Now for some reflection on both the zine and the school year:
I used the same workflow as last year- sketching page by page, taking photos when needed (I bypassed the scanner this year), arranging the panels on InDesign, making canvases on FireAlpaca to fit in those panels, and then drawing and importing back into InDesign.
For some reason my computer, which has always been touch screen but also has a pen, finally allowed me to draw with my finger for the first time. I think it must have been the program that updated. So I ditched the pen this year and just used my finger. Is that I good or bad thing, I’m not sure, but it brought me back to my public-school-issued-iPad roots.
Due to the lack of physical pin-ups, I tried something new with the cover which instead features a collage of a few Miro boards.
Third year Design was a good progression from the first two years. We brought in more consideration of the community we were serving (through designing multigenerational housing and a community center) and the environment (transformation into a flood shelter). We also played around with different concepts and materials, though I’m definitely missing the space and resources that I have in the studio. Consultants for façade, MEP, and structure came in after midterms and provided us feedback which brought our buildings closer and closer to reality. The inclusion of consultants was really informative but it could be rough at times balancing the required systems and design progression.
The third year is the end of the ‘core’ curriculum in which all of our classes kind of work on top of or alongside one another (for instance Building Services has us integrate things like fire sprinklers, calculate the number of light fixtures, that type of thing into our building which we were creating in Design class. Construction Documents has us redraw our Rhino file from Design into Revit. The list goes on). I haven’t heard much about the next two years (beyond the Rome study abroad program) and how design will be.
As it stands, I’m supposed to be in person for the Fall, still with some online classes, and once again living in the dorms. Vaccinations are required and I’m hopeful that we can remain in person. There is such a stark contrast between New York (where my school just lifted the mask requirement for outdoor spaces) and the things I’m seeing down here in South Carolina (which has never once had a state-issued mask mandate and now it’s banned to require masks).
I’m looking forward to being in the city again, and seeing fellow classmates for the first time in over a year. It’s very weird to think it’s been so long and all of the upperclassmen I knew have now graduated (minus the fifth year architecture people).
As always thanks for reading and let me know what you think in the comments or on Instagram!
Today (January 4, 2021) would have marked four years of drawing everyday (started January 4, 2017). My daily routine struggled and failed to survive the disruption that was 2020, but we’ll get to that. Here are some personal highlights from the year, and if you’d like to you can also see my 2019 recap.
January 14:
An ‘about me’ from my 19 year old self. Seems like not much has changed on the likes/dislikes front, and at some point I retook the Myers-Briggs test and leaned more towards INFJ instead of my long-standing INTJ result.
Also while I’m writing this recap I was like ‘folktronica?’ but upon further consideration I think it’s just because I was trying to find the genre for Cosmo Sheldrake hah.
February 4:
I turned 20! I received a few gifts and spent the morning going to a bookstore to get a t-shirt, then had to go to history and ‘connections’ class. Spent the night alone with some pie.
I’m turning 21 in a month, but with everything going on it doesn’t change much. I feel like the pandemic has expedited the process of birthdays not feeling important anymore, at least for now. 21 is maybe the last of the legally important birthdays (except retirement age? but that’s a while away), though I have never cared about drinking so I am not eager to do that anyway.
February 15:
The first time I managed to go to Manhattan in 2020 was February 15th. Mother wanted me to get some ‘professional clothes’ in case I got any internship interviews (spoiler alert, I didn’t, but now I have some nice new clothes sitting in a storage unit). Saw the Oculus (apparently spelt that wrong) for the first time, and accidentally found Trinity Church and walked through the cemetery. Man I love history.
Later that day went to a movie with my then-suitemate and tried brown sugar milk boba, pretty good (held it with a gloved hand since it was so cold outside).
Ended February on the 29th with my last trip to Manhattan. It was for a design class site visit where we impersonated transfer students, then got some food and saw a very fancy dog store.
March 2:
The talk of coronavirus started pretty early in design class, with my professor predicting that we wouldn’t be able to come into studio anymore.
March 9:
Had a lot of anticipation and uneasiness with the growing talk about the virus and schools beginning to announce closures. It felt like dark clouds were gathering and waiting to pour.
March 11:
And I didn’t have to wait long. During class on a Wednesday we received the fateful email that we’d be starting online classes after an extended spring break.
March 12:
My approach to surviving the physical and mental stress of March 11th-March 14th was not thinking, just doing. Despite Res Life saying that they were expecting us to come back in April, my mom made me pack everything up in my dorm by myself and lug it two blocks to a storage unit. I had a lot of recently acquired large objects to suffer through transporting via a broken cart (air conditioner, 3D printer, microwave, large box of materials, several portfolios). It took two days to put everything in the storage unit.
