MICA: Sophomore Illustration

Monday, September 23, 2013

Map Research

For my project I plan to create a map on the best places in Baltimore to moon gaze. So I've been visiting places these past two weekends instead of just Saturday. I also had to plan my visits according the weather (cloudy nights/clear skies) and the phases of the moon. Last weekend I went to the Inner Harbor and the Maryland Science Center. I went into the observatory and got to look at the moon, stars, and some planets. It was absolutely beautiful and really interesting to see such a close view of the moon. One of the telescopes we looked into was the same power that Galileo used. I also learned many interesting facts about the moon, such as the moon is closet to you when it is above you rather than moonrise. I had never been to an observatory so it was definitely a worthwhile and new experience. It was also basically impossible to sketch in there, also I will have more sketches once I finish going to all the locations. This past weekend I went to Federal Hill Park and had the best view of the moon. I saw the Harvest Moon, without even planning it. I also didn't realize Federal Hill is literally right next to the Inner Harbor so I could have walked there last weekend. I plan to visit Robert E. Lee Park and Druid Hill Park this weekend. I'm trying to visit places with various atmospheres and also spread out around Baltimore. I want to find a good mixture of public and low key areas. Please feel free to give suggestions on places I can go to!

Editorial assignment sketch

This is the final sketch.
I used monopoly to explore the idea of "U.S has more prisoners than any other countries". Because the reproduction one will be very small, I didn't do the very detail job for the people. Instead, I made people into very simple shapes.

Thanks,
Amy Ryu

P.S: The image get cropped on the blog page, so please click the image to see the full image.
p.S2: another final sketch.

Baltimore Hampden Map Reaearch

My location for this illustrated map assignment is based on Hampden. It is famous for it's Honfest, which is the annual sprng street festival and the starring of John's Water's film on 36th Street. It is also known as the Avenue. I really like this middle town of north Baltimore; you could basically find all the original, vintage shops, and cosy cafe and restaurants in the neighbourhood. I would highly reccommend people who likes collecting funky and old stuff to visit this place because there's more than 20 little shops that sell different kinds of unexpected items you've ever seen. Although it is a long 10 mins wall from West Mulberry light rail station, you can always take the MICA shuttle to get there, very safe and efficient! I was caught browsing in one of the shops called, TROVE, which is absolutely worthy of my time because I ended up buying a big bag of cute accessories and furniture decors. Successful shopping. The prices are decent and could go as cheap as you bargin with the shop owner!

Map Research

For my research, I spent a day in Hampden and another day around Inner Harbor and Fells Point. I want to focus my map on a "sweet" Baltimore, so I visited some candy stores, ice cream/gelato stores, bakeries, etc. while I was out, focusing on finding ones that seemed unique/interesting. In Hampden, I found a store that sold shoes and chocolates, as well as an ice cream shop that sold Old Bay caramel ice cream & a small cafe. While I was at Inner Harbor and Fells Point, I visited a candy/ice cream store, an Italian pastry store in Little Italy, some ice cream and gelato stores, and I also stopped by a cake/cupcake shop on Cathedral Street on the way back. Most of these stores were very cute and had a fairly relaxed atmosphere. It was pretty enjoyable wandering around these areas and finding new things, especially some of the quirkier stores. I found a few other places to check out while researching online that I haven't managed to visit yet (they were a bit further away/transportation was a little more complicated), so I'll be going to those at a later date.