Welcome!

This blog is set up to give my students access to information relevant to the content of the classes I teach at UVU and BYU. I will be posting links to blog posts, websites, and news that will be of particular interest to them, as well as digital downloads of my syllabi and in-class handouts. I will also be posting student work and in class demos. The posts can be sorted for relevancy by the labels list on the left side. I've also integrated my Twitter account on the left hand side for quick links that aren't deserving of larger articles.


Sunday, June 9, 2013

Drawing Accurate Ellipses

A couple of blog posts I've found on drawing accurate ellipses.

From the old Cennine Products Blog
http://cennini.blogspot.com/2010/07/elusive-ellipse-by-far-most-common.html

From Douglas Flynt - I think this one over complicates matters but is worth looking at.
http://douglasflynt.blogspot.hk/2011/08/accurate-ellipses.html

I still haven't found a good source for accurately identifying the correct angle of an upright ellipse away from the horizon line.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Van Dyck value analysis

This is a fun activity that I've had the students in my DSGN 100 class do, where we take the van der Geest portrait by Van Dyck and draw out three value pattern shapes and then make cut paper versions of them. I have the gray cut out now on the right and the white traced off on the left with the draw over analysis on the center. The idea here is to learn to see the simple patterns as real tactile objects that can be handled and ultimately manipulated. It also helps the students see that these simple patterns are what really make things identifiable.
I rubbed graphite on the back of the photocopy to transfer the shapes.
Filters courtesy of Instagram. Look for me as petersakievich there.