Two Students of Architecture - Test Cutting

I've always liked this image, but having completed two cuttings of it, the first in "Two Students" at 8x10 out of paper, and now this one, 16x20, out of mats, I think I may hold off creating it full size, at 30x40.

It is to date the most complex cutting I've done, and I 

think it's the one that has the greatest artistic meaning.

To the right is an off-axis shot of the same piece illustrating how it is constructed out of mats laid one atop another.

To the left is a photo of the completed second layer in front of a window.

To the right is a shot of the top five layers, stacked loosely atop each other.

King of Pain

 When I started doing the cuttings, bodies were the focus of the work because of the natural shadows and highlights that the gradient layers almost delighted in showing off.  The earliest cuttings are models against stark black backgrounds.  As the pieces got more detailed, the "noise" of the background began to interest me more and more.  This is my first exercise in representing something borderline non-objective.

The little black spot on the "sun" in the image above is actually a hole, cut in the deepest (and lightest) layer.  This is the first time I've made any cut in the bottom layer.  It felt more appropriate than creating a true black spot which would have resulted in a "tower" of cut pieces building up to the black layer on top.

The original image was licensed from a stock photography website.

Sample Cutting - Doug w/ Earphones

Having done the cutting of Troy's face a couple times I became interested in some of my other friends' faces, especially as they appear in self portraits.

Doug's face was a particular challenge.  He has a thick but closely cropped beard, and faint but visible vitiligo lines around his eyes that fascinated me.  I was curious to see how both would appear in a cutting. 

The result is to the right, and a shot of it off-axis is below.  This piece is sample sized, so it only measures 8"x10".  I think the detail around his mouth and nose is some of my best work.

Sample Cutting - Troy Redone

One of the earliest cuttings I did, I think it was the fourth, was a self-portrait of my buddy Troy.   I was particularly fascinated with the position of his deltoid, bicep, and pectoral muscles , and the mild shadows between them.  It was the first done in blue and I still hadn't worked out the shading gradients or the correct framing, so the highlight on his cheekbones and face is a little too harsh, and the 10x14 image is lost in its 16x20 frame.

I wanted to see how he would look if I corrected these mistakes and went with the brown sepia shades, but in order to make it more mysterious, added an extra dark layer and removed a lighter one. I think the result is successful.

Logo Design - New Company

A former boss of mine hired me to create a new logo and look for a new company that he had created.

He requested the blue and green colors because he felt they'd be bold and noticeably different from his last company, even though the name and font remained the same.

One of my favorite things about creating logos is that its evolution from initial concept to final result is usually explicitly clear in a way that isn't always visible in my other work where ideas often emerge almost fully formed.  

Included below are the various stages for the development of this design.

Initially I started with the outline of an "M" and a rotated "G". I felt the outline would serve to look like the walls of a floor plan, which I thought would be appropriate given that it was for a construction company.  The outline didn't look meaty enough to me so I filled in the block letters and made the "walls" white giving me the logo on the far right.

At the suggestion of the client, the blue and green became navy and lime to increase their contrast and boldness.  In addition, tabs were added to the M, and the M's legs extended to make it look more like a grouping of buildings.

I didn't feel this was working but still liked the graphic of the two blocky letters, so decided to go for something a little more three dimensional.  By stretching and rotating the G, the image gained depth.  The composition took on the appearance of a drill or a pencil, both of which seemed appropriate.  The center element of the M underwent  several changes. in order to marry it successfully against the rotated G.

In the final stage I shortened the central element of the M and reversed the cants on it.  The client suggested adding the cants on the top to achieve the final look.