Mushroomville

Colored Version (Unfinished)

Sketch Version

The Wizard and the Museum

When I firstly got the project of searching a place in Eugene, the first choice came to my mind is the campus of University of Oregon. In this campus there are several old or old style buildings which give people a sort of mysterious feeling.

Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art was constructed in 1930. It is not a very old building in the University of Oregon, but an air of mystery is always surrounding the structure. “Museum” for me is a word that full of mystery and fantasy because it collects art works from different periods and cultures. In East Asia antique collectors believe that each antique has its own spirituality, which makes me feel something secret is hiding in the museum.

The exterior and interior of this structure has great contrasts. The exterior gives me a feeling of “humble luxury” because the whole structure looks very boxy but has many decorative details on every inch of wall. The space of the interior is total opposite from outside. It has very complex structure such as the courtyard and the cloisters. I could not imagine how complex the interior is from outside until walked in. It was just like finding a whole new world when I entered this museum.

I tried to add something that can deepen the feeling of mystery to the building. The first idea I got is to use 3-D street art painting to create a new environment surround the building, such as the water reflection at night. Different environment can make a building to presents different features, and the water reflection will bring a very interesting effect for people especially those who are very familiar with the Museum of Art. Then I was considering using some fantasy elements such as a dragon is appearing on the water and climbing the steps. However, the dragon is too “strong” to present the mysterious atmosphere. What I need is something that looks harmonious within the context, but still makes people have a kind of fantastic feeling. Therefore I drew a boat berthing near the steps, and a man in hood and robe. Because of the mysterious man who looks like a wizard, the Museum of Art became a different place: people can feel there is something strange behind the door, but do not know what that is.

Museum of Art in reality has a warm tone, but what I need is opposite, so rather than directly drawing on the photo, I decided to redraw everything including the building and the surrounding environment. After drawing the sketch, I imported it to the Photoshop and used brush tool to paint on it. It is not an easy work present the environment at a dark night: the color tones of are almost the same so I need to carefully control the values and shadings. The upper right corner supposed to be a solid wall, but I removed it and use the night sky and the full moon instead.