Trillian

I've been trying for a long time to come up with a good Halloween costume, but have pretty much come up short. I've been so used to doing "group costumes" that doing one on my own is difficult. (I will be home and away from my school peeps this year.) Last year, our group was the Publisher's Clearing House Prize Patrol. And the year before, we were Legends of the Hidden Temple contestants. Both very awesome and fairly easy. I've had a couple of ideas, but they involve either (a) a lot of time or (b) a lot of money.

So, I started looking through my movie library for a little brainstorming and came up with this:



Trillian (aka Trisha McMillan) from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. She's the leading actress and Arthur Dent's love interest in the movie. She wears a three-armed shirt because her current beau, an alien named Zephod, has three arms. It's obscure enough that people will have to ask me what I am, but not so obscure that people will have never seen the movie. I am afraid, however, that people will mistake me for Tom Cruise in Risky Business. Or Leann from Project Runway because of the crazy large glasses.

Here are some snapshots from the movie:





I think I'm just the right amount of pale to pull this off, too.

It'd be rather cheap. Two oxford shirts, knee high socks, shorts, and reading glasses. And would only require a small amount of sewing. Plus, there are a few options for accessories: a "Hitchhiker's Guide" book, a towel. And then I have a drink option for the night as well: Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters!

Ideally, I would wear this costume of hers from the movie:



But that is way too intensive and far beyond my sewing capabilities.

Another idea, which would take a bit more time and money, would be a character from Guitar Hero. Both are a bit Comic-Con. Also, Juno, which would just involve a trip to PacSun and strategic pillow placement. If you have any ideas or some opinions, let me know.

Day 7: Helsinki

Wednesday, July 16th, 2008

Ellen and I woke up a full hour before we were supposed to, but didn't know it until we had gotten ready, walked downstairs, and eaten breakfast. So what did we do? Nap, of course! And it was beautiful.

Then, right on time, we headed back down and picked up our itinerary for the day. We were to be on our own, no guides, no buses, no tours. Our itinerary laid out our plans for the DISorientation tour, an architectural scavenger hunt where the aim is to visit as many of the listed sites as possible and complete assignments for each one. The final requirement was meeting up at a designated spot at 5pm to go over our sketchbooks with Bjorli and Flemming, who would then decide the best individual and best team sketches. Ellen and I paired up with Spencer and Sarah and we were on our way!

First was the Senate Square and Cathedral. We spent way too much time there, but there were so many details, it was hard to stop sketching. the assignment was to "sketch the square" (which I did in elevation) and "create a section of the cathedral including the external stair."

This spot was close to our hostel, so most everyone hit it first. And as Ellen and I were busy drawing our elevations and sections, we saw everyone else running around, freaking out, saying "What's a section? I don't understand! What do you mean you're drawing an elevation–what's an elevation? You know what we should do? We should draw the front of these buildings without perspective. I suck at perspective." Nothing is more hilarious than watching a creative-type do something design-related but not major-related. Over-competitive and under-informed. And I'm no stranger. Just watch me when a teacher assigns graphic design work.

(And I apologize for the state of these photos. Lighting is not the best.)







Since we were so close to our next destination, the National Library of Finland, we decided to pop in quickly and complete the task. "Draw a diagram or write a short description of how the 'grandeur' of the classical style relates to the human scale." Blah, blah, blah. By this time, we could tell that the furniture professors had decided to just give us the day tour that had been made for the Architecture students at DIS.



By this time, it was nearing lunch. We all decided to head to our next location and eat while sketching. We found an odd little fast food place at Helsinki Central Station, and all ended up ordering the only thing we could recognize: a chicken pita. And it was so scrumptious, I sketched it too.









I enjoyed our long stay there, but when we were done, we realized that we only had enough time for one more place: Temppeliaukio (The Rock Church), which was quarried out of natural bedrock, which actually gives the church excellent acoustics. I wasn't quite sure what to expect before our visit, but the glorious irony could not escape me as I walked into the church. Every single wall was natural stone. Rockwork! I spent a good two weeks during my internship at PGAV drawing rockwork. Rockwork planters, rockwork waterfalls, rockwork lockers (yes, lockers), rockwork entryways, rockwork facades. And now, the true test. An entire interior made of rock. Thank you, internship! Just goes to show that even the most obscure assignments can be helpful.



These are some extra sketches that aren't from this day, but I figured it'd keep with the theme of no pictures.

