Category Archives: Freshman

Music Video

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Make a music video 2-3 minutes long

The assignment was literally that open. The music could be anything, even stuff not usually considered music. People used sounds, songs they knew, songs they wrote, all kinds of stuff. I chose this song because it reflected my state of mind at the time. And because I love Flogging Molly. It was a great project, and was nice to open back up to the film/video medium again after ignoring it for a time. I’m very happy with this.

Motion Boards

Float – Motion Boards from Blake Johnson on Vimeo.

Final Video

Flogging Molly – Float from Blake Johnson on Vimeo.

Mapping Routine

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Portray something you do on a regular basis using an invented vocabulary

For this project, we had to some up with our own means of portraying and recording something we do on a regular basis using just imagery, and no text. For example, one classmate devised a grid system using both horizontal and vertical axes to portray the layers of clothing he was wearing during each hour of the day. Pretty crazy, and abstract when you look at it, but very cool in theory. It made us think hard about every aspect of the image-making we were doing.

My decision was to portray how badass I was feeling during social interactions using facial hair and viking adornment. The more facial hair and viking adornment there is in an image, the more badass or awesome I felt during that interaction or that day. The less of those things, the more insecure and down I was. It was great fun as an assignment, so long as I kept track of my moods throughout the days. And the week I ended up doing this was somewhat of a rollercoaster, as you can see.

Comic Book

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Make a 40-panel comic of any creation story

This project was essentially a giant fail on my part. I wanted to take a short story and extend it with beautiful artwork, and on top of that I wanted to use watercolors, a medium I’d never used before, and certainly not to this scale with this kind of planning and organization and specificity.

Needless to say, I chose entirely the wrong medium for the situation. If I’d tested things out more and had more time (as in not over-washing the boards with water and paint and just waiting to the layers dry), maybe something decent would have come out of it. But everyone makes mistakes, so hopefully I’ll take this lesson with me into future projects.

Bookshelf

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Open assignment using joinery techniques we learned

This is pretty straightforward, I knew we’d have an open final, and I’d be moving into an apartment for the summer, and making practical, usable things was the reason I signed up for this class, so I made a big bookshelf. I used cherry for the wood, half-blind dovetails to attach the top, and wedged mortise and tenons for the shelves. It’s not glued or oiled (or wedged) in these photos yet, but getting it done before the shop closed was a task in itself. Finishing it will be a summer project. It changed from its original drawing because the dimensions changed. I realized I had more wood than I’d planned, and rather than just having leftovers, I figured I’d use them while I could (I don’t have summer access to a woodshop) and just get more storage space for all our stuff.

Dovetail Box

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use dovetails to make a simple box

Our next box project, using a different joining method called dovetails. Harder to be exact with than finger-jointing, this method is actually pretty cool, as it’s more secure and structurally strong as a joint than finger-jointing. It wasn’t too easy, mine aren’t perfect, but I should get plenty of practice on my next project…

I tried to go a different route with this one, keeping the boards pretty thick and very simple, with no sliding top or anything. I wanted to keep a very natural feel about the box, and especially liked the knot in one of the sides. Originally I thought about cutting along the grain on the higher side, and then filing or chiseling down on the other side, but I ended up just driving a chisel into the end-grain and letting the board split as I pounded the chisel through. It was a bit scary, just hoping the wood would split on the line I wanted it to, and it definitely took its own course a good deal of the time, but I got something decent out of it. A friend suggested I just use a slab of wood with the bark still on it, or peeled off, cut to fit between the two sides, as a top. So that’s something I’ll hopefully get to finish this off with at some point.