The communication while doing this piece was amazing; everyone was attentively listening and giving helpful feedback when needed.

The final result was really surprising because of how far we have gone compared to when we started.

Both my definitions have stayed the same. I feel like using tape as the main component is a really fun experience and the main struggle within the team is still communication.

1. Gesture drawing - pencil drawing underneath to give gesture to Cookie Monster

2. Positive Shape contour - drawing the shape outline using blue watercolor

3. Detailed contour, shading in the shadows and drawing in cookie crumbs

• Emphasis

  • I think, for me, emphasis is a principle of design that is easy to forget but also easy to achieve due to the concept of emphasis being very simple.

• Variety

  • Similar to emphasis, this is one that I think is easy to forget but also easy to implement.

• Repetition

Some principles that I find risky are:

• proportions

  • I can be more comfortable with them through practice, such as grid drawing or contours.

  • Proportions are risky for me due to my lack of practice with them.

• movement

  • I can be more comfortable with movement by just practicing drawing movement more, similar to any other principle I struggle with.

• unity

  • Because of my lack of experience in art, unity is something that I'm not sure how to achieve. Like the other 2 before, I think that it can be improved through practice.

I can overcome my hesitation by simply practicing with intention, by focusing on aspects that I am not yet good at.

I used space and depth by experimenting with these perspectives. I used atmospheric perspective by keeping the background mountains faint and sketchy while making the foreground elements, like the web and ladders, darker and more detailed. I also used a worm's eye view (lower angle) and bird's eye view (upper angle) in a nother to show the massive scale of the cliffs compared to the small city of octavia.

Some principles of design that show up in these drawings are rythm, scale, and unity. Rythm and movement are created by the sweeping lines of spider web and rope ladders that hang from those webs that lead the viewer's eye across the gap. Proportion is shown through the tiny size of the houses and elements compared to the mountains and the size of the web.

I think my favorite design that I could show my partner would be the bird's-eye view one. I like the unevenness, composition, and details compared to the other two perspectives. My runner-up would be the front view.

The idea has developed since the first day, as I've added new cube homes and more shapes. By practicing the iteration process, I'm able to have more clarity in what I want to add and what I want to exclude from the piece, and also the placement of those elements.

An unexpected challenge I found was realizing I struggled with drawing complex perspectives like from below or from the sides. However, a pleasant surprise was seeing how well the geometry of the cube looked against the hanging pods. to solve the challenge, I plan on relying on the model to help me understand the 3d space better than my current flat sketches.

List of extra materials:

Aluminum foil

Yarn

Hot glue

Wires

Gauze

Thin Wood

tinkercad link for PR5: https://www.tinkercad.com/things/5QZsPPVXwdJ/edit?returnTo=%2Fdashboard&sharecode=ZBxRsMlmBUpIxbBd860GSr-gYaLRNxStCHyqtFiEjP8

From observing and looking back at older lessons, I was able to catch up with lessons and tasks.

Based on my previous explorations in the earlier units,

To make an object feel:

1. Rough: You can use cross hatching, stippling or scrumbling. A visual cue would be frequent sharp changes in light and shadow.

2. Smooth: You can use soft blending and long strokes. A visual cue would be gradual value changes.

3. Soft: You can use short feathred strokes or soft edges.

4. Hard/rigid: Crisp clean edges and heavy consistent lines.

I found that I struggled with Contrast and Unity the most. Particularly, when I were to add something that was too contrasty, it would look out of place, and sometimes the transitions would be too harsh. However, when there isn't much contrast, the piece looks flat and boring. It was especially hard for me to make sure that unity was there, especially considering my issues with contrast.

I found that variety was something I paid a lot of attention to, yet didn't seem to struggle with too much. By making sure that the houses were each of different sizes and had different textures, I was able to improve the variety in the piece.

1. The Monopoly Commentary: This would be a minimalist piece focusing on corporate isolation and consumerism. I picture a completely barren, flat green field with a tiny, isolated Walmart right in the dead center. The vast emptiness around it would comment on how big corporations swallow up space and kill local variety, using the landscape to create a sense of corporate monotony.

2. The Automotive Profile: For a long time, I've wanted to experiment with clean, graphic layouts using automotive shapes. This concept would focus on a stark side profile of a car, but the core challenge would be strictly applying the 60-30-10 design rule to the composition. I want to see if I can use those strict color ratios to make a highly structural, high-contrast painting where the car shape almost becomes secondary to the color blocking.

3. The Altered Cyanotype Mixed-Media Piece: This idea combines chemical printmaking with traditional painting. I want to create a base print using cyanotype, but then deliberately alter the chemistry by bleaching it with sodium carbonate and staining it with something like black tea to get muted, sepia, and gray tones instead of the standard blue. On top of that altered surface, I would apply the 60-30-10 composition rule using heavy paint layers.

possible themes:

1. war

2. urbanization

3. deforestation

4. pollution

For my materials and processes, I am primarily considering using acrylic paint as an exploratory medium, alongside light-sensitive cyanotype chemicals, heavy gloss varnishes, and watercolor washes. Idea 3 feels the most unpredictable and engaging, so my process will likely involve layering these wet and chemical mediums together on the same surface to see how they react.

While that was drying, I started prepping the paper elements that will form the actual core of the final print. I chose to use parchment paper because of its translucent quality. Coating parchment paper with liquid cyanotype chemistry is actually a massive pain, and mastering this even application is a specific skill I’ve really needed to refine along the way. Because the surface is so incredibly smooth, the stuff constantly wants to bead up and dries unevnely. I had to skip the paint brush entirely and use an ink brush and sponge to force the chemical spread to stay thin and uniform.

I prepared 4 separate pieces of this parchment, treated them with the chemicals, and then carefully aligned and laid them directly on top of each other. Stacking these four translucent layers builds up a heavy, hazy, volumetric blue space that will give the final composition a lot of internal dimension once exposed. As I start to finish up my project in the next session, the critical skills that will appear revolve around precise spatial alignment during exposure, as well as managing a washing method without destroying the water-soaked parchment.

To achieve this, I used a medium-thickness varnish as a sealing medium. I ended up applying 4 separate layers of the varnish across the entire surface of the canvas. I had to use a wide, flat brush and work quickly to keep the coats completely smooth and avoid trapping air bubbles in the medium. By the fourth layer, the texture of the canvas weave completely flattened out, leaving a thick, glossy, plastic-like barrier. This ensures that whatever paint or cyanotypes I put down next week won't sink into the fabric of the canvas, but will instead sit right on top.

• My first experiment was trying to use cyanotype over a layer of acrylic paint. I found that they details are very blurry when I do the cyanotype oeer the paint.

• Landscape Texture Test: For the second experiment, I wanted to see how well the chemicals could capture fine photographic details and soft gradients rather than just hard graphic shapes. I exposed a landscape image of hot air balloons floating over a foggy mountain valley I took in laos. I had to watch the exposure time closely so the misty tones in the hills didn't completely wash out into white or overexpose into a solid block of dark blue. The test came out clean and showed me that the paper holds onto fine, grainy textures really well.

• Watercolor Overlay: My third test was an attempt to mix watercolor directly over a processed print.

I decided to paint directly onto the wrap using acrylics. I added dense, explosion smoke at the bottom edge to serve as a visual anchor. Behind the jet, I painted a vivid orange and red engine flare, which gives the stark silhouette an aggressive kinetic energy against the muted blue background. Finally, instead of letting the piece air cure, I applied direct, high heat using a hairdryer. The forced heat flash-cured the acrylic and caused the plastic to shrink, melt slightly, and permanently fuse to the parchment, creating a tight, synthetic seal.

Additionally, I painted smoke explosions that got bigger as they got closer to the viewer's point of view.

the cyanotype manipulation and double exposure was a technical challenge, but the resulting physical depth effectively communicates the intended commentary.