Draconaei’s Blog

What’s this?  Two postings in a row??

Some might say, “We are not fooled, this still does not make up for you posting hardly anything this past month!” and to you I say “shhh!” and point to the shiny – er, I mean, the new design below.

So, what have we here?  I collect shot glasses from (almost) every place I travel, but currently lack any way to display them.  Hence, the desired outcome: shelving that displays a variety of single and double shot glasses, uses only a couple materials, is easy to cut/prepare, and straightforward to assemble.

My method: modular design with only three types of components, because repeating a few basic forms is often the foundation for a good design.  Also, for assembling, the simpler the better.  These components are shelving (acrylic rectangles), vertical supports (threaded rods), and attachments (nuts.)

Notice that all the acrylic pieces are the same.  Shifting them is both for aesthetic purposes – I’m fond of asymmetry – and a practical purpose, which is providing space for double-height shot glasses.  The simplified side view on the left shows the general structure.

Both shelves on the top row will be hung on support screws protruding from the wall, and will carry the distributed weight of the remaining shelves.  Material preparation seems simple, only involving repeated straight cuts through the acrylic and rod-sized holes drilled at regular intervals.  Assembly is easy- slide threaded rods through the acrylic, adjust nut heights as desired.  Now to find this ever-elusive “free time”!

Lately I have been silent here – but as always, not for lack of work.  In preparation for graduate school applications, and as a warmup for the incredibly daunting task of redesigning my portfolio, I reworked and graphically refined my final semester construction documents.

Behold!  I present you with thumbnails of each page.  My favorite ones are also links to larger images.

Front Cover

Table of Contents

Occupation/Zones

Egress

Cost

Structure

Plumbing

HVAC

Skin/Enclosure

The end!  =)

My tattoo-desiring friend did indeed get my winged letter design tattooed onto his calf.  Though I was not there for the inking process, he was kind enough to provide me a photograph so I could see the final work of art:

I think it turned out rather nicely, don’t you?  (Will upload a clearer image when I am able!)

Once again I’ve been blessed with the good fortune to travel, this time to the countries of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Taiwan.  It was an incredible experience full of extremes, viewing the ruined temples of Angkor Wat one day, and the torture and detainment center of the Khmer Rouge regime the next.  Here I would like to share some of the panoramas I stitched together from the trip (and don’t worry, more photographs from the journey will follow!)

We arrived at the entrance to Angkor Wat, Cambodia at sunrise.  The ruins are silhouetted in the distance behind the meditation pond.

Inside the temples at Angkor Wat, this is the centermost structure.  Be sure to notice the people at the base to give a sense of scale.  The enormity, and the consistent detail, is beyond impressive.

An interior courtyard inside the Angkor Wat temples.  The detail in the stonework is still incredible, even after the countless years of torrential downpours experienced every day during the wet seasons of the year.

Approaching the entrance to the ruins of Angkor Thom.  Click to view the larger version - you can see the gigantic faces carved into the stone of the tower’s peaks.

There are a number of technical problems with this panorama - some digital junk at the base, focus changing on the right side, Kathy’s head morphing into a cloud.  Those aside, I’m still partial to it.  Here we’re looking out from Angkor Thom towards the woods and the Elephant Terrace.

Inside the temple at Ta Prohm, where the trees have completely overgrown the temple, bearing onto the roof and reaching their roots through the stone.

Another tree towering over the ruins of Ta Prohm Temple.  A feat of nature, and of humankind’s creation.

Leaving Ta Prohm.  As evidenced, I simply could not get enough photographs of the trees merged into the stonework.

Looking out to the horizon of the northern coast of Taiwan, in Guanyinshan National Park.  The natural rock formations are stunning, having been eroded into their present-day shapes by the forces of wind and water.

Last summer I moved into a new apartment; it would be my first time living alone, and I had no furniture of my own.  While scouring Craigslist to furnish my new place on the cheap, one of my friends noticed an ad for a wooden drafting table, free to anyone who could pick it up.  Another good friend – also involved in the searching – owns a pickup truck, so the three of us drove over to check it out.  This is what we found:

This was one hefty drafting table, and a solid piece of craft, but had obviously been sitting in the barn for years.  The wood had greyed, the handles had rusted over, and the wood polish was all but entirely removed.  Scuffs and marks covered each surface.  It seemed sturdy and useful enough to be a worthwhile challenge, so there the work began.

