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Zhenia Vasiliev

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Ideas: experiments

13-jan : Iconography+crumpled paper tracing - at which point the sign is not working anymore?

- drawing with light: how can shadow from a 3d part of drawing be a part of the drawing, too? 

- drawing breaking out to space: a mix of drawing and 3d objects of line- like quality: thread, paper cuts, matchsticks.

- Rorschach tests, ink drawing by bending the paper.

11 jan: Folding the paper: a sequence of drawings made througholding the paper 1,23 times, etc. What the algorithm for such folding could be?

9 Jan :   Family tree: connecting standing matchsticks with thread, add names of relatives to matchsticks.

8 Jan: resistance of form. Fold the letters, tie the paper on which the letters are printed with thread and test how these forms resist the tention. (This te had been completed. Outcome: there is also a tension when you physically hold a resulting object, a strive to open and see the letter fully, without the bend. Feeling of psychological discomfort). 

tags: writing, experimental, notes, drawing
categories: reference, research notes
Thursday 02.12.15
Posted by Zhenia Vasiliev
 

Evening at The Showroom Gallery: drawing as a map

I spent yesterday evening at The Showroom gallery, drawing as we listened to a sound piece from Graeme Thomson and Silvia Maglioni.

It took forever getting ready to exist: UIQ (the unmaking-of) - non-existent film by Felix Guattari

In the artists' words:
“A small community of envisionaries are invited to inhabit a zone of autonomous temporality where they become the hosts, receivers and transmitters of UIQ, contaminating each other in turn with their own visions and ideas of Guattari’s film and of UIQ’s possible manifestations, both within and beyond its limits.” 


The soundwork recombines fragments of recordings of these “seeances” in a composition of myriad voices and electronic signals, elements that circulate in the Showroom gallery space, offering visitors glimpses of a missing film and universe that, though invisible, may begin to affect their own vision.

Source: The Showroom

tags: drawing, map, experimental, experience, sound, audio
categories: research notes
Thursday 02.12.15
Posted by Zhenia Vasiliev
 

Drawing over printed matter: Miscontinuum

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A day of drawing and electronic opera from Mouse on Mars and Oval in Barbican.

tags: drawing, barbican, music, opera, biro, pen
categories: research notes
Monday 02.09.15
Posted by Zhenia Vasiliev
 

Notes from Graphic Design, Education and Schools, Brno Catalogue 2014

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P 114 - Pestalozzi, Table of Unit
P. 209 - Vojta Naprstek and Alois Studnicks divided collections into 20 groups: 
A. Machines and apparatuses. 
B. Metalworking in Industry. 
C. Minerals.  
D. Processing of clay, earthenware, ceramics and porcelain.
E. Glassmaking. 
F. Wood processing
G. Clothmaking and weaving, laces
H. Animal Products - leather, leather goods, hat-making
K. Stationery, book binding, papermaking
L. Small items - miscellaneous
M. Chemical industry
N. Food stuffs and delicatessen
O.  National industry
P. Household goods - tools, instruments, common furniture. 
R. Civil Engineering
S. Light, heat, magneticity
T. Graphic art - book binding, photography, pencils, drawing tools. 
U. Commercial section - measures, weights, international currencies. 
V. Education - school aids, templates for drawing and modeling. 
Z. Art and applied arts: a) assorted arts and crafts items; b) collection of artworks and assorted casts; c) arts and crafts antiques. 

tags: graphic design, reading, graphic art, notes
categories: reference, research notes
Saturday 02.07.15
Posted by Zhenia Vasiliev
 

Ideation sheet for "Lost Letters"

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And some process work for Resistance of Form (2)

tags: paper, inkjet, geometric, papercut
categories: research notes
Saturday 01.31.15
Posted by Zhenia Vasiliev
 

Glitch

Chrome occurred to print black background by default - cured by inserting white rectangles in background.

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tags: glitch, photo
categories: photos, research notes
Thursday 01.22.15
Posted by Zhenia Vasiliev
 

Schmooze

categories: research notes
Thursday 01.22.15
Posted by Zhenia Vasiliev
 

Love for dogs illustration

Do #dogs make us and our lives better? I have done an #illustration on the #stats across US. #infographic #doggylove

doggylove


tags: infographic, doggylove, dogs, illustration, dataviz, vector, flat, geometric, piecharts, chart, design
categories: research notes
Sunday 01.18.15
Posted by Zhenia Vasiliev
 

Style notes from three years ago: how things change (:

What works best for me:

 - weird fingers, wavy arms/legs forms, twisted forms;
- ink blots, dry brush shading with black ink
- dirty walls and floors
- dry brush/pen hair
- very thin nervous pen lines + thick dirty lines made with a brush;
- parts filled with black (eg black suits, pants etc.)
- empty areas in the image
- dry brush tints (arylic, watercolor)
- brown ink/ or ink of any other color together with black ink
- pale acrylic backgrounds
 

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- characters should be like me, act like me, have similar mimic;
- not more than 2-3 colors in one picture;
- uncertain characters with faces that make me smile;
- grey shading;
- lots of detail in one place and a blank field in the other.

tags: notes, style
categories: research notes
Friday 01.16.15
Posted by Zhenia Vasiliev
 

Resistance of Form: the process

Process photography for Resistance of form, paper, inkjet printer, packthread, 2015

Process photography for Resistance of form, paper, inkjet printer, packthread, 2015

tags: knife, cutout, drawing, experimental, sculpture
categories: research notes
Sunday 01.11.15
Posted by Zhenia Vasiliev
 

One day in the life of Urbino: production sketches

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tags: sketchbook, urbino, wt, summer school, isia, animation, Storyboard
categories: photos, research notes
Thursday 01.01.15
Posted by Zhenia Vasiliev
 

iio_-_tfwhbwf (initial sketches)

A first version of drawings for an album of electronic music by Moonscape. Ink, charcoal, pen, Biro pen. 

01-MF-2014-deep-cricket-MOz2_scr
01-MF-2014-deep-cricket-MOz2_scr
02-MF-2014-massage-spiders-MOz2_scr
02-MF-2014-massage-spiders-MOz2_scr
03-MF-2014-wobble-hornet-MOz_scr
03-MF-2014-wobble-hornet-MOz_scr
04-MF-2014-introvert-jazz-MOz_scr
04-MF-2014-introvert-jazz-MOz_scr
05-MF-2014-parrot-beat-MOz3_scr
05-MF-2014-parrot-beat-MOz3_scr
06-MF-2014-africa-hitech-MOz_scr
06-MF-2014-africa-hitech-MOz_scr
07-MF-2014-ya-izzo-MOz_scr
07-MF-2014-ya-izzo-MOz_scr
08-MF-2014-enigmatic-finale-MOz_scr
08-MF-2014-enigmatic-finale-MOz_scr
09-MF-2014-manufaktura-triplet-MOz_scr
09-MF-2014-manufaktura-triplet-MOz_scr
tags: music, sketch, 56stuff, moonscape, electronic, drawing
categories: photos, research notes
Tuesday 12.30.14
Posted by Zhenia Vasiliev
 

Drawings and other materials from Urbino summer school

Urbino dormitory plan
Urbino dorm - study for scenography
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Urbino dorm - study for scenography
Porta la Vagne - inside view
Porta la Vagne - outside view
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tags: drawing, werkplaats typografie, summer school, ISIA, urbino, urban sketchers, charcoal
categories: photos, research notes
Tuesday 12.30.14
Posted by Zhenia Vasiliev
 

Ideas before Urbino

Have found my notes from before the Urbino Summer School last summer. Contains some ideas that I never actually realised!

A view from our hotel in Falconara Maritima - the morning before the School began.

A view from our hotel in Falconara Maritima - the morning before the School began.

Ideas before Urbino

15-Jul Taking a walk for a line - if I could only use one line to describe Urbino, what could that line be?

13-Jul Modernism and postmodernism exist together and influence one another. There's no changing of fashion.

13-Jul

Vignelli: three aspects of design - Semantic, Syntactic and Pragmatic
Design is one - it is not many different ones
White, in typography, is what space is in Architecture.
Light is the master of form and texture

10-Jul Combining both the architectural and the painterly, the space itself was meant to act as material and to become the support medium of the installation

10-Jul Urbino: a research into the experience of built space and of building materials in their sensory aspects.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenology_(architecture)

07-Jul Intro: I draw and I go graphic design, and I use both those disciplines as methods for analysis. Now, there are many things that can be analysed visually, and here I've collected some of them.

06-Jul semiotics as a method focuses our attention on to the task of tracing the meanings of things back through the systems and codes through which they have meaning and make meaning. (Slater, 1995, p. 240)

05-Jul Teaching of Kandinsky - analytical drawing: Schematic drawing, Compositional diagram, Characterisation of objects, constructive analysis, geometrical connections and linear analysis

05-Jul Best drawings are done when I look into my feelings and analyse them in my drawing try to find the marks and method express my emotion. Graphic design can also be applied analytically to explore emotion/subject matter.

05-Jul
Design for analysis, including analysis of:
   * Information (data vis)
   * Structure (books, etc.)
   * Form
   * Content

30-Jun Ideas for Drawing techniques:
   * drawing made by folding, tearing, cutting (maybe paper different colours)
   * drawing+projection
   * thaumatrope
   * The project researches the interplay of perception and memory in ordinary experience of reality and adopts drawing as a language of visualisation outlining the structures and grammar of the phenomenon ( Maria Teresa Ortoleva)

29-Jun The early stages of a science must be dominated by empirical work, that is, the accumulation and classification of data. Only as a discipline matures can an adequate body of theory be developed. - Walliman, N., 2001. P.83

29-Jun Georges Braque: Seek for common in dissimilar.

29-Jun Drawing = motor factor+Visual organization (Flashlight drawings by Picasso)

29-Jun Make a map drawing of all my movements around Urbino during two weeks. Make a GPS drawing by moving around town.

29-Jun Drawing as analytical tool - plan/map, unmotivated looking, drawings based on drawings, or drawings as analysis of drawings or other types of data collection.

28-Jun Urbino - make icons/ symbols based on street sketching. Also, make a black square - as a sign that graphic art has gone into a circle and started repeating itself from 100 years ago.

Urbino - collect all icons, mix icons and drawings

Also try to make nonrepresentational street sketching - eg making a different kind of notation on the paper. Scratch, put charcoal on found icons and make prints. 

Also black square means that this 100 years have ended - and now it's time for different graphic art, although deeply rooted in that era. Non conceptual? Simply mine?..

Think as when doing computer graphics, but express it with means of drawing

Sample problem definition: How does drawing help us learn? 

Make referential drawings: cognitive aspect of images won't change if the constituent elements are to be rearranged. Eg gather all vertical etc - add a level of abstraction. Also make Infographic drawings, eg draw the data conveyed in the drawing, how much light, space is there, etc.May be do a plan/map of some kind.Make several drawing with different amount of abstraction - from very subtle to extremely wild.

Drawing facilitates analysis.

Do a series from one stencil - white square, with white spray paint (so that it was a bit visible that part of area is covered). And a black square. And then when they are displayed together you'll have a nice after image from black square, to make white lighter than the paper on white square.

27-Jun That's why we call a drawing a 'study'. Drawing studies seeing in the same way as music studies hearing, architecture studies our perception of space, perfumery studies how we smell and fashion studies our sense of touch (as we touch our clothes all the time and touch our surroundings through the clothes).

Learning aspect of drawing/images is very much underestimated in contemporary culture and could contribute immensely to learning if thoroughly researched and fully employed. (Including digital means.)

Drawing as experience: when we read, we learn from someone else's experience, but when we look at the image, we learn from our own. This is why learning from images is easier and more direct.

26-Jun We always learn from images. When we read, our brain constructs a mental image of a subject described, and then learns from it. The same with numbers, brain has to combine numbers in one coherent image before it can analyse them. When the image is readymade, brain can learn directly, without having to transform words or numbers mentally.

Emotions/essences described when reading -> expression in images.

Drawing and Cognition - learning through drawing, learning through creating images

19-Jun It is from first words in a book, when you start to read it, you understand what this book is going to be about.

End of Form - a story in drawings

tags: notes, urbino, design, drawing, writing
categories: reference, research notes
Sunday 12.28.14
Posted by Zhenia Vasiliev
 

Self-made

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tags: postcards, printmaking, promo, Christmas, stencil, print
categories: photos, research notes
Saturday 12.20.14
Posted by Zhenia Vasiliev
 

A test print!

From our induction at London Print Studio - a group effort.

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tags: workshop, screenprinting, printmaking, poster, collage
categories: research notes
Wednesday 12.10.14
Posted by Zhenia Vasiliev
 

An article about our Bones graphic on BuddyTV

Wanted to say a big Thank You! to Catherine Cabanela for the kind words in her article on BuddyTV today. Here's an exerpt:

The Illustrator's Special Connection with "The 200th in the 10th"
Having been a part of this ongoing project, I'd like to share with you some special items that other media outlets may be unaware of. 
First, by now you have seen the promotional images and clips from "The 200th in the 10th," Bones celebratory 200th episode and you know that it's an exquisite homage to the late great English film director and producer, Alfred Hitchcock. Did you also know that the freelance illustrator who crafted the visual concept of this amazing piece of work is none other than Zhenia Vasiliev. Okay, yes, so you may have already hear that, but did you know that Vasiliev was part of the two-man team who designed 'The 39 Stats: Charting Hitchcock's Obsessions.' Imagine how excited we all were in late October when Alex informed us Vasiliev was creating our infographic! Note: In preparation for the 200th episode, you might want to study that Hitchcock infographic because the direction, cinematography and aesthetic of "The 200th in the 10th" comes straight out of the Hitchcock playbook. 

Catherine also mentions our infographic had a good reception with Bones creator, Hart Hanson and Bones Executive Creator, Stephen Nathan. Here's the screenshots of their tweets:

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tags: bones, Infographic, article, pr, press
categories: research notes
Monday 12.08.14
Posted by Zhenia Vasiliev
 

Bones Infographic goes live

If you like Bones series on Fox, here's a new giant infographic all about it we made with Alex Hughes. #BONES @FoxSpecOps3

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tags: infographic, fox, bones, bonesonfox, illustration
categories: research notes
Thursday 12.04.14
Posted by Zhenia Vasiliev
 

A font for building charts: FF Chartwell

Such a great idea, to use OpenType technology to convert math formulas to actual visualization! Have yet to test it - but thank you very much to my colleague Jim Kynvin for spotting it! Font is made by FontFont: here's the source link.

tags: font, typesface, data visualization, infographics, design, typography, opentype
categories: reference, research notes
Tuesday 12.02.14
Posted by Zhenia Vasiliev
 

Sketching the Infographic for London First

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tags: pen, sketch, data visualization, ballpoint, London, Infographic
categories: research notes
Friday 11.28.14
Posted by Zhenia Vasiliev
 
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