Room With A View
PLANNING
I wanted a sense of comfort. I wanted the "person" to relax with a view of the lake, an entire wall open to the lake. As if it were one giant window, door on the side of it. I also wanted to have a second floor. I am more of a fan of one single isolated environment. It's meant for those romantics and the introverts who want to enjoy the lake alone.
Later on, these plans changed to something more open to the lake.
Later on, these plans changed to something more open to the lake.
EXPERIMENTATION
I kept trying to cut pieces with the X-acto knife, and with my tremors and little experience, I kept messing these up. I messed up at least 10 times before getting it right, and scrapped my original ideas entirely.
I also messed up multiple ends of the project itself. When the bottom white paper tore, I decided to make lemonade (or squeeze the lemons right back in life's eyes!) by turning the white paper into a couch that holds the paper to the floor. This was good because originally, I was wondering how I am going to hold the furniture in place, and this little accident solved the problem entirely.
I also had to experiment with the walls, trying to keep them in place.
With a change of materials, the ideas later came out better. With these curved "arms" of the project, it took a little bit to cut them identically, with the ideal curve. The same went for the bench. I cut out a slit into the "hut", one in the center to make a spot to insert the bench, but keeping it whole in the inside. Then I ended up cutting down the length and width a bit. The bench took up almost the entire hut before, so I kept pulling it out, shaving it down with the knife, and inserting it again, checking if it's the right length.
For the proportions, I actually ended up looking up how big a lego man is, and using a proportion slightly bigger than that, just ever so slightly. I used those proportions to make this project about the right size.
Another experiment that took a bit to do was the support. To add on to the white paper, I slit some cardboard, and layered it under the water and sand, slit the cardboard to where the slits for the structure are. Then I inserted the structure to that, and went from there to carve the water (which was yet another experiment of its own). That took many attempts to perfect.
Another challenge was the sand. I couldn't find my regular bottled glue, and ended up making a stupid mistake of mixing tacky glue, and the mix of glue i did find (which was 90% water and 10% glue, for some reason), and using one of my personal brushes that I have liked using for working for a few years. That failed miserably, as some sand clumped and I couldn't scrape anything off due to tacky glue. And now my favorite painting brush from a few years ago is smothered in a tacky-glue-sand mix, completely dried and probably past the point of no return.
The NEXT mistake I made was looking for ANY glue (because glue is glue in my head....apparently) and tried....super glue, which also did not end well after only one drop. Eventually, I managed to get my hands on regular glue, and came across yet another problem. I didn't have a brush to spread it with, and decided I was good enough to use an eraser.... It went better than my previous glue attempts, but it wasn't completely flat and plain. It's clumped and rough.
I also messed up multiple ends of the project itself. When the bottom white paper tore, I decided to make lemonade (or squeeze the lemons right back in life's eyes!) by turning the white paper into a couch that holds the paper to the floor. This was good because originally, I was wondering how I am going to hold the furniture in place, and this little accident solved the problem entirely.
I also had to experiment with the walls, trying to keep them in place.
With a change of materials, the ideas later came out better. With these curved "arms" of the project, it took a little bit to cut them identically, with the ideal curve. The same went for the bench. I cut out a slit into the "hut", one in the center to make a spot to insert the bench, but keeping it whole in the inside. Then I ended up cutting down the length and width a bit. The bench took up almost the entire hut before, so I kept pulling it out, shaving it down with the knife, and inserting it again, checking if it's the right length.
For the proportions, I actually ended up looking up how big a lego man is, and using a proportion slightly bigger than that, just ever so slightly. I used those proportions to make this project about the right size.
Another experiment that took a bit to do was the support. To add on to the white paper, I slit some cardboard, and layered it under the water and sand, slit the cardboard to where the slits for the structure are. Then I inserted the structure to that, and went from there to carve the water (which was yet another experiment of its own). That took many attempts to perfect.
Another challenge was the sand. I couldn't find my regular bottled glue, and ended up making a stupid mistake of mixing tacky glue, and the mix of glue i did find (which was 90% water and 10% glue, for some reason), and using one of my personal brushes that I have liked using for working for a few years. That failed miserably, as some sand clumped and I couldn't scrape anything off due to tacky glue. And now my favorite painting brush from a few years ago is smothered in a tacky-glue-sand mix, completely dried and probably past the point of no return.
The NEXT mistake I made was looking for ANY glue (because glue is glue in my head....apparently) and tried....super glue, which also did not end well after only one drop. Eventually, I managed to get my hands on regular glue, and came across yet another problem. I didn't have a brush to spread it with, and decided I was good enough to use an eraser.... It went better than my previous glue attempts, but it wasn't completely flat and plain. It's clumped and rough.
PROCESS
During this process, I had multiple ideas, putting together the walls and floors to apply my plans to the materials I had.
I cut, slit, and layered each piece to try to make a sturdy structure with 2 floors, one that covers have the space of the other. That's where it got tricky, figuring out how to hold it up.
After an accident with the white paper, my idea was to keep everything together via furniture. This includes couches, chairs, and stairs.
I ended up despising the first draft, and scrapped it entirely. I got an easier material to cut with my x-acto knife, a very thin wood, and the project became more precise, came out close to the image I had in my head. I changed the entire idea from nostalgia to embrace. I wanted the structure to feel like a gentle embrace, while giving a comfortable corner for visitors to enjoy themselves between the wide "arms". The "arms" are not meant to be noticed, just to be there to add to the feeling.
I later had the idea to add actual sand. I live right next to a major airport, which has a park covered in sand a mere 10 minute walk from my house. As a result, I gathered sand there, and pulled out the smallest pieces I could get, covered the "sand" of the PROJECT in glue with a brush, and sprinkled the park sand over it.
I also carved small "waves" in the black water, and added small touches of white paint on the ends to mimic actual waves. Just having fun at this point.
I created a small "roof" of the project with white paper and a small touch of wood.
When creating the structure, I added layers of white paper around the wood, the white paper wrapping actually kept the wood from tilting in the slits of the floor of the project. I did not do the same to the "arms", because that would make them stand out too much in the sand, ruining the point of going unnoticed.
I adore how this has been coming out when using the wood instead of only other materials.
With this wood, it was coming out so well so quickly, becoming less frustrating and more fun to do. It became something to work on with some cartoons on rather than something too stressful to watch something with. It was easier to make it simple. without the wood, I kept adding more just to keep it stable. Having to make thick slits was frustrating the most, but the wood needs almost paper-thin slits, making cutting the right size much, much easier.
Overall, the second attempt turned out much better than the first with the change of materials.
I also finished everything off with actual sand. There were multiple aspects of the project changed suddenly, including the water. Details ended up left out in a lot of areas of this project due to an overconfidence in ability to create those details. Over multiple attempts and countless changes, this was the list of processes.
I cut, slit, and layered each piece to try to make a sturdy structure with 2 floors, one that covers have the space of the other. That's where it got tricky, figuring out how to hold it up.
After an accident with the white paper, my idea was to keep everything together via furniture. This includes couches, chairs, and stairs.
I ended up despising the first draft, and scrapped it entirely. I got an easier material to cut with my x-acto knife, a very thin wood, and the project became more precise, came out close to the image I had in my head. I changed the entire idea from nostalgia to embrace. I wanted the structure to feel like a gentle embrace, while giving a comfortable corner for visitors to enjoy themselves between the wide "arms". The "arms" are not meant to be noticed, just to be there to add to the feeling.
I later had the idea to add actual sand. I live right next to a major airport, which has a park covered in sand a mere 10 minute walk from my house. As a result, I gathered sand there, and pulled out the smallest pieces I could get, covered the "sand" of the PROJECT in glue with a brush, and sprinkled the park sand over it.
I also carved small "waves" in the black water, and added small touches of white paint on the ends to mimic actual waves. Just having fun at this point.
I created a small "roof" of the project with white paper and a small touch of wood.
When creating the structure, I added layers of white paper around the wood, the white paper wrapping actually kept the wood from tilting in the slits of the floor of the project. I did not do the same to the "arms", because that would make them stand out too much in the sand, ruining the point of going unnoticed.
I adore how this has been coming out when using the wood instead of only other materials.
With this wood, it was coming out so well so quickly, becoming less frustrating and more fun to do. It became something to work on with some cartoons on rather than something too stressful to watch something with. It was easier to make it simple. without the wood, I kept adding more just to keep it stable. Having to make thick slits was frustrating the most, but the wood needs almost paper-thin slits, making cutting the right size much, much easier.
Overall, the second attempt turned out much better than the first with the change of materials.
I also finished everything off with actual sand. There were multiple aspects of the project changed suddenly, including the water. Details ended up left out in a lot of areas of this project due to an overconfidence in ability to create those details. Over multiple attempts and countless changes, this was the list of processes.