This is an auditorium seat I thought was interesting enough to sketch. The space was nice, but the seat was cooler.



This is a very quick and unfinished sketch of Eliel Saarinen's home, starting with a detail I liked.



After the Rock Church, we had just enough time to get to the bar where we were meeting. When we got there, we realized that the place was TINY and that there was no way everyone was going to fit. They claimed to have reserved a room for us, but somehow one hadn't, so the professors bought each of us a drink and let us go on our way. You'd be surprised how many times the Bjorli and Flemming were like, "Surprise! Here's some booze! Have fun getting back to the hostel!"

I had a Fanta, though. A nice, cold Fanta with a ton of ice. After chatting a bit, a few of us left to do some shopping and get some dinner. I found some regionally appropriate gifts for some people back home. I hate buying tacky tourist stuff with the name of the country sprawled across the front, but I think I did well. Pictures of all the stuff I bought for people after they receive them.

Then we wandered around until we found a place that was open. It's amazing how early places close down in Europe. It was another Italian place (It was either that or Outback Steakhouse, and I am not kidding.), but it was very good. Pizza is like an art in Scandinavia. Except for Domino's, which exists in Denmark. I almost want to try it sometime just to see if it tastes the same.

We weren't quite ready to end the night after dinner, so we walked into a bar called "On the Rocks" where I sipped on a pear cider (Awesome!) and played on an Elvis pinball machine. And only then was the night complete.

Better than Frommer's

As I finish penning and coloring my sketches, I'll post them up. I've got a little bit of a hectic week coming up–we're doing working drawings and must have them finished in 1:1 scale by Friday. But any extra time will go to that. I would like to have a finished sketchbook by the time I return home.





While loading up my photos in iPhoto, I accidentally hit my Kittehs! folder and up popped photos of my cats, Cleo (shown first) and Saffire. I miss my little summer-shaven babies.

Day 2: Skanderborg to Skagen

Friday, July 11, 2008

Wake up call at 6:30am. We had breakfast at the hostel: corn flakes and sandwiches and toast with jam, which was to be our breakfast most of the days on the trip. Apparently sandwiches for breakfast is a standard in Scandinavian countries.

Then we were off to our first stop, Den Gamble By, an outdoor air museum. We were supposed to go to the Town Hall at Arhus Radhus, but the prince of Denmark was there and he takes precedence. All of the houses at Den Gamble By are original and were taken apart and put back to together, piece by piece in this little fake town. There were also workers in period clothing walking around and working in the shops.









This picture is courtesy of Joe. Here is what I was working on:



It looks horrible because I don't have a scanner and I'm too lazy to mess with photoshop. I didn't finish it because I only had about 20 minutes for the sketch. It turned out a bit too cartoony for my taste.

After that, we headed to the Aros Art Museum, designed by Schmidt, Hammer, and Lassen in 2004. I am so sad that we only had 1 hour there––I could have spent the whole day looking at all the exhibits.







I spent a lot of time in the "Music to See" exhibit, which was showing music videos by prominent directors, such as Spike Jonze, Mark Romanek, and Chris Cunningham. My absolute favorite video of all time, "Weapon of Choice" by Fatboy Slim, was showing. If I were able to perform one dance to perfection, it would be the one done by Christopher Walken in this video. Here it is, for your enjoyment:



After Aros, we headed to Arhus University to eat our lunches (that we had packed that morning) in a Res Hall and walk around the campus. They opened up the campus chapel for us to walk around in.



The ceiling was beautiful! I want to design a chair that uses these materials.



Then we walked a bit more around the campus before heading off to Enghoj Kirke, a church designed by Henning Larsen Tegnstuen in 1991. It was even more beautiful than the first church.





Despite having very few windows, the church was very bright and naturally lit.

Then we had a long bus ride to the northernmost city in Denmark, Skagen. Bjorli put on a documentary, and I attempted to watch it but I was absolutely exhausted and fell asleep 10 minutes in. When we arrived, we were on our own for dinner, so a few of us walked to the harbor and found Ristorante Firenze Pizzeria, which I considered to be the Danish version of Italian, because it was definitely different from the American version, and I'm not talking about the Domino's-American version. I got the Margherita Pizza and a Coke Light with one whole ice cube!



