Dee's OBDF 310 blog

So, patterns. I always fancied myself a purveyor of good patterns - I'm very fond of patterns, especially on daily wardrobe and other textiles. My brain is also quite obsessive when it comes to repeating patterns and will nitpick inconsistencies and asymmetries. That's why, for this study, I mostly chose patterns of a fractal or floral nature so when it comes to making a pattern myself, I have references for making sure the pattern loops smoothly over several sections. Examples looked at: One face on a 6-sided box-cushion. It uses a floral style radial symmetry that I find very appealing. The hem on a new coat I bought. The simple yet evocative diamond loop catches my attention. A blanket cover with examples of symmetrical design, once again in florals, but with a more geometric twist. HONORABLE MENTION: not a photo, but the design of a character from a webcomic called Goodbye To Halos by Valerie Halla is super evocative and interesting. The eye motif in pa...

The Tower of Dee's Hubris So for the first assignment, we were given the task to create a castle. Sounds pretty self explanatory, yes? Well, I immediately thought, why a castle though? Why not some other defensive structure where figures of authority ruled over grovelling peasants from? I jumped right in, starting to do some research on different styles of fortification and 'castles' (technically still a castle! Just not the European kind) throughout history, and hit on a few types I was really quite fond of. Being a huge nerd for Mesopotamian cultures to begin with I had a strong bias to make a ziggurat, a la the Tower of Babel (see fig. 1) among other semi-religious, semi-fortified buildings. (Fig 1. Public Domain picture of a Ziggurat in Iraq. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ancient_ziggurat_at_Ali_Air_Base_Iraq_2005.jpg ) I additionally looked up other prominent forms of ancient fortification such as Egyptian temple complexes and palaces (see f...