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.