After dinner, we just walked around at the harbor, listening to live acts and window shopping. Someone spotted a real-life version of Popeye the Sailorman, but I didn't have my camera with me. I'll have to steal a picture from someone else. Really, the resemblance was uncanny.

Walking back, it started raining and we got a little turned around, but were able to find the hostel as soon as the rain ended. I pretty much passed out after my shower, and it was a good thing, because I needed my energy for day three.

Rachael Ray and Roller Coasters

Tomorrow morning, I head out on the 8-day Scandinavia trip. I've decided that I'll be leaving Beatrix (my Macbook) behind. The cons outweigh the pros, I'm afraid. And that means that the blog will suffer a bit. I may be able to find an internet cafe while I'm out and about, but it will mostly be used for e-mail.

So the next time you'll see a post will probably be next Friday, the 18th. But I'll be honing my sketching skills while I'm away, so expect oodles of drawings and pictures when I return.

During our visual journal talk, the lecturer told us to use what medium terrifies us––that it will get us out of our usual drawing conventions and force us to think about what we are drawing. I usually sketch using pencil. It's forgiving and allows me the ability to add shadow easily. What I hate using is Prismacolor marker. Absolutely hate it. The wash never seems to be constant, it bleeds, and if you make a wrong mark, you've ruined the drawing. I also dislike pen. I like it for certain things, but sketching is not one of them. Seeing a little into the future, I guess, I brought both of them with me. I figured Prismacolor would give me the option of putting in color or shadow if necessary. And pen I brought mostly for notes and postcards.

So I'm combining them. I want to start using them and developing my ability with each. I want to be able to look at an object or a landscape and draw its proportions correctly in one go. I'm still bringing pencil just in case, but I aim to use pen and marker almost exclusively.

I decided also to practice a little bit beforehand, today. Here's my attempt at a thank you card to the couple who awarded me a scholarship this year.



The card, by the way, is from Paper Source in Chicago.

I still need some practice with hatching and shadow work, but it's a start. And it still bled, even though it's very heavyweight watercolor paper, and that bothers me to no end. But I'll have to deal with it, I suppose. And bring a backer board.

It's going to be weird not posting for a full week, and I'm sure my two readers will miss it (Hi Mom and Dad!), but I'm sure I'll be so busy that posting will be the last thing on my mind.

In other, non-connected news, I had some crazy dreams last night. Let me preface this by saying that I'm getting over some sort of fever-y, sore throat and cough-like sickness somewhere in the plague classification, and I always tend to have weird dreams when I'm sick.

In one dream, I was riding roller coasters. I have never had so many roller coaster dreams in my life as I've had while working at PGAV. One a week is about the average, but I was hoping it would sort of let up after leaving. They actually kind of freak me out, as most of the time, they're non-conventional coasters. This one used one-person cars, no restraint system, and went underwater. Not cool.

The other dream involved me getting called repeatedly by Rachael Ray on my cell phone. I have never seen her show in my life, so this one's a bit left field. And when I went to the stage where they tape the show to tell her to stop calling, I was invited to stay for a taping. But they wouldn't let me stay wearing what I was wearing, which was jeans and a 3/4-sleeve baseball tee. So I changed into some Gap clothes that the show stylist had. So weird. Thank god I woke up before the show started.

Critique

Missed my usual 8:15 S-Train into the city and caught the 8:25 instead. TONS more people on this one.



Had my first critique this morning with Nils-Ole, Flemming, and Bjørli. I could have gotten way more sleep last night than I did. We are given 10 minutes each to talk to them, and I think I used up about 3. Maybe 4. And while that could be good or bad, I'm taking it as a good sign.

I had three designs (as were required). I presented them quickly, giving the ideas behind each, and then turned it over to them.

'Kate, which one do you like best?'
'My first design.'
'Why?'
'I can draw it in 5 seconds.'
'Great! Do it!'



Obviously, there are other reasons why I like that design over the others. But that's the first reason that popped into my head. And I guess it worked. Flemming, the steel expert, told me to start working out the details: rod placement and number, connection of rod to tube, diameter of tube, radius of curves. I'm toying with the idea of not doing a cantilever so that I can reduce the diameter of the steel tube, but I'll have to see. A few more revisions are in the works, but I'm surprised at how easy this was. No trying to make it more complicated. No drawing out the design process. Quick and painless. Take it and run.

I've looked at this sketch so much over the past two days that it seems like this chair already exists somewhere. Like it's not my idea but something that I've seen in passing before and am just regurgitating. I certainly hope I'm not.

The rest of the day is sort of planned. I'm meeting up with a guy from my dorm, Bob Mod (yes that is his name and yes it is awesome), for lunch and a trip to the pharmacy. I'm getting throat medicine and pain killers. Lots and lots of pain killers. After that, it's random shopping and SLEEP LIKE I'VE NEVER KNOWN BEFORE.

Visual Journal

More images from the sketch book. On the left is PK22 by Poul Kjærholm, the chair I've chosen for my paper. On the right is just a generic aluminum tube and wicker chair from the Paustian store we visited.



We had a couple short lectures today. One from a current third year in the Architecture department.

What you hear you forget.
What you see you remember.
What you draw you understand.

Sketching is 70% looking/thinking and 30% drawing.

She had some great insight into the practice of sketching and showed some really nice examples of previous students' work. We'll be starting a traveling journal when we head out Thursday for our Scandinavia trip.

Then Erik Skoven gave us a short talk on Denmark, Sweden, and Finland and gave us information on our trip, which last from this Thursday to next Friday. Finland takes the Euro, but Sweden uses Swedish Kronor, so I'll have to take some out while I'm there. I'm thinking when I head home in August, I'm going to be carrying at least 4 different types of currencies. It'll be nice having my $1 bills back, though. It throws me off being able to carry $20 while only having 5 coins in my pocket (Their 20 DKK coin is worth about $4 US).

Since I'm on Tour A, I'll be visiting Western Denmark first. After two nights, we'll take a ferry to Sweden and travel through Sweden to Stockholm. Two nights in Stockholm, and then an overnight ferry to Helsinki for two more nights. Then another overnight ferry back to Stockholm and then blazing another trail through Sweden before we get back to Copenhagen.

I haven't decided yet if I want to take my laptop with me. It would be nice to be able to update everyone on my journey as it's happening and upload pictures everyday, but we'll be staying in hostels, which may or may not have lockers for our things. They say they've had little experience with things going missing, but I don't know. Maybe I'll buy a combo lock and bring it along. If you have an opinion on the matter, let me know. I'm seeing both sides. Perhaps I'll take that week to send out a bunch of postcards.

I'm just glad that they'll be providing us with two meals a day--I've been getting quite tired of sandwiches. Although today I switched it up a bit and had sliced cucumber on pita bread. Not bad.

Happy 4th!

And happy Friday everyone!

Just woke up from a super enjoyable nap to see my first nighttime scene since I've been here. The insane amount of daylight is still messing with me a bit–I'll wake up around 6am and it'll look like 9am outside and I'll sit bolt upright and be like, "Oh crap! Did I oversleep?!" No, no, this is just what it looks like, take a snooze.

I've got a boatload of pictures for you all today.

First, some from my commute to the Academy in the morning. I head out of my kollegium and up through an apartment building and a shopping center.



Then across the street and into the scariest part of my journey, the bridge underneath the S-Train. I've seen The Brave One. I know how this works.



Then it's the train up into København station. No pictures from the commute on the train. People shoot daggers at you with their eyes if you do anything other than read, listen to your iPod, or stare out the window.



This is the street level of the station. I think I may start getting breakfast here. I smell some amazing breads and danishes in the morning.



As always, there are TONS of bikes around. I may get one, but I at least want to wait until after we get back from our Scandinavia trip.



Here's the sign that's up in our studio. How cool is that?



And this is the view from where I sit. I wanted a loft desk, so I snatched one early. Since Elizabeth and I have opposite studio times and are sharing the cost of supplies, we're sitting together.



This was lunch today: a Kylling Shawarma Pita from a Grill up the street. Only 20 DKK and oh so very good.



After lunch, it was off to Rud Rasmussen to take a look at some amazing, hand-crafted furniture.







And then to the Museum of Art and Design for more chairs. We couldn't sit in or touch them, and after going to several places where we could, it was a bit frustrating, espceially when trying to get measurements.



And this is an inner courtyard at the museum. It was perfect weather, so we just sat and lounged for a bit.



This is the Tivoli, Copenhagen's theme park. I cannot wait to spend a whole day there.



And more bikes!



This is the first entry in my fancy-schmancy sketchbook. We have to turn this in at the end of our time here. It's basically just an exploration of chair dimensions so that we can implement the correct proportions when designing our chair.



And, as always, check out the gallery for more pictures.