Author: Amelia Ring

Pattern One: Beetles

For this first pattern I took a little bit of liberty with the animal  prompt. Beetles are insects, but I figured the prompt is mostly there for inspiration. I photographed a display case full of preserved beetles/bugs at this museum in Seattle, the photo on it’s own is rather cool. I cut out six of the beetles and the scorpion from the image, and arranged them in a circular form. Then I patterned them, with the orientation rotating, over a background I drew. I used a paintbrush with texture, which makes the background appear almost sandy. And in addition I drew up some thorny branches to add some more substance.

Tiling the Pattern:

The tiling of this pattern wasn’t as seamless as I had hoped, the beetles were difficult to have line up properly. However, I think it still remains interesting and with a clear motif, even if it could use a little more work.

Pattern Two: Rayon

For my second pattern I chose to take inspiration from the synthetic. I immediately thought of synthetic fibers, and remembered how awesome they look under a microscope. I sampled this image of rayon under a microscope  for online. I patterned the image using the cross weave option with overlapping pixels and I added in color and brightness randomization. This resulted in this almost patchwork like print of the original photo, in varying colors and brightness. I then deleted sections from the print and placed a white to teal gradient behind the deleted sections. The final result takes this very smooth synthetic and contrasts it against a very geometric pattern.

Tiling the pattern:

I was pretty satisfied with how this pattern tiled, I rotated the original pattern so the center cut outs of white lined up and an overall geometric pattern appeared.

For my project I chose to alter an image of my brother taken by Jake Cunningham at one of his shows. I really love this photo, the setting is pretty awesome and the photographer managed to catch an image that encapsulated my brothers relaxed and focused style. Initially I was unsure what to do to the photo, I played around with removing him from the photo and leaving just his sticks and the kit, but the staging didn’t allow for the impact I was hoping for, and the background transition behind him would’ve require a significant amount of time to get just right. Instead, I chose to remove the sticks and the drum kit from the photo, leaving my brother, caught in the moment, without any explanation for his pose. I was really satisfied with how this turned out both technically and with regards to commentary. In the public eye, drummers are often overlooked, but their work is the backbone of the music. The removal of the drums leaves just the musician, unable to be ignored.

My name is Amelia, I’m a freshman Mechanical Engineering Major, and I’m also attempting to get a teaching license. I’m originally from Western Massachusetts, but my family moved to Southern Maine when I was pretty young.  I was very into art and theatre when I was younger. I competed in the Peace Poster Competition for three years in middle school, and won for my state in the 8th grade. I also started acting in the 4th grade and ran wardrobe (3 years) for my school theatre company. In high school I became heavily involved in my school’s robotics team and engineering program, leading me to WPI.

My first real experience with digital art software was actually in  a CAD/technical drawing course at my high school.  My TA for the course ran a unit on using Blender for 3D modeling and animation. You can do some pretty detailed work with the software, but we stuck to basic animal modeling and animation, given the time restrictions. I dug up an old photo for a model of a gazelle when it was nearing finalization.

The summer of my senior year I got interested in drawing using tablets and online software. I bought a cheap drawing tablet and worked using FireAlpaca just for fun. I mostly doodled and experimented with various styles and with the capabilities of the program. Below are a few thing I did while testing it out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For my Low-Res Icon I chose to make an icon of a pine tree in the snow. We’ve got a lot of pine trees up in the pine tree state so it makes a good symbol of my home.  Also, when I was a kid my siblings and I spent a lot of time playing in the woods, so I have a lot of strong memories associated with the nature of Maine, especially in winter (plus, they’re really pretty, especially in the snow).