The last night in New York I didn’t have anything of substance to eat (or any silverware to eat it with) so I went to Key Foods in search of a cup of ramen. Outside I overheard a lady on the phone saying ‘yeah surprisingly they still have toilet paper’- the beginning of that whole ordeal. I go inside and it’s the longest I’ve ever seen the line. The ramen wasn’t worth it at that point especially to spend so much time around people. This was before masks were advised to wear so this memory is especially weird for me to think back on. I spent that night eating yogurt for dinner (was originally saving it for breakfast) and sleeping on an empty bed with 2 pillows I would leave behind to be thrown away in the case I didn’t return. I put a post it note on my desk listing the few objects I left behind alongside a sewing needle that didn’t belong to me.
I went home on March 14th. The airport terminal was very empty, masks weren’t being worn yet and it’s not like you could buy any even if you wanted to. I wore plastic gloves on the trains and wrapped a scarf around my nose and mouth, still somewhat afraid I would look like I was overreacting (seeing a few other people also wear gloves was reassuring though). It was surreal landing in NC where everyone was business as usual while I felt radioactive.
April 4:
I survived late March/early April by playing Breath of the Wild and Animal Crossing New Horizons in my free time. I also started watching a few Twitch streamers, since there is a comfort is having someone talking in real time in the background. Gardening was another way I found to pass the time and also force myself to go outside while the majority of my time was spent staring at a Zoom or Google Meet window.
I also found comfort in rewatching television shows (especially anime that I last saw in middle school hah), listening to podcasts or songs, and singing along to musicals. I did all of that while working on my design final, which was on the 30th of April.
May 25:
The majority of May was spent in my room trying to fill time. I can tell that it was rough for me to stick with drawing everyday when everyday felt the same. I started an online summer class just so I wouldn’t have to take it in the fall, and revisited a really old comic idea to see if I could breathe some life into it.
June 26:
My brother had to go back to Pittsburgh so he could continue his graduate school studies (he’d been unexpectedly home since his March spring break), and after we dropped him off we swung by my storage unit in New York to retrieve items I wasn’t originally able to bring home. Spent less than 24 hours in either place and barely stopped the entire trip, very exhausting.
The unfortunate thing is that the morning that we were driving to New York was the when the school sent an email saying that dorms were going to open in the fall (which turned out to be false) so I took things from my storage unit that I didn’t need anymore for school (like old models, my drafting board, vellum) while not taking any additional clothes, oops.
July 31:
I successfully drew everyday from January to June 30th. And then July… yeah that didn’t happen. I made this on July 31st as a recap and an attempt to start it up again, which was successful for August.
The garden was pretty fruitful and I helped my parents retile and plaster the pool. I rescued some toad eggs, which turned into tadpoles and then small toads I got to release. I meant to write about them on this blog and include more photos but ended up writing a small article about them for the school newspaper because they matched the ‘Transition’ theme.
I think dorms were announced to be closed for the fall semester around this time too, which gave me a whole lot of mixed feelings.
August was a month for a lot of thinking. I’m a to-do list maker but with the future being so uncertain it’s hard to plan very far ahead.
August 21:
I was part of orientation staff for the week before my virtual fall semester started. It was a cool experience (though of course it would have more fun if it was during normal circumstances and we could be together physically) and I’d enjoy doing it again. I enjoyed meeting and getting to hear the thoughts of the incoming class who had to decide on a college largely without even visiting it beforehand.
Also that week I went to visit my friend at her new apartment where she was living by herself so it was the safest opportunity to see her in person. It was really great to see her again even if it wasn’t for long.
September 12:
Drawing everyday did not survive September, when I really started working on my online classes. Brain was mostly in ‘just do your assignments’ mode in which I just wanted time to pass so I could get closer to future semesters where we could be in person again.
Also in September I released a lot of the toads I had raised.
October 19:
I drew only a few times in October. Things were kind of rough before the pandemic, just the stress of school and 17-18 credit hours a semester, but then having classes completely online (which has pros and cons) and the world being rocked politically, environmentally, and with the pandemic it has been a lot to handle. I’m privileged and things could always be a lot worse but I hope my life is such that these times will be something that I learn a lot from but not something I ever ‘miss’, if that makes sense. I hope things get better.
November 7:
The days leading up to the election results were very nerve-racking, refreshing that map over and over. When it was clear that Biden had won, I figured hey, there’s a timeline where he didn’t win and things could be perhaps much worse. I wish I could feel more relieved but a new president is just the start to (hopefully positive) change, not a solution.
