The bulk of commotion at the intersection was centered around the crosswalks, especially when the walk sign turned on to cross the streets. As the assigned intersection was located in the heart of the University of Pittsburgh campus, the sidewalks and roads were filled with bustling college students rushing to their next class. I noticed that the pace at which people moved hinted towards their occupation, destination, and personality. The older adults leisurely strolled across deep in conversation while worried students weaved their way through the crowds, evidently running behind in their daily schedules.
VEHICLES
When the crosswalks held the pedestrians at a stop, a wide variety of vehicles flooded the streets. Larger vehicles such as buses occupied the majority of the space while the smaller cars merged around them in order to access the fastest route to their destination. Less conventional forms of transportation such as golf carts and bikes slid between the sidewalks and streets to avoid both the cars and buses altogether.
NOISE
At the intersection of Bigelow Boulevard and Fifth Avenue, the sounds of human activity were washed out by the overwhelming automated voice of the crosswalk machine and the noise from construction nearby. The machinery set a monotone, mechanical aura that balanced out the sounds of people’s conversations.
IN WAIT
Next to the bus stop was a small collection of news stands and benches. On the outside of each of the boxes, stickers and images were stuck and worn as forms of advertisements for those waiting for the next bus. Despite the differences of all the people in the streets, these seemingly simple boxes unconsciously urge people to conglomerate at a single spot in the intersection.
REFOCUSING THE INTERSECTION
SEPTEMBER 2, 2019
After analyzing and discussing the pictures from the intersection, I spent more time focusing on details when I returned. Centering less of my attention on the visual aspects of the street, I relied more on my senses and factors that caught my attention. The class discussion pushed me to contemplate normal human behavior, asking questions such as why people gather in certain areas and disperse in others.
I also captured small traces of human activity that show history. The traffic cones and warning tape indicate that construction was recently done in the area, and trash showed the contents of human consumption. This time I glanced at other forms of transportation such as bikes and other forms of living beings such as pigeons.
My second trip was less concentrated on what the intersection looked like and more concentrated on which pieces of the scene revealed unique information about the area. What makes my intersection different from other intersections? How does one feature make the location of my picture identifiable?
UNDERSTANDING WHITE ON WHITE / LEARNING CRAFT
SEPTEMBER 5, 2019
At the beginning of my process, I first printed out my picture of the intersection at the appropriate size of 6" x 8". I chose this picture because it provided perspective to a building that was not structurally designed like most of the buildings in the area. Additionally, I chose this view of the intersection because I was hoping to explore the relationship of foreground and background while completing the white paper on paper task assigned. I began by cutting out and measuring generic the general shapes and perspective to understand the foundation to the constructed piece.
After laying down the basic shapes of the intersection, I began to add details that shaped the most prominent features of the picture. However, my lack of experience with detailed X-acto knives made cutting out tiny shapes extremely difficult, and I found myself stumbling across many obstacles such as clean lines and accurate curves. Although I was able to block in the basics and overarching sense of the intersection, many figures still appear unclear, and I plan to practice much more to sharpen the shapes and shadows to become more believable.
UNDERSTANDING TRANSLATION / SWITCHING PERSPECTIVES
SEPTEMBER 9, 2019
After careful consideration, I decided to change my picture in order to use a more encompassing perspective of the intersection. I returned to the intersection and took a few more pictures with consideration to perspective, movement, and composition. Instead of focusing on just one corner of the sidewalk, my new picture captures more cars and the full building.
In terms of craftsmanship, cutting paper and small details was far easier for me for my second iteration of the intersection. I spent much less time redoing uneven edges and shapes due to the small but useful tricks I picked up on after the first attempt at cutting. Instead of placing tracing paper over the building and trying to align it while cutting, I glued the tracing paper to the back of the Bristol paper and flipped the drawing so it would cut out facing the right way. This expedited the process significantly as I was able to simply focus on cutting on the lines instead of worrying about the tracing paper slipping.
As the focus of this picture was the building, I spent the majority of the second iteration on the windows of the building in order to generate a sense of realism with detail and perspective. However, even with the heavy number of small windows, I still left out certain details of the building such as the borders between floors in order to prevent the intricacy of the building from detracting from the balance of the composition. My second iteration was more heavily centered around capturing the characteristics of the image that are unique to Fifth Avenue and Bigelow.
Although the gluing was a bit messy, my second iteration of the intersection was much more believable than my first one. After becoming familiar with the Xacto knife, I was able to focus more on the content of the image than my ability to cut paper properly. With a stronger sense of perspective and detail, this new angle of the intersection was much cleaner and comprehensible than my first attempt. Switching the picture to a wide view with unique features aided in my attempt to translate my specific intersection into my white on white iteration. In the future, I would add a few more windows to the cars and other details that were not quite captured in the obscurity of some of the shapes.