With much help from a number of friends, I sanded each surface down to fresh wood, removing all the grime and markings, and priming the wood for staining.  Here you can see sanded and cleaned wood on the left, and the dirty untouched wood on the right:

Next was the most drastic step: staining the wood.  I chose a deep, dark red stain, which transformed the appearance of the wood beautifully.

Once the stain had dried, I sanded the wood again and re-applied the stain to deepen the color.  Once the second coat was dry, it was ready for the wood polish.  I repeated the sequence of sand, polish, and let dry several times to build up many thin layers of polish.  This kept the polish a uniform thickness and will continue to protect the table’s surface.

My friend removed the rust from the drawer handles, and I attached a couple of desk lamps.  Here is the newly cleaned desk, finished and beautiful, sitting in my apartment:

This project – diagrammed in an earlier post – evolved over two different projects in my Borrowing Light class.  I’ll summarize both in this post.

The first followed the diagram of the last post.  In summary, I broke open a series of glow sticks, and drained the glowing liquid into a hollow glass imitation of a compact fluorescent light bulb.  I suspended the bulb with clear fishing line, and slowly leaked glow liquid from the bulb via a syringe down to a pyrex pie plate.  An early time and late time photograph of the setup are below (as well as a link to a stop-motion video.)

[watch the video here]

The glass is easily recognizable as a light bulb, and the light dripping from within has some interesting symbolism: the depletion of energy that often goes unseen, but is highlighted by the path of light contained in a liquid.  Unfortunately there were quality issues with the documentation here, such as the doorknob and visible floor/wall corners in the photograph.  The next evolution addressed this quality issue, replaced the pyrex pie plate with a circular glass dish (cut by a glassblower so it doesn’t scream “cooking ware”) and addressed the requirement of a “screen.”

The screen is made of white museum board with a series of randomly placed holes of varying sizes.  Light em

inating from the glow liquid in the bowl above passes through the holes and creates colored spots of light on the ground.  The rest of the light is reflected off of the white surface, creating a gradient of color.

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Catching the dripping glow liquid is a clear glass bowl full of water placed on top of the museum board screen.  The glow liquid and water do not mix, so the glow liquid congeals into separate clumps that move throughout the water, eventually settling on the bottom.  The water also splashes with each drop of glow liquid, causing a slight rippling effect in the emitted light.

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Dripping glow stick liquid, while interesting, is a bit too abstract for me I think.  Documentation of the second project is below – again an early time photograph, a late time photograph, and a link to a stop-motion video.  Let me know what you think.  =)

[watch the second video here]

Yet again I’ve had the good fortune of a tattoo design request!  How I love the satisfaction that comes from creating something beautiful and sharing it with others.  This story begins with the doodle on the left.

Rotated 90 degrees, this symbol contains the letters J, F, and O, three letters my friend’s name.  Initially used as a form of signature, he discovered that turning the form on its side somewhat resembled a winged stick figure.  He was fascinated with its tattoo potential, but had no luck graphically translating the idea; here my process begins.

I spun the design in two separate directions.  The first, seen on the left: a unique symbol that somewhat resembles an ancient script, the meaning of which would remain cryptic except to my friend.  He began his request with the intention of ending with a personal symbol along these lines.

The second design, seen on the right: a winged creature maintaining the general shape of the doodle, but given a breath of life (and some artistic liberty.)  His original tattoo fascination was sparked by the doodle’s semblance to a winged stick figure, so this direction also seemed appropriate.

After an exchange of emails, he favored the second direction.  The “shaded” style seemed a bit too basic to me, so I made an effort to add detail and speak a graphic language that better matched the dragon’s general form.  After many iterations, I settled on a broken geometry with implied lines to help to bring out the sharp but feather-like quality of the wings and the sharp quality of the tail, and triangular-like cutouts that bring a serpentine belly to mind.  To keep with the initial simplicity of the original doodle, I kept the design to a basic black-and-white format.  See the final chosen design here:

He plans to get inked quite soon, and I look forward to seeing and posting photographs once he does!

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(cross-posted in my Borrowing Light class blog.)

After a few failed attempts, I found out that making “glow liquid” out of Mountain Dew is a hoax.  It’s disappointing, but makes me feel a little better about the ingredients in Mountain Dew.

