaning up the liter).

I tend to be more interested in weird, unconventional, and psychedelic pieces of art. One of my creative inspirations that I may use to influence my project for this class are the live light shows from Daft Punk concerts that took place around 2007.

By the end of this project, I hope to have created a piece of light art that I can be proud of. Ideally I hope to create something that is expandable so that I can continue to build upon it after this course is over. Lastly I hope to learn more about the process of creating art that utilizes technology to allow me to further expand my ability to create interesting projects.

Cameron Back

Light Art Humanities Practicum

Biography:

My name is Cameron Back, I am currently studying Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). As a college student, I study a lot of electrical systems, and also do a lot of work in: python, C, C++, matlab, CCS, and Vivado.  Most recently, I have been working with MSP programmable boards.

I decided to pursue visual art as my humanities requirement because despite my main focus being engineering, the field of art has always been incredibly interesting to me.

My interest in visual art is mostly inspired by my love of movies, cartoons, comics, and other similar pop culture. Most of my work has been influenced by comic book superheroes, such as the Avengers, the Justice League, and Watchmen. These stories continue to thrill me even today, and most of my best works of art are in reference to characters from these stories.

In fact, I spent most of my early years of middle and high school learning to draw things from these types of stories, and slowly began to learn more about perspective, lighting, and the human anatomy. In high school, I learned how to use In-Design as a 2D digital art software, and from there, began to pursue other methods of digital Art in College remembering that experience. These include: Maya, Zbrush, and Flash Animation.

However, the type of art that excites me the most is costume design and fashion. Because WPI is a very project based program, I decided to take on a project the summer before attending.  I did this to prove to myself that I could see it all the way through to perfection. During that summer, my friend and I attended Comic Conn in St. Louis, and were blown away by costumes people wore there. Each one had incredible amounts of detail and style to them, and I wanted to take on a project like that for myself.  I chose to create a Green Arrow inspired suit for myself that summer. I spent several hours every day working on both the design of the suit, and on the actual construction of the suit.

By the end, I had something to be proud of, and the confidence to pursue future projects at WPI.

But despite the project being over, I still think quite a lot about different possible costumes and Ideas, and would love the opportunity to work on this type of project again.

LEDshift LED fashion page

Lots of great LED fashion videos.

Site is in German, but use the built in translate function at the top.