UNDERSTANDING GREY TONES / LAYERING & DEPTH
SEPTEMBER 11, 2019
For the greyscale assignment, I decided to structure my planning around a number system based off of the four shades of grey that were provided. I began by putting in a few rough sketches into my sketchbook that show me the options I have in organizing the gradient of greys. I was debating between having the closest objects as the darkest grey and the sky as the lightest grey or having the closest objects as the lightest grey and the sky as the darkest grey in a reverse arrangement. Based off these compositions, I labeled the objects in the middle ground to the appropriate shade on a scale of 1–4.
I decided that a composition with the closest objects as the darkest greys would be the most believable as it was closest to the shadows and light in the reference picture. Using the darkest paper for the windows and the closest figures allowed for a realistic contrast. For the figures in between, I switched between shades 2 and 3 in order to create value without confusing the viewer. I hope to add more detail next time such as reflections in the car windows with lighter colors and signs using the shades 1 and 2.
UNDERSTANDING COLOR / CAPTURING A THEME
SEPTEMBER 18TH
After being tasked with the final iteration of the paper cut intersection, I decided to focus on properly understanding the grey scale iteration first. In studying my grey scale, although the varying tones added to the value and realism of the composition, there were a few pieces that began to clash and detract attention from the focus of the image: the building.
During the class discussion of each individual piece last Thursday, many people pointed out that the ambiguous clumps of cars at the front and middle of the composition clash with the building for the viewer’s attention. The point of emphasis is unclear when such dark figures contrast the light colored building in the background, so I decided to remove the cars altogether in order to draw the viewer’s entire focus to the building instead of the cars. Additionally, the white lines in the street were also pointed out as unnecessary to capturing the intersection’s essence. In a different manner from the cars, the confusion of the white lines in the street debilitated the significance of the focal point of the piece, so I simplified my composition by removing the front cars and the white lines.
Once I decided on my final composition of the pieces, I then began the process of choosing color. Looking at my greyscale iteration, I realized it would be difficult to switch out one of the second or third greys with a color as it would overwhelm the viewer and detract from the realism of the intersection. After concluding that I was going to swap out the dark grey for a color, I first narrowed the color choices down to the darkest colors of the selection: red, navy, and dark green. Although my abilities and knowledge with Adobe are limited, I did my best to create three mock-ups of my intersection using the three colors in Photoshop.
Once I analyzed the three options, I first decided to choose navy as I felt it would be the most realistic because it was the closest shade to the dark grey that I originally had in my previous iteration. Following the same procedure as my second and third iterations, I began cutting out the building with intentions to layer it over the navy blue. However, after I cut out the buildings, I began physically experimenting with the brighter colors with the instructions of exploration in mind from the previous lecture.
Although crafting a version of my color iteration on Adobe may have been more advanced and neat, my unfamiliarity with the programs urged me to step back and glance at my options physically. Surprisingly, I found myself leaning towards the brighter colors instead of the dark colors that I was originally deciding between.
BRINGING LIFE TO THE INTERSECTION / CHOOSING YELLOW
For my final color iteration, I chose bright yellow because instead of choosing the darker colors for the shadows, the yellow allowed me to explore the possibilities of bringing life to the intersection. Remembering that this assignment was more focused on translating the intersection instead of composing an aesthetic piece, I felt that removing the main cars and simplifying the composition revoked the movement that characterized Fifth Avenue and Bigelow from my first visit.
Instead of creating a paper cut that was realistic to the image it was based off of, I chose bright yellow in order to make my final iteration realistic to the intersection.
The yellow emphasis on the building generates a sensation of busy activity because it makes it seem as though all the lights on the building are on. The intersection at Fifth and Bigelow is filled with bustling people rushing to their jobs, classes, or personal activities. By layering the building over yellow, I hoped to derail from the sensation of stillness and move towards the sensation of life.
MY PERSPECTIVE ON PURPOSE OF THE INTERSECTION PROJECT
While there may not be an objective answer to the purpose of the project, for me, this intersection project held value in the questions that it forced me to ask myself rather than the answers that I chose. Without realizing it, the project ultimately shaped my mindset through each decision that I made between and during each iteration.
What should I be looking for in my intersection? How can I translate the essence of the intersection through cuts of paper? Will the shadows of two layers of paper be enough to capture depth? Do I want to my tones to fade from dark to light or light to dark? How can I capture the specific features of my intersection while making my piece believable?
In fact, the question of the purpose of the project itself shaped my thought process. The search of a deeper meaning behind cutting papers to make a believable intersection provoked another series of questions that obscured my understanding of copying art versus translating it.
Although I felt that my craft improved significantly with each iteration after learning how to cut with an Xacto during my first attempt, each of my decisions became less and less focused on narrowing details and more focused on exploring and training my mind to ask questions about both myself and my intersection.