There is a way to make glow liquid yourself, but the chemicals are expensive, so I caved in and ordered larger glow sticks with more liquid in them.

In the meantime, I’ve been thinking about the core of my glow stick project.  I’m fascinated with embodying light in a liquid, and the surreal quality of actually experiencing it as a liquid no longer trapped within a container.  This has led to countless broken glow sticks in my apartment.  Here’s a video of me pouring “liquid light” into a glass:

Dripping Light

This sparked the train of thought that led me to where I am now:

Fascination with glow sticks –> ordering a lot of bendy glow bracelets online –> twisting glow sticks into different shapes –> realizing these bracelets could be twisted to look like compact fluorescent light bulbs –> realizing that actually, they didn’t look anything like light bulbs after all.  sadness.  –> decided to create a hollow light bulb, fill it with glow liquid, and drain it –> acquired a hollow light bulb look-alike from a glassblower –> fill, drain, record the change over time… but what happens after it leaves the light bulb?

This can challenge the way we view light- it starts as a familiar form (the light bulb) and over time the bulb is drained, and the light only exists in splatters on the floor.  It also embodies the energy we use, oddly quantifying the light by its escape over time.  It thinking of how to push the project further, I’m currently pondering a setup like this:

The light still runs and gathers, and the form on which it drips is very simple (basically a half-sphere, with raised edges so the liquid doesn’t run all over the floor) but the patterns the liquid will form won’t be simple.  They won’t be predictable either.  It’s controlled in some ways, but random enough that I won’t actually know what the final product will look like until it’s happening.  As soon as my larger glow sticks arrive in the mail, I can start experimenting.

The assignment:
Demonstrate various properties of light through an intervention.

The hardware:
100W (equivalent) compact fluorescent bulb, socket, wire, plug

The natural material: wood
My ever-present desire to create harmony with opposites came through in my material choices here.  I chose to use on natural and one unnatural material, the natural one being basswood.  Wood is a material not usually seen as having much of a relationship with light.  However, when thin enough, light transmits through it.  Because wood is an organic material, the light is not transmitted evenly, and we can see woodgrain, knots, and other “imperfections” in the wood by different levels of transparency.

Layering these thin slices (1/32″) of wood on top of each other created an entirely opaque layer, which served a structural purpose as well as an aesthetic one of contrast.

The unnatural material: fiber optics
Fiber optics redirect the path of light through total internal reflection. Therefore, if the fiber optic is bent at a sharp angle or cut in any way, light will escape.  In this case, the fiber optic cable has been notched in a number of places, which appear to be glowing “spots” of light in the photograph.  The effect is more subtle next to the glowing wood.

The difference between the lit and unlit forms shows some potential for light as a design material, though the focus is still on the non-light components here.  The next assignment will focus on the light itself.

Flavoring vodka with skittles is delicious and easy (and looks really cool too!)  I originally found the instructions here.

Here’s a list of the items you will need:

• non-flavored vodka (I use Smirnoff)
• skittles
• 5 bowls to separate out Skittles flavors
• funnel
• coffee filters
• 5 water bottles (or any containers to hold the Skittles vodka during the infusion.  Mine are actually little cranberry juice bottles.)

Step 1: Separate the skittles into their individual flavors, and count up the number of skittles you need of each color.

You will want ~10 skittles per oz. of vodka you mix them with, so plan accordingly.

Step 2: Pour the skittles and the vodka into the water bottles, and give them a good shake.  You’ll already be able to see the colors mixing into the vodka- these bright colors will stay!

Step 3: Let the mixtures sit overnight.  Shake the bottles again to un-stick any mostly-dissolved skittles from the bottom of the bottles, and then filter out the excess sugar using the funnel and coffee filters.  I found that I either needed to filter through two coffee filters together, or filter the entire liquid twice, but this will depend on the filters you use.

Step 4: Once your flavored vodka is free free from goop and clumps of sugar, place in your fridge to chill.  Beware that even though the mixture may not taste strong, it is nearly pure vodka.  Don’t be deceived!

Skittles vodka can be mixed with many things, but I would recommend a clear mixer to enjoy the full color effect (I personally enjoy really sweet drinks, so I use cream soda.)  Mix and enjoy!