November 21:
I drew about 20 days of November but I got swept away with finals. This is one of the last drawings I made this year digitally. Finals were rough and unhealthily consumed all of my time but I made it through and I’m very proud of the work I was able to accomplish especially alongside my design partner.
I think the roughest part of the online environment is that there is not much room for casual conversation. No chit chatting before lecture or running into people in the hall or on the elevator, no casual runs to go get food with someone else. I’m thankful for my design partner who I got to talk to the most often, both about our classwork and about life in general, even though we were confined to our little Zoom rectangles.
Otherwise I sat alone in my room for the entire semester, only talking to my parents for a couple minutes a day at dinner.
December 15:
In December it was obvious that something needed to change, at least for a bit, so I found an old empty sketchbook on the 9th and scribbled in it with whatever pens were laying around and kept doing so for a while. Most of my pages are incoherent doodles alongside thoughts and to do lists but it’s been a nice change to draw beyond what I used to do digitally.
Winter break has been very restful and I’ve started crocheting a scarf. Compared to my attempts at embroidery, making something functional in 3D is pretty rewarding. I’d been wanting to start assembling a dollhouse during this break but for the moment it feels overwhelming. Otherwise I’ve been playing a lot of Minecraft with friends and need to work on finding something to do this summer.
So this was a lil personal reflection of my year. 2021 won’t magically fix our problems but I’m hopeful that things can start to swing back into the right direction.
I hope you’re staying safe and best of luck in the new year!
Hello again! This is a short zine to encapsulate my second year of architecture school. It’s optional but if you’d like to read in order, here is my 2019 First Year of Architecture School zine, and prior to that I tested the waters with my 2018 Senior Year (of high school) zine. Following this 2020 zine will be some reflection on my process and the school year in general.
Here are some thoughts on the zine and my improvement from my previous zines:
As compared to my previous years, this zine was drawn roughly on paper, scanned, drawn panel by panel on firealpaca (free drawing software I’ve used since 2017), then imported onto adobe indesign (wow fancy, thanks college for ‘free’ adobe products). I think it’s easier to have ideas flow kind of messily on paper and then reorganize digitally. I also like the crisp panels made in indesign.
I maintained the color scheme and drawing style of the first year zine just for continuity sake. Except I changed the eyes from dots to lines and the color shade is a bit different because I am ~adventurous~ and take risks (wow).
Maybe it’s just because I stare at it for too long, but even though I know my lettering is getting better I still feel like it varies a lot in spacing or size which looks sorta weird. As an experiment I made a font from my handwriting but I think that isn’t great since some letters flow differently when next to each other which doesn’t happen in the font, so everything is lettered individually.
The cover this time is also consistent with my first year zine, though I think I like the first year pose better, it’s more dynamic. I am standing in front of my fall 2019 final pin-up (because the spring 2020 final was online as you are aware).
Second year had unique challenges as compared to first year. I think part of it is that of course more is expected of you, but we are still very new and are learning a lot (at least I feel that way).
My summer class has gone well! I am also part of the orientation staff for this year’s upcoming freshmen, though it’s going to be severely altered due to the current pandemic. Also still keeping up with my animal crossing island daily- hit me up if you want to be friends, I only have one at the moment!
The current struggle is figuring out whether or not it is worth it to return to campus since all of my instruction will likely be online and then I will *maybe* have part of my design class in person. I am also from a state that it is necessary to quarantine for 2 weeks upon arrival, but if they don’t let me quarantine in the dorm I have no where to stay. At the moment it sounds like they aren’t going to let us quarantine in the dorms, we need to do it somewhere in New York before coming to campus. Makes me so frustrated. It’s a whole mess.
I know my ability to focus is worse at home, I’ve also grown weary of my housemates (read: parents), and I am looking forward to seeing my new roommate again, however in reality I’d be stuck in half of a dorm room for most of the time (since the social contract is saying we are only allowed to leave for groceries), and if I do get sick I will be forcibly removed from my dorm and relocated, and thus be all alone. And who knows if I will have my campus job again or not, since printing isn’t really necessary when everything is virtual. Not sure what to do. I am somewhat thankful though that my degree is 5 years long so I hopefully will have more time to explore the city and everything again someday.
Uncertainties aside, I hope you have enjoyed and thanks for reading! Stay safe out there.
Let me know what you think in the comments or on instagram (@ elclapp)!
One of the things I have been keeping myself busy with during quarantine/avoiding-public-places-at-all-costs-time is gardening. It wasn’t really on purpose, my family came into the ownership of several plants that a closing greenhouse needed to get rid of.
plants straight from the greenhouse
We kind of grabbed a variety of plants without much planning and ended up with broccoli sprouts, some petunias, begonias, coleus, geraniums, a few pepper plants, a tomato plant, and a fern (also a flowering plant I couldn’t for the life of me find the name of- apparently small white five-petaled flowers is too vague for google). Additionally we had an assortment of wildflower seeds which turned out to be predominately cosmos flowers, which I am familiar with from Animal Crossing- another way I have been passing this time.
At any rate, we had a somewhat neglected area in the side yard that was once the home of several flowering trees, but was now the home of unruly pine tree saplings, dead trees, a bunch of old plant pots, and a long lost yard chair. So clearing out this area was the first task of several in order to get some of these plants in the ground. This was a process that spanned a few days, mostly because it was getting quite hot outside and I required my father’s help as he is much more adequate at physical labor than me. Eventually the area was clear and better soil was purchased (as we have clay heavy soil) and we planted the sun-loving plants, starting with the 12 broccoli sprouts, 3 peppers, 1 tomato, 3 coleus, and 4 geraniums. The wildflower seeds were scattered around a bit later on.
right after we planted everything and I tried to spread out the various lawn ornaments
The geraniums and petunias (which would be planted later but for now were on a table outside) bloomed first, and to my surprise the flowers seem to stay bloomed for quite some time. I was also surprised with the cool star-like pattern on the more magenta of the three petunia plants. The begonias (at least I hope I identified them correctly… although I’ve heard the name begonia before, I don’t think I’ve ever knowingly seen one) looked very cool with their pink branching stems.
The pepper plants were brutally bitten by perhaps a rabbit when they were still very small and so we relocated them all to pots along the side of the house, which seemed to serve them well. They have been growing pretty slow and just recently we seem to have some small green peppers that aren’t ready to be picked yet.
perhaps my favorite vegetable
The broccoli plants began to grow larger, though over time only 6 of them seemed to really survive, and only 3 of them produced proper broccoli before all being attacked by moth caterpillars and deer (we speculate deer since entire leaves were bitten off). I didn’t have a plan for the broccoli (was perhaps thinking about broccoli and cheese soup) and opted for eating them raw, after a rinse of course.
I legit didn’t see the tomato until it was this size, it was hidden in the leaves
The tomato plant has been hustling and so far has grown all the way up the tomato cage, and has produced a large plump green tomato. It’s a shame I hate tomatoes but at least I have a family member who does.
Lastly we have the latest star of the show, the wildflowers who popped up from seeds and all decided to bloom in the past few weeks. They seem to be mostly cosmos with a mix of a few others I couldn’t really identify. I suspect they are some type of daisy as well as cornflowers, but it’s always interesting whenever I check on them outside. At first it was a single orange cosmos, then a second, then a pink one, then a whole ton more orange ones with occasional yellow and pink (this is riveting content huh). The single ultramarine cornflower I saw was hiding between all the other tall flowers. I love the look of a meadow where singular plants don’t have identities (so I don’t feel grief as I did when seeing the poor chomped off broccoli or pepper plants), and you can just observe a variety of native bees buzz around and see a cricket or lizard just chillin’ in the shade of the plants. In my mind I’m just like dang I need my entire future yard to be just a meadow. Like expand this cluster of flowers over the entire yard and just have a mowed path to walk through. Endless bouquet possibility.
I think having this garden which changes day to day gives me some sort of purpose or reason to get outside when otherwise I spend the entire day inside largely staring at a screen, especially during this time where I can’t see my friends or go to public places. Additionally it was nice to notice the little things everywhere around the yard just as I did when I was younger and had more time on my hands.
Have any of you guys been gardening?
Thanks for reading :0
As I wait in anticipation for the new Animal Crossing I had to first try to play Breath of the Wild again since I didn’t much time to earlier when I first got it.
Misc. Notes:
My poor horse Stella hasn’t left the stable since I boarded her because I am 1) an avid climber and quick-travel to get out of situations 2) afraid she will die and I’m too attached
I am definitely a main-quest kind of person, I know side quests are important for gaining skills or cool things but I am lazy. I do go through the shrines though, I like the puzzles (not so much the ones with enemies in them) and also love the teleportation capability after activating them hah
So as of the moment I am still on the Reach Zora’s Domain quest but I just glided and climbed and found a chest with 100 rupees so I think I have jumped ahead a lot. I just keep saving every time I leave a ‘safe’ spot so I hopefully don’t have to do the mission again. Also I still don’t have the map piece yet for the area so I am completely blind.
đź‘ŹClapped Outđź‘Ź 