Introduction

For this conceptual project, I was pushed to think abstractly with medias and items to complete my Freestyle assignments. This was the beginning of a process to learn how to use DSLR Cameras, Tascam Audio Recorders, Avid Pro Tools, WordPress, Google Apps, and a multitude of Adobe applications. As a result of this new beginning, I have been able to use this to push my creative thinking and allow for more complex ideas to be represented digitally and professionally.

Using these tools and newly learned knowledge also means I was able to successfully complete multiple Digital Media assignments I wrote about from English. After these past months, I have found that learning these new concepts and how they have been able to change my perspective on what art is very valuable. Especially for English, I have learned how to put my creative writing into visual aspects that I have gratefully learned through Digital Media; which I would not have been able to push myself to do otherwise. It has completely changed my viewpoint on how far I can push my art and how I express it. In addition to these two classes, I have been able to do the same for Design I. I have learned more about how to use Adobe Illustrator and value how much I am capable of doing with the program. It makes me more appreciative of the work other artists and peers put into these projects and makes me value the art that comes out of it. I truly enjoy learning more about the tools within Adobe Illustrator and I am excited for upcoming projects.

Haiku

For this Haiku project, we were introduced to the history of haikus and its special formatting. In English class, we were told to write a haiku of a certain concept and take a picture to match with symbolic meaning to represent it. My concept statement was “exploring the feeling of enthusiasm through taking a risk.” In addition to that, we continued the production of the haiku with audio and music to be used in a short video for Digital Media. This was created using Adobe Premiere and a Tascam Audio Recorder. The finished video and my Premiere Pro file is featured below.

I valued this first step into learning how to think critically and creatively with how I wanted to represent the idea of enthusiasm through taking risk. This taught me more about how to take bigger steps into a producing a bigger product with the art I create.

Poetry

This piece of poetry was an ekphrastic poem. It was all about finding a piece of art to write a meaning/poem about. This was part of a previous English assignment that I decided to improve for this final project. As well as the writing itself, we were pushed to create a poem photo to represent the piece of poetry. As shown on the left, I used the original piece of art with the lines of the poem on top of it. This was created in Digital Media with Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Dreamweaver. As shown below, this is the intention statement of my project. Both audios of the poem and the intention statement were recorded with a Tascam Audio Recorder and edited with Avