rfalconvargas · Archive
Visual Explorations
A wide sketchbook of studies — product renders, paintings, cardboard sculpture, infographics, and drawing exercises across many media.
Section
Visual Explorations
Works
14 projects
Product renderVisual Explorations
NICE — Ergonomic Utensil for Elders
NICE is an ergonomic utensil handle designed for elderly users with limited hand mobility. A topographic, contour-layered grip slides onto standard disposable spoons and knives, transforming a thin plastic handle into a thick, comfortable, secure hold — presented with dimensioned technical drawings alongside lifestyle and studio renders.
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Painting · PanoramicVisual Explorations
Rose Banksia Life Cycle
A long horizontal painting that maps the life cycle of the rose banksia across a single continuous landscape of color, flowing left to right through cool blues and a sun-burst into golds, greens, and a dense field of warm orange pattern. Organic line and dotted texture suggest seed, bloom, decay, and regeneration.
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Cardboard sculptureVisual Explorations
Avatar Dragon Mask
A large wearable dragon mask built entirely from layered and cut corrugated cardboard. Stacked card profiles form the snout, fangs, mane, and curling horns, exploring how a flat, humble material can be engineered into a dramatic, three-dimensional creature.
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Cardboard furnitureVisual Explorations
Cardboard Lounge Chair
A full-size reclining lounge chair fabricated entirely from corrugated cardboard, shown supporting a seated adult. The sculptural, wave-like silhouette curves from a high backrest into an extended footrest, exploring cantilever, ribbing, and load distribution using only cardboard and slot joinery.
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Ink drawingVisual Explorations
Blind Contour Faces
A dense ink blind-contour study in which dozens of faces overlap into a single continuous tangle of line. Drawn without looking at the page, the work captures gesture and likeness through uninterrupted contour, turning a classic warm-up into an all-over, crowd-like composition.
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Clay sculptureVisual Explorations
Clay Model — Decomposition Study
A comparative material study pairing a sculpted gray clay form against a clump of real decaying organic matter — leaves, twigs, and debris — mounted side by side. The clay reinterprets the tangled, fibrous chaos of natural decomposition in a single neutral material, isolating form and texture from color.
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InfographicVisual Explorations
Spinosaurus — Theropod Infographic
A set of editorial infographic panels about Spinosaurus and other giant theropods, comparing body-size estimates and explaining proposed functions of the Spinosaurus sail. The layouts mix paleo-art, researcher portraits, citations, and bold typographic call-outs into a clean science-communication style.
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Album artVisual Explorations
Empire — Album Cover
An album cover concept titled EMPIRE for the artist METACOM, centered on a surreal floating fortress-island drifting through clouds. Bold extruded green type with a long warm-orange shadow anchors the composition, paired with a faux automotive warning label — the framed cover floating over a blurred echo of itself.
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Illustration · BookVisual Explorations
Holocene Extinction Fold-Out
A hand-illustrated fold-out booklet about the Holocene (sixth mass) extinction, organized into endangered species, extinct species, and threats like overfishing and ocean acidification. Rendered in dense, woodcut-like cross-hatching with vivid complementary color, the accordion format lets the narrative of decline unfold panel by panel.
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Industrial design sketchesVisual Explorations
Interfaces — Concept Sketch Grid
A poster-style grid of rapid product-interface sketches organized into categories — Connections, Buttons, Kinetic, Handheld, and Ergonomic. Each cell explores a different physical control, grip, or mechanism in loose pencil and digital render, surveying how hands meet objects.
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Editorial layout2018
La Lanza — Magazine Design
Editorial layouts for La Lanza, the Spanish-language school magazine from Colegio San José, spanning an editor’s letter, a feature on the Bosnia war, and a Pokémon GO article. The spreads juxtapose torn-paper photo treatments, bold red duotones, and structured columns to balance serious reportage with lighter pop-culture content.
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Painting · BannerVisual Explorations
Materialism
A vivid painted banner titled MATERIALISM that critiques consumer culture through dense, symbolic imagery. A temple of stacked goods, sports cars, and a glittering sun sit beneath competing ribbons asking “What do we need?” against values like happiness, family, and purpose — a folk-art palette framing a moral question.
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Painting · Mixed mediaVisual Explorations
Abstract Painting — Veiled Blue
An abstract canvas dominated by deep cobalt and turquoise forms partially obscured behind a curtain of dripped white paint. Warmer reds and earth tones peek through at the edges, while the vertical drips create a veil that both reveals and conceals the imagery beneath.
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Graphite drawingVisual Explorations
Perspective Drawing — Chairs in Space
A graphite perspective study in which patterned chairs, cylinders, and staircases radiate outward from converging vanishing points. Tumbling capsules and tubes scatter across the page while flame-like and woven textures fill the receding planes, pushing a technical exercise toward surreal, dynamic composition.
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