Hello, my name is Christian. I’m a first-year at St. Edward’s University. I’m double majoring in Art and Video Game Development. Drawing into space was recommended to me by my drawing foundations professor Sergio. I was hesitant to take this class originally, as I heard that it was an advanced class. Though, after meeting with Hollis I decided to sign up for the class and I’m excited about this semester.

I’ve been drawing on and off all my life. During high school is when I started taking art more seriously, but once covid hit I found myself drawing less and less as it was hard to find motivation. I’m glad to finally be back on a campus and drawing once again. This class is different than what I’m used to and I can’t wait to grow as a student and artist.

Hello, my name is Leilanie Gill and I am in my first year as an art student. My major is animation, minoring in Video game development. Drawing into Space is a course I was interested in after I took Drawing Foundations with Sergio, a wonderful professor. He told me that drawing was very very important if you wanted to become an animator and this was the perfect place to increase my skills as an artist.

Drawing is a form of creative freedom that lets our thoughts flow in different spaces. In my space, I primarily use paper with the medium of charcoal or graphite, but lately I have been exploring the world of digital space. Its a completely different field from what I am used to but that’s what makes drawing fun. There’s so many mediums and spaces to draw that every experience is different! This is a huge reason why I chose to join this class. I’m ecstatic to grow into a better drawing/artist through this class.

This was project had the goal of exploring the concept of a drawing in a three-dimensional space or object. We used cardboard to develop a three-dimensional object and incorporate some sort of drawing in to it or use it as a drawing.

I decided to develop something organic like some sort of a flower and go with that. I enjoyed the very hands-on kind of vibe the whole project had into it.

The show overall was a total success. All the teams gave their all. It truly showed in the final pieces. If I would pick a favorite, I would pick the light/shadow drawings by Brittney’s group. It achieved an atmosphere that strongly correlated with the subject matter. It gave a sense of dream space. Good job, guys.

On my part, now that everything is over I don’t know how I feel about the end product. If anybody would ask me how I feel about the whole thing, i would have to say that I have mix feelings about it. On one hand, i feel satisfied with the fact that something not too many people believed possible was done. On the other, i feel that I was not successful in achieving my vision.

There are many variables that amount to the source of my dissatisfaction. For starters, I set to do something way above my skills, something unknown. Even though I set myself up with this kind of thinking all the time in order to reach higher levels of skill, i did not take time, budget, team interaction, among other things into consideration. I just kept constantly wondering about my resolve. What were my motives behind this endeavour? How did this fit into my goals and the big picture? Was i being honest with myself? These were constant questions that were roaming inside of me during this long journey. Self-doubt is normal in any endeavour. It is wise to constantly check oneself.

Of all the comments and feedback i received, one of them really stroke home with me. We both agreed that i needed more experimentation with the media to actually be able to achieve what i really intended to do. Moreover, the line quality made by the wire was being lost because the mesh was covering it, and the overall sculpture did not relate well with the portraits in the background due to the different drawing styles.

Perhaps in the future i would explore this medium again and be in a better position to experiment with it. Who knows… In the end I am grateful for the opportunity to have been able to tackle and extraordinary idea and bring it to life with the help of great classmates i got to know better. Fun times…

In the end, everything worked out just fine!

The space

Before we had been worried about the ceiling reflecting drew’s drawing clearly. We made a flat white surface for reflection  with a stretched canvas. We ripped the center and sewed it back up during installation. As for the amount of darkness, we finished and hung the hanging wall. It was not a dark as we had hoped, so we adjusted with adding blackout curtains. the space was dark an reflected the images just as we had hoped. However in the end the real problem to tackle was the light itself.

The lights

We created a structure of small flexible led lights which allowed each image to be clearer. The lighting was a tricky process, we ended up using about 6 different trial bulbs before one of our group members thought of the led light.

All in all the show was a success and I was very proud of our work. Not just our project but the whole class had great things to show.

The installation was a huge success. We were all able to pull the weight and have a finished product. I was honestly surprised by how cohesive the piece looked. The yarns draped beautifully across the wall without looking like a craft project. This was definitely a learning experience for each of us. Because so much of this had to be completed out of class time, we had to figure out time management fast.

It was rewarding to see all the people who came out to see the work. The different installations in the gallery brought variety to the environment. Working collaboratively is a daunting task and I very much dislike it. This one worked out for the better.

Wide view of Inner-Twined installation

Despite some last minute obstacles (some lighting issues, cube stability, etc.) we were able to finish the piece and have it project all the drawings onto the wall. Brittney’s last minute addition of the blackout curtains was the perfect finishing touch in creating an atomosphere for our space.

In the end, I think the gallery opening went really well. All the groups had excellent projects that really explored the idea of “Drawing into Space.” It was interesting having a panel discussion, and getting to watch other people interact with the work that we had spent so long making was incredibly rewarding. As this was my first major gallery opening/installation exhibition, I really value the experience and hope it is something I will get to do again in the future… after a rest period first.

March 17^th 2016 at 5pm was the gallery opening for Drawing Into Space collaborative art installations. Before the gallery opening, we had the panel discussion where we discussed the concepts of each group’s piece and the process of collaborating and making art. I found the panel to be a little nerve wracking since public speaking isn’t my thing, but I think it went really well and it helps to know what to expect for future art panel discussions. The gallery opening had such a good turn out and was rewarding for me to see all those people looking at the work we did.

I really enjoyed the process of creating work for a collaborative piece. I think that our group worked well since everyone contributed to the installation and completed everything on time. The fact that the installation had the personal space pieces that were solely done by one artist helped to include everyone in their own unique styles. This made the final portion of the string sculptural piece collaborative and interesting because everyone helped to shape the end product of the yarn coming out into space.

Overall, Inner-Twined art installation and the show was very successful and a rewarding experience.

The opening was a success, we had a good turnout. Everyone finished their projects on time and cleaned up for the opening. We did it fam. Dreaming into Space was an interesting project, the use of light as a drawing on the wall was a good concept what was done well by the team with each panel being an original artwork by each member. The drawing and fabric team created nice drawings with a very interesting string chandelier in the middle. While each project was vastly different from each other in concept and visual approach they all came together through the idea of “Drawing into Space”One thing I noticed is that in each piece there was a certain level of interaction with the audience, whether it was dodging strings to having the shadows on the audience to the audience writing on the wall, each one had a interaction with the audience whether intended or not. Its seems as though everyone enjoyed their time seeing the exhibition. The panel went pretty well too. I thought it was good experience as an artist to talk about to your work to an engaging audience and to witness your work during an opening to see what it is like.