Thanks for visiting! Here you'll find all my projects from VISA 0150: Digital 2D Foundation with Mark Cetilia.

Hey there!
I'm Cynthia.

I'm a sophomore at Brown University studying Modern Culture and Media and Computer Science.

W o r k

Project 1: Cutting Line

Prompt

Create a set of conditions by which you derive a series of paths using Illustrator, and realize a physical manifestation of these conditions using the laser cutters in the Brown Design Workshop.

Process

I was inspired by the partner project we had just worked on and wanted to use the same devising process for my piece. I decided to write up a set of knitting instructions and create a piece of artwork from it. I filled up the canvas with symbols depicting the stitches according to my instructions, either using common symbols known to the knitting world or ones I made up.
I picked up knitting again a few years ago and I've encountered various interesting patterns throughout the years, especially the occasional diagrams that depict complicated stitches rather than using a jumble of text. I first watched this YouTube video of a scarf I'm in the process of knitting and then recorded the instructions while watching simultaneously. After finishing up my notes, I began creating.
When the instructions said to cast off and fold the bottom of the scarf up by 10 cm, I flipped my 10 cm length symbols and layered them on top of the stitches I already drew.

Limitations

Initially, I created my artboard on Illustrator as 64 cm, which is the length of the actual knitted scarf. However, by the time I was setting up the laser cutter and getting ready to print my work, I realized I needed to scale down my project quite a bit in order to save time and material.

Project 2: Color as Medium

Prompt

Use color as the primary medium in the creation of two works: one using additive color (a projected image) and another using subtractive color (a large-format print).

Process

I was inspired by painter Li Songsong, who is known for his massive impasto paintings where he takes an image and blocks it into sections solely through color.
I wasn't sure what subject matter I wanted to work with, but when I thought of color, which was the concept we were exploring in this project, I thought of the colorful origami boxes hanging above my dorm bed. I then found a photo of my room and decided to work with that.
While working on this project, I referenced a few of Li's works in order to get a feel for his color palettes and also ended up pulling from colors present in the original the photo to make the piece more cohesive overall.

CMYK Version (for print)

RGB Version

Project 3: Steal This Book

Prompt

Create a small chapbook or “zine” using precisely none of your own content. Beg, borrow, steal. Do not write a single word, do not take a single photograph, do not draw a single line.

Pre-binded book with loose pages

Process

This was a very rewarding but tedious process.
I decided to start with the The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, a book I love and read in 12th grade, and used a random number generator to generate 5 numbers that correspondeded to the book's pages. I then extracted these pages and compiled them into a PDF.
Closing my eyes, I selected excerpts from these pages and once again compiled them on a document. I then played around with the ordering of these texts and attempted to reorganize them in a way such that a narrative could be formed.
Finally, I used these lines as prompts in OpenAI's Playground mode to generate passages accordingly.

Limitations

Since this was a very text-heavy project, I didn't know how to incorporate images into my document when I had really been looking forward to doing that.

Final Project

Description

This is a lasercut lantern constructed using birchwood. There are two blank panels and two fully-fleshed out designs for the others.
The lantern shows the process of dumpling-making, an activity that typically involves several people, usually family members, gathered closely and heavily involved in all aspects of the making. These include including making the hand-made dumpling wrappers, grounding the meat and vegetables for the filling, wrapping the dumplings with pleats, and finally boiling them so they're ready to serve to a family.
This project was inspired by our Chinese heritage, love for food, and growing desire to return home.

Division of Labor

My partner sketched the two panels on Procreate and I vectorized them on Illustrator. We both worked on cutting the panels with the laser cutter since we had to recut multiple times and assembled the lantern together at the BDW.

Sketched and vectorized

Limitations

Initially, we considered working with either colorful transparent acrylics or wood. I wanted to experiment with acrylics since I thought it would be fun to layer multiple colors on top of one another and see what happens when the light shined these layers of color. However, due to lack of available material and funds, we ended up sticking with wood.
Additionally, due to the lack of time we had to work on this project, we were only able to complete two panels when we initially wanted to create four panels. The lantern design was also significantly simplified into just a box structure without intricate patterns and carvings.