I've been very quiet lately, but plugging away at various projects. This is the latest, which is now in Australia as an exchange for a photograph. I love being able to barter art.
This is a section of the 4th street Bridge in South Boston. I decided to throw a pre-set objective scale out the window, and make it all relative in scale, which turned out to be around 1/10 and which felt right for the composition. As I was trying to focus on the white line which meant that I didn't work so hard on every tiny detail. It was an exercise in where to put in the energy and where to pare it back. It is meant to hang on the wall like a picture. Thanks for looking
(https://images54.fotki.com/v556/photos/7/698387/16285512/IMG_6392-vi.jpg)
(https://images43.fotki.com/v1218/photos/7/698387/16285512/IMG_6389-vi.jpg)
(https://images54.fotki.com/v556/photos/7/698387/16285512/IMG_6376-vi.jpg)
(https://images40.fotki.com/v1668/photos/7/698387/16285512/IMG_6377-vi.jpg)
(https://images15.fotki.com/v1669/photos/7/698387/16285512/IMG_6378-vi.jpg)
Well, that turned out rather well, didn't it? And it's a pleasure to see you post now and then. -- Russ
Fantastic!
I teach this way of looking at the world around us to my architecture students. Well done!
Another excellent piece of art!
Great.
Love the expansion strip
cheers
Thanks Russ. This board is a national treasure. I spend a lot of time lurking but not posting.
Ray Thanks for looking.
Eric: I would love to see some of your students work. Do you have any that you are allowed to share?
Thank Kim. The expansion strip is such a feature of two Bridges that join Boston to South Boston and which went up in 2000. Since I completed this, the whole bridge is getting reworked to install bike lanes, so I think this piece is a record of what was once there.
I am working on a piece based on a road in Sao Paulo which I visited in 2007... 13 years in the gestation...I have been given some great help by Herr Hydrostat, for which I am eternally grateful. As soon as I have something worth showing, I will be posting.
I don't have any student work that I'm comfortable sharing, but a big part of my approach to teaching architecture is getting the students to look past of "filter of beauty." What I mean by this phrase is that we adjust our expectations for beauty by whether or not we think the object or composition was intended to be beautiful. If it looks like it was supposed to be beautiful, then it must be whether or not I can see it. Conversely, if it wasn't meant to be beautiful, then in must not be. I want the students to be critical and perceptive viewers of the world around them, and that includes seeing the beauty in things that were not meant to be beautiful. Once you make that leap, you realize we are surrounded by amazing things every day.
Thanks to you, Eric, I now can call myself beautiful! -- ssuR
Eric I am so glad that you get your students to look around themselves rather than sleepwalk. There is so much that is amazing, some deliberately, some accidentally and some as patina. I've been making bits of steet and sidewalk for a long time and I've never once been stuck for a subject...admittedly there is a lot of roadway to choose from!
And Russ I am glad that someone can call you beautiful, even if it is yourself.
That's an amazing piece of art. I'm with Kim, the expansion strip has a lot of appeal. I like the sharp edge at the tarmac side and the rounded one at the gap. And the worn lane marking ... and the concrete ... and so on. It's a gift to be able to take notice of things beyond main stream aesthetics which a lot of modelers need to have to achieve convincing pieces.
Glad I made your day Russ!
Your students must get a lot out of your classes. You see detail where others don't even perceive anything.
Really well implemented!
Frithjof