Client: Penland School of Craft

Location: CHAPEL HILL, United States

Completion date: 2013

Artwork budget: $4,000

Project Team

Artist

Jason Dowdle

Blue Sky Digital Photography

Overview

I was assisting a friend who was teaching a class in chair design at the Penland School Of Crafts and as a way to work through the whole design process and documenting it for the students, I started the You and Me chair project.

Process

I usually start with rough pencil sketches as I begin a project with goal of identifying at least 3 ideas that merit further development. I then go to a computer CAD first just to work out issues of proportion in front and side elevations, from there to extent that I am able I construct a 3 dimensional computer model introducing color and wood tones. After picking what I believe to be the best idea form the previous process I then construct a small scale model or maquette introducing elements such as texture and other media which I cannot represent in the computer model. As a final step especially in the case of a chair I build a full scale mockup in cheap materials to see if my idea is really something you would want to sit in.