{"id":24,"date":"2025-09-30T18:29:18","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T18:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/freestyleacademy.rocks\/~AJY\/?page_id=24"},"modified":"2026-10-09T06:07:32","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T06:07:32","slug":"reflections","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/freestyleacademy.rocks\/~AJY\/reflections\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Reflections Project Introduction<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">My Personal Mandalas<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Our first big project of the year in Digital media was the Mandala Project. After getting introduced to Illustrator last year, we continued on our journey by creating templates, using a special Illustrator feature that duplicates what is drawn in a portion of a circle, all the way around the circle. That way, we could just draw a small portion and have it revolve around in a cool way. Affter creating templates, we created our B&amp;W mandala, then continued with a colored Mandala, and created a build reveal video. Our BW mandala then got laser engraved on a material of our choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>If the images do not display below,<br>On a Mac, press Command + (plus) then press press Command &#8211; (minus)<br>On a PC, press the Ctrl + (plus) then press the Ctrl &#8211; (minus)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"beforeAfter\">\n\t<div id=\"landscape1\">\n\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"img2020before\" src=\"\/~AJY\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/landscapePic1.jpg\n\" alt=\"Black and White Mandala\">\n\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"img2020after\" src=\"\/~AJY\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/landscapePic2.jpeg\n\" alt=\"Engraved Mandala on Pizza Board\">\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To answer \u201cWho am I?\u201d for this piece, I originally wanted to incorporate many symbols that represent me, ranging from activities to personality traits to any specific thing I find interesting. Pretty quickly I narrowed in on nature and movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For the center design, I originally was intending to draw a bicycle wheel to resemble my passion for cycling. However, I had already drawn bicycle wheels before for projects, and this time decided to keep it very simple. Instead, the sparse wavy lines with a perfectly clear circle in the middle represent a flow state, something I love getting into with sports and life in general. Other things I added included palm trees, music notes, musical strings, tents, campfires, ocean waves, mountains, birds, an atmospheric sunset, clouds, lightning, and more. Using the pressure sensitive brush was a new experience because before I had often resorted to the computer mouse as it felt more natural. Although I still resorted to the mouse towards the end, I can totally see potential with the pressure sensitivity part if l make more intricate digital artwork in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My BW Mandala was the first time that I put that many symbols of myself into a single artwork. After the process of creating it, I\u2019ve become a little more appreciative of visual art and how you can get a sense of the artist&#8217;s identity just by looking at it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"beforeAfter\">\n\t<div id=\"portrait1\">\n\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"img2020before\" src=\"\/~AJY\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/portraitPic1.jpg\n\" alt=\"Colored Mandala\">\n\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"img2020after\" src=\"\/~AJY\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/PortraitPic2.jpg\n\" alt=\"Sublimation Printed Colored Mandala\">\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For my colored mandala, I had the mindset of extending my BW mandala, adding color to the different symbols. My initial reaction upon seeing the printed version was a slight sense of awe, as what I had previously only imagined on the computer was now a real life object.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For the color scheme, I wanted each symbol to be colored the way they would be in real life. With the center design representing a flow state, I was unsure of how to color it as I had always imagined it in black &amp; white. I eventually settled on red, as red is the most passionate evocative color. I also loosely tried to keep similar colors together. Looking back, that was something I could have improved on. In the future, I will probably focus on a more specific scheme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The build reveal video shows how my B&amp;W Mandala came together. It was my first time using After Effects, and it won&#8217;t be the last:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"26 27 p5 Mandala AJY\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0PUpj3H4hGY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Reflection: My initial reaction to seeing my laser engraved mandala was a subtle sense of pride. After not being too proud of my colored mandala, the laser engraving looked like it was just meant to be on that pizza board. I was also surprised at how much the laser managed to capture the smaller details, although some details were still lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I chose a pizza board because I thought it was a bit of a quirky place to put an artwork like a mandala. Thus, it represents that aspect of me. I also like pizza.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My reflections about the entire mandala project from creating mandala templates, BW mandala with pressure sensitive brushes, colored mandala, build reveal video, and final laser engraved mandala mostly include a sense of relief. Creating the templates was mostly a straightforward process\u2014until I moved beyond the video tutorials. I had to start over a couple times after doing a few things out of order. For the BW mandala, I think I could have utilized the pressure sensitive brush more and used more brushes. I found myself often resorting to the computer mouse as the small drawing area of the brush pad often caused the cursor to sprint across the screen out of control. A simple fix probably would\u2019ve done. Had I had more time, I also would have liked to create a separate colored mandala, as I had colored my BW mandala which I wasn\u2019t convinced had much potential for coloring. As for the build reveal video, it was a brief glimpse into After Effects. It was pretty cool to watch the process I had taken for the BW mandala play out in front of me. Through this project, I\u2019ve picked up a better eye for artistic expression and can find ways to incorporate it in future art projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reflections Project Introduction My Personal Mandalas Our first big project of the year in Digital media &hellip; <a title=\"Reflections\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/freestyleacademy.rocks\/~AJY\/reflections\/\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Reflections<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-24","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freestyleacademy.rocks\/~AJY\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freestyleacademy.rocks\/~AJY\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freestyleacademy.rocks\/~AJY\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freestyleacademy.rocks\/~AJY\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freestyleacademy.rocks\/~AJY\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/freestyleacademy.rocks\/~AJY\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":560,"href":"https:\/\/freestyleacademy.rocks\/~AJY\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24\/revisions\/560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freestyleacademy.rocks\/~AJY\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}