After trial and error of my first idea for this project, to take photos based on my interpretation of a song of my choice, I’ve decided to not pursue it. Nothing felt right, I spent much longer than I anticipated trying to think of photos, and also exceeded the project guideline of 45 minutes. The concept of taking photos for this didn’t feel natural, it felt like a chore. My new concept to this project deals with origami, based on the book Paper Pups by Hiroshi Hayakawa. It was a random time for this idea to come up, but I was in my photo class with Hiroshi and he showed the book in a lecture.
I will construct a dog on card-stock paper every weekday, chosen from a layout provided in Paper Pups. The book provides 4 different selections of difficulty: Very Easy, Easy, Intermediate, and Advanced. I plan to get to at least one Advanced pup by the third week. My end goal with this concept is to create a short video with the dogs.
I chose the Beagle for my first attempt. A difficult part of the process was the folding on some spots, the paper got a little too weak. Other than that, it was interesting to make. One funny thing I’m also learning from this habit is the names of dogs. I’ve been allergic to dogs all my life so I was never really familiar with the names of all of the different breeds.
The list of dogs that I’ve chosen for this week is a Beagle, Dalmatian, Weimaraner, Bichon Frise, and an Afghan Hound. I’d say the Afghan Hound was the most tedious because of all of the individual strips of hair. But overall, each dog took between the 30-45 minute time frame. My plan for the next week is to apply some more features such as color and I’ll start constructing some Easy and Intermediate dogs.
Josh Smukal 