I&P: Oh boy, 50 renderings of the same object? Sign me up.

The first challenge: choosing an item.

I’m already as indecisive as any person I've ever known… so unsurprisingly my first thought was “Oh, this oughta be fun.” My thought process for choosing an object was not complex so much as circular. First I worried that I would choose too easy of an object and that I would get bored of it about 4 renderings in. So I chose something interesting. Then I worried that I had picked something too complicated and would spend countless hours drawing and re-drawing it, which, naturally, led me back to choosing a simple item and back to my first worry. Repeat.

In the end I picked something that I already enjoyed looking at: plants. Since it produces oxygen, looks pretty, and is a great distraction when I'm bored in a Zoom meeting, I decided to choose the plant that sits on my window sill. Amazing lil thing. (And if you’re interested, it’s an albo syngonium in a pot that I threw myself!) ((And, since we’re here, I counted these pics as 2 renderings.))

1) The plant, 2) A closeup of variegation

The second challenge: where do I start?

I consider myself an organized person, but on occasion I can be excessive. I decided that I should just go with the flow and let things happen. That being said I thought it would be pragmatic to limit myself at least somewhat so I gave myself two rules; 1) each physical piece would fit in an 8.5" by 5.5" piece of paper, and 2) I would make 25 on Saturday and 25 on Sunday. I started with things already had on my desk: pencils, pens, and highlighters. And thus my first 10 renderings were born. :’)

DAY 1

3) Pencil, 4) Blind contour in pen, 5) guided blind contour in pen

6 to 11) Six highlighter layers: blue, pink, yellow, green, purple, orange; only 4 versions are pictured

12 to 17) I found my watercolors! Also learned that dry brushing emulates the variegation quite effectively

18, 19) Fuck it, let’s combine and layer ‘em. Contours & watercolors

20, 21) And yeah sure, why not cut them out (please forgive my dirty window)

This section is titled: My hand is tired, so I’m gonna go digital.

I took this change in technique to convince myself that taking closeups and otherwise non-identifiable images of my plant would count toward my 50 renderings because I’m at 21 and feeling like 50 is really far away.

22) Started off with a failed panorama

23) I took a close-up of the pot to capture the color and my fingerprints, but realized my plant was much more interesting and put the pot aside

24, 25, 26) Found an app called Adobe Capture and made some patterns with the leaves

Although I had reached my daily goal of 25, I decided to keep going just a little bit more because I had just started digital and was enjoying it.

27, 28) Used Capture to make a “shape” and a material

Me: It’s getting late, I should probably stop now and continue tomorrow…Also me: Guess it’s time to learn how to scan things in 3D!

There was a lot of trial and error with the scanning →screen recording →.mov →.gif →gif compression process. Mostly error because for the life of me I could not get the gifs to be under 25 MB. Such is life. Time to upload to youtube.

29) First try using 3D Scanner App

30) Higher quality version

31) Tried a “room” scan

32) Ended up really liking the Scandy Pro “Object” mode

DAY 2.

I woke up thinking that the scans really reminded me of tinfoil… so I made my object out of tinfoil! I’m not nearly done with all 50, but I really loved this rendering.

33) Tinfoil

34) Flat tinfoil

35 to 38) Procreate

39 to 44) Procreate filters & adjustments

I’m got tired of thinking of new things to try out, so for my last 6 I decided to revisit some of my simpler techniques. Ah, the circle of life.

45, 46, 47) Ink, but this time it’s color!

48, 49, 50) Micron, hatching, and watercolor

Woo! All done! Reflection time:

There were a few techniques that I wish I could have used but for one reason or another I didn’t.

• My grandma’s sewing machine and her fabric and thread collection.
• Dog hair.
• Bird seed.
• 3D Modeling (On a good day, I am only proficient enough to make the pot).
• Ketchup, mayo, mustard (my mom frowns upon using food items for homework and I don’t blame her).
• Other types of art materials like pastels, acrylics, colored pencils, printmaking, etc.

Overall, I enjoyed the assignment but 50 was quite overwhelming. I would have enjoyed it more spread over 2 weeks, or finishing around 35. And I’m sure every single person took this assignment in a different direction, so I would have wanted to do a little check in to get more inspiration!