ID Photography Project

Hey how's it going? I got a cool Industrial Design Photography project for you today. The project was to choose a central photography theme to focus on while traveling abroad through Ireland (also Scotland, Italy, and England) and compile a poster made up of these photos. I choose to focus on textures. I was struck by the intense, weathered textures of the Ireland landscape, as well as the intensely colored moss that created bright patterns on the rocks. Overall, I was very pleased with the results. What follows is all the individual photos on the final poster (and a few others that didn't make it) followed by the poster in it's final form. Enjoy.

I really like this photo of the ocean. It might be my favorite of the whole bunch.

Giant's Causeway. It really is an amazing place.

This one's also from Giant's Causeway.

I'm glad I got this photo. I noticed this kind of grass growing over rocks and cliff faces several times. The wavy texture of the grass almost makes it look like an optical Illusion. Surreal stuff.

I like this photo.

Weird.

Shell beach on Inch Island. So cool.

I loved the knotty, twisted trees in Ireland. This is a cool detail shot of one of them.

Waterford Crystal. Expensive stuff, largely handmade too.

It always takes my brain a few seconds to figure out what's going on in this photo, but in a good way. Basically, you're looking through a hole in the stones to a second hole in the stones further on, and through that second hole, you can see a third stone wall with a little slit in it showing the grass on the other side. The clashing stones at various distances away make the photo visually interesting, but also fairly disoriented.

I like this photo a lot. It was taken in a cave by the beach at Dunmore East. The sun was setting and the lighting was incredibly dramatic. Really beautiful place.

Sand and water in Dunmore East.

Some intense moss on a rock.

I like this photo. All the textures are so intense.

Cracked paint.

I love this color. Such a rich sea-green.

Detail of the side of one of the Cliffs of Moher. I love this photo. All the intersecting lines almost make it look like a city map to me.

More Cliffs of Moher.

Here's the final poster. I'd suggested clicking on the picture to get a closer look at it. All in all, I think it turned out pretty well. I spent a long time rearranging the photos into a composition that made sense.

Thanks so much for reading! See you again soon.

-Joseph

Sketches While Traveling Pt. 1

Hey just a quick post for you today. Studying abroad and traveling all over Ireland and Europe didn't leave me with a lot of time to sit around drawing. I ,however, can't imagine living for an extending period of time without the ability do basic sketching, and the last few months were no exception. I found that when I did find time to put pen to paper the resulting sketches were often unusually direct and emotionally blunt. This is probably a result of the built up emotions and thoughts I wasn't able to pour into my art because of the time constraints I was under. I put a lot of personal frustrations, nervous energy, and intense emotions into my artwork. This is especially evident when I sketch for the first time in a while. The following sketches are the ones that stood out to me the most while I was looking through the sketchbooks and notebooks I brought back from Europe. They were not chosen because they were the best executed or most well thought out sketches. Some were chosen because of the somewhat frenzied quality I saw in them, others were just interesting ideas to me. I added some light Illustrator/Photoshop work to a few of them because I thought it helped them establish a mood better. In such a case, I chose to show both, first the original, than the edited version. I hope you see something in them. I do.

Thank you so much for reading! As I said earlier, I'm gonna be posting on this blog a lot more often, and hope you choose to stay along for the ride. I'm also planning on starting on a large acrylic painting in the morning, which I'm very excited about. It should be a good time.

Love,

-Joseph Smolin

Update/Plans

Hey! It's been awhile. I''m back in the states feeling refreshed, creative, tired, and a little high-strung. I have some free time for the first time in what feels like forever. I want to use this to throw myself back into my art. I'm hoping that this summer will be a big time for my art. I love Industrial Design, but it's sucked up 99% percent of my time over the last year. I want to do some design over the summer, but I also want to use it to get myself out there as artist. I'm gonna set up a tumbler, artist Facebook page, and maybe an Instagram. I'm also gonna try to enter Art Walk this year, as well as look into some other art festivals and studios. I also wanna finally find a publisher for my kid's book. All in all I got some work to do, but I'm also very excited. It should be fun. Look for a lot to happen on this blog in the coming weeks and months. I'm gonna be painting a lot, and showing the process and results on here. I'm also gonna be posting a lot of sketches and photography.

With that being said, let's start with some recent sketches I've done:

Here's a quick little concept sketch I did a few days ago. Nice lines for the most part. Not the most exciting thing to start on, but I wanted to show that I'm still drawing and generating ideas every day.

I've been working on separating my work into distinct moods lately. This sketch represents one very particular type of mood I'm interested in. I want to separate my work like this so that each individual work will be more intensely itself. I feel like I'm battling different ideas too much when I draw, and I'm trying to fix that. I love the intensity of this sketch, but I don't want everything I do to be this emotionally harsh. By separating it out from my other stuff, I won't just preserve other moods I like to work with; I'll actually intensify this mood too.

Here are the same sketches with some quick Illustrator work added. I didn't want to just show the raw sketches, I also wanted to show the colors and possibilities I see when I look at them.

Time for some photography from Ireland!

Beautiful landscape in the Burren.

I like this photo. I think it has a good sense of humor. Also taken in the Burren.

Old rune in Ireland. Nice colors.

This is my favorite photo of the bunch. I really like this photo.

More runes. Nice textures.

Celtic cross. I love the little spots of moss on it.

Well that's it for now. Hope you enjoyed it. Lots of new stuff coming soon.

-Joseph Smolin