The Chronicle stops the presses- Play offers new twist on classic story
- Students create illustrations for Georgia Ports Authority
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Graduate student channels classic horror in thesis film - Alumnus creates mobile gallery
- SCAD libraries hold artist’s book competition for students
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- Noted author speaks to students
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- Personnel File: New staff members join SCAD-Savannah
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- Baseball takes series from St. Thomas
- Women’s basketball wraps up second place in Florida Sun
- Athletics updates for Feb. 15
- Baseball off to best start in program’s history
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Class in the Spotlight
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SCAD-Atlanta professor brings design into three dimensions
 Photo by Dane Sponberg Amanda Dumas-Hernandez teaches students 3-D Design through a variety of assignments. By Monique Bos Published: Friday, September 14, 2007 As an interdisciplinary artist who incorporates sculpture and installation as well as painting and digital imaging into her work, Amanda Dumas-Hernandez provides a unique and valuable perspective to students who take her 3-D Design courses at the Savannah College of Art and Design-Atlanta. “I believe that my own work and history lends credibility to my explanation to students of why foundation studies are so important to all of our majors,” she said. “Basic design fundamentals are relevant through all art disciplines; everything else is materials, technique and concept.” Dumas-Hernandez’ course begins with students bringing in 10 natural objects, which she uses to introduce and discuss some of the fundamental principles of 3-D design. Their first project is to build a white cube, which they decorate with relief patterns based on drawings from those natural objects. The second project, “Getting Out of Your Head,” focuses on planes, volume and space. Dumas-Hernandez photographs the students’ heads, then enlarges the images to scale. Working with two sets each of eight views, the students create cardboard armatures of their own heads, then add hair and chipboard skin. During the project, Dumas-Hernandez discusses additive sculpture techniques, armature and planar analysis. “The head project is the most difficult,” she said. “It is a great observational exercise … although painful. I feel that this assignment is a test of following directions, looking, problem solving [and] perseverance, and it prepares them for all of the following assignments.” For the next project, “Big shoes to wire fill,” students use wire to create large-scale models of shoes. They learn subtractive sculpture techniques by building large plaster casts and then chiseling out tooth shapes. Another assignment entails researching food shapes and building large-scale models of various types of food. The final project is a “visual articulation of a sensory experience,” and Dumas-Hernandez incorporates representation, abstraction, non-objectivity and color into discussions about this assignment. “I try to explain to my students that they must look at all kinds of good art and design … and ‘visually feed,’” she explained. “This is an important way of learning the visual vocabulary of art and design. There are many things for which there are no words to explain.” Dumas-Hernandez said each assignment builds on the previous ones, and she enjoys watching students learn and grow throughout the quarter. “I receive excellent results with these projects. The first half of the quarter is painful; the second part is fun, although [the students] still complain about glue gun burns and sore fingers,” she said. “My favorite part of teaching is seeing my students blossom and make great projects … They constantly amaze me with their ingenuity.”  |
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