Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Photoshop--Week 3

Greetings from the planet Photoshop!!

I am finishing up my third of five weeks of class and I have to say, it is going much better than the first week. It was hard in the beginning because I had never had ANY experience with Photoshop. I had no idea where any of the tools were or how to do anything. Monday and Tuesday of this week we worked on our Photoshop final project, which included three elevations and a floor plan of a Kitchen that were originally drawn in Auto CAD. We had to bring them into Photoshop and add cabinet doors, counter top texture, wood grain on the cabinet facing, refrigerators, stoves, ovens, microwaves, ect. It was time consuming but some what easy, once I chose the cabinet doors, I took a sample of the wood grain from the door and added it to the cabinet facings to all the elevations. The counter tops were the same through out as well as the wall coverings and the crown molding. So really, it is rather simple for a final project. However, it was still very time consuming. At the end of class today, I had finished 3 elevations. Tomorrow (Wednesday) we are starting the second half of the class-Sketchup-so tomorrow after class is over, I hope to finish up my Photoshop project, which is due on Monday. I can't wait for this class to be over. It has been a lot of fun learning but I'm ready for it to be August. There are so many things happening in August!! For one, I'm moving on August 16th to my new, clean, Bridgette free apartment and then I have Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays to visit with my family that I haven't seen in like a month. THEN Lauren's wedding on August 29th and the fall semester on August 31st...THEN my 21st birthday!!! I am super excited about that!! Plus a few other surprises in August :)

Well that is all for now, I hope all is well with my readers and I can't wait to see you soon!

Love Always,
Emily

P.S. I haven't printed any of my photoshop work yet, so I can not post any of it but I am hoping to get some pictures up soon, so stay patient!! Thank you!

Love.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Summer Classes-

Hello!!
It has been way to long since my last post, I have been busy working!! I had my textiles class in June and it went well, I pulled out an A in that class. However, I am now in Photoshop/Sketchup and I want to cry, just a little bit. I kind of knew it was going to be hard after a senior in my textiles class told me that the only way I could get through Photoshop/Sketchup is with my bible but I underestimated her exaggeration. We are practically teaching ourselves...from a book. My teacher will "lecture" (roughly show us) what we will be "learning" in the chapter for the day and then she lets us get to work doing the exercises for the chapter. It has gotten better, since I now know where most of the tools are but the first few days were ROUGH. The book would say "hold down the ctrl key and click the Add Mask Layer at the bottom of the layers palette" doesn't sound that hard to the average Photoshop user but when you don't know what the heck the layers palette is or that these tiny little buttons on the very bottom of this "layers palette" even exist, this task is some what difficult. The first full day of working in Photoshop began at 9 AM after an hour lecture of how to begin in Photoshop, and ended at 3 pm. After 6 hours of work, I finally finished all 23 exercises AND the DIY (Do Independently Yours-a little thing my teacher made up to torture us. Just kidding, in actuality, it is an assignment that uses the skills that we "learned" in the chapter. For example, the first day we had to create 3 greeting cards using the skills of a pattern, a mask, a gradient and a knockout. By the time I had finished all the exercises, I had a small understanding of how to do use a pattern and a mask, however the gradient and the knockout I was lost. So of course, I looked it up on google and found a wonderful website with tutorials about these, and many other lessons. Today, was day number 2 of week 2, however yesterday (day 1 of week 2) my teacher was sick so we did not do any exercises but had a reading assignment. I spent the day catching up on sleep and watching movies (I had already read the chapter for that day). So today we did what we were suppose to do yesterday, but tonight we must read the chapter that we should have done today (Chapter 6) PLUS the chapter that we are suppose to do tomorrow (Chapter 9). It is a lot of reading, but there is only one exercise in Chapter 9. So my optimistic teacher is cramming 2 days into one tomorrow in hopes to give us Thursday to do our Photoshop project, which I have no idea what that will entail. I have a better handle on what Photoshop is and it is really cool to see what you can do with it but it is going to be a long 3 and a half weeks.

Today, we took a floor plan from CAD and brought it into Photoshop to add the ceramic tile, the mahogany counter tops, the bar stool texture, the carpet,etc. to render the floor plan. This is why Photoshop is being used more rapidly in the Interior Design field, we can take the floor plan, or elevation of a room, and bring in the EXACT carpet, wall covering, couch, table, etc. to give the client a better idea of what the space will look like, rather than a hand drawn, rough idea of what the room may look like. As much as they try we can not replicate the exact texture of a certain carpet or wall covering. I'll be learning how to do that in the fall, I'm not particularly looking forward to that.

Well, I guess I'm done ranting about how hard school is now, and I'll get back to reading my chapters for tomorrow. I hope you all have a wonderful, blessed day and will post again soon, hopefully with pictures next time. It's hard to post pictures of Computer Aided Drafting stuff but I will try!!

-Emily

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Daydreamer, sittin’ on the seat

Well the semester has ended and I could not be happier. The spring semester seemed to drag on and on. I had a very nice first week off. I got a chance to actually spend some time with my mom and some unfortunate bonding time with Cody. It’s amazing how much of the “I know everything and you know nothing” mindset he has. I don’t remember being the way he is but I don’t doubt that I was. He makes me want to ring his neck but he’s 5’11” which makes this a little difficult. I got my final grades for the semester, I was pretty happy with all but one. Depending on how it affects my overall gpa I may ask my teacher about it, but 1 A 3 B’s and 1 C, 3.0 gpa for the semester is something to be proud of. Interior Design is definitely even more than I thought it would be but something in me just keeps me going. I have no idea what I will do when I graduate. I know what parts of Interior Design that I like but there is no way to tell what I will be doing in 2 years when I graduate. I don’t think people realize how many options we have. I can be a building inspector. I can work in Residential Design, building homes. I can work in Commercial Design, building office spaces. I can work in Hospitality Design, building hospitals or hotels. I can work in a carpet store. I can work in a tile store. I can stage homes to be sold or even model homes. I could work as a space planner. As you can see, there are many things that I could be doing. I would LIKE to do some residential work or maybe some work with hotel design but who knows with the economy what I will be able to do. I love what I do but it is a lot of work. Haha. At least one day (hopefully) I will be able to say that I have a career doing what I love.

Until next time.
emj

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Principles of Interior Design FINAL project!!

My final project for my Principles of Interior Design was given to us in short, about 2 weeks ago. We are to draw a 2 point perspective of a historic home on East Main Street in Murfressboro. Along with a few other drawings such as a footprint floor plan and a few details of the house. I chose a popular American foursquare, built between 1900 and 1925. A stucco home with a hipped roof line and wide overhang eaves.


My 2 point perspective of the house...aka the worst part of the project.


A close up of the 2 point perspective.


The footprint floor plan and the left and right elevations, along with a detail.


3 different sketch styles and "volumetrics" to show the volume of the building.

Tomorrow I will turn in my projects for this class and praise God that I got through it.
As always, Thank you for reading. Until next time...

God Bless.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

What about now?

Only 2 days left until the semester is over. I CAN NOT wait. This semester feels like it has drug on and on. I had 2 finals today, which I think I did decently on both. All I have left is a project due on Thursday at 3 pm. So all day tomorrow, I will be sketching! I am not very good at drawing or sketching, so this project has been one that I put on the back burner. Hopefully I get it done, however I have a feeling I will have a long day tomorrow and possibly a long night also. After Thursday I have a break until June 1st. Then my Textiles Class (TXMD) will start. From what I hear, the TXMD class is pretty easy but it is 5 days a week 10:10-12:50. Then in July I am taking an IDES computer course that should be pretty fun but it’ll be more of a challenge. David will be leaving for AZ some time over the summer, we are hoping late July, so that he gets the chance to celebrate Independence Day with his family but he doesn’t have a set day yet, all we know is that it will be some time over the summer. I am hoping that he can get leave on the weekend after our 21st birthdays so that we can celebrate them together. I am planning on getting me second tattoo (that I designed!!) on my birthday (Thursday, September 3), which means he probably won’t be here for that but he will most likely get to come home late Friday. All I can do is put it in God’s hands and hope it works out :)

It’s funny how our whole lives we look forward to the future so much that some times we forget to enjoy the present. I am looking forward to August so much that I dread every day until then. Once September is here, then I’ll want to go back to summer. I’m beginning to see that it is a vicious circle, called life. “I’m loosing myself, trying to compete with everyone else instead of just being me. I don’t know where to turn. I’ve been stuck in this routine. I need to change my ways instead of always being weak.” Part of me feels like I need summer, to myself. I can get up every day, work out, go to class, go to work, visit with my parents on the weekend and just simply find myself. Interior design has made me so cynical. However, on the other hand, summer is the last time I’ll get to do things with David. There are so many things we want to do together, go bowling, go camping, star gaze and even just be together, with no worries, like when we first started dating. Life is taking it’s toll on the enjoyment of life. The tattoo that I designed kind of shows that. It means love, life, and loyalty. It has the words Serenity, Courage, and Wisdom intertwined in it. Something that I think most of us need to be reminded of, so tonight I will leave you with these words “God grant me the serenity, to accept the things I cannot change, courage, to change the things I can, and wisdom, to know the difference.”

God Bless.
emj

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Model results!

Today we got our wall section model back. It was a partner project. Dana and I got a 20 out of 20 on it :) AND my teacher kept it for CIDA. There is nothing new there though. Here are some pictures!

The pictures will show...the Concrete footing, the CMU foundation, the brick, the sole plate, the rim joist, the floor joists, the plywood sub floor, the gypsum board for the wall and ceiling, the fiberglass insulation, the ceiling joists, the rafters and the shingles, the siding, the gutters...and everything else that goes into a house :) or building. Dana added some cute carpet, wall paper, and a wall painting as well!






Monday, April 27, 2009

Only 10 more days left in the semester!

With only a few days left until I am free from this semester I am cramming in a CAD project and procrastinating on Project 2 for Principles of Interior Design. The Principles of Design project 2 includes a bunch of drawings and such. Bleh. I started my CAD project today and didn’t get very far so I am a little nervous about that. However I have our class time on Wednesday and all day Friday after my House Design exam to finish it up. I really want to have it done by Friday evening so I can study for my exams on Tuesday. Monday and Wednesday of next week I will be working on that stupid project 2...which is due at 3pm on Thursday (the last day!!!). Have I mentioned how excited I am that the end of this semester is near!? I am so excited to have May off and then have one class in June and one class in July, along with working 5 days a week…yup it is going to be a busy summer but a lot of fun! I can’t wait!

Here is some of my CAD work...I really like CAD, it is more of what I have wanted to do than anything else I have been doing this semester. This is one of our in class exercises. TEST ONE!! This is one of my last exercises in CAD. It was a part of another chapter, in which we did a floor plan of an office building. This is the elevation of the cabinets in the office building's conference room. This was a project that my teacher drew up a table and we had to do the plan view and the side elevation of it...all on our own. Most of our exercises this semester had step by step instructions to teach us how to do different things but this was an exercise to teach us how to think...I think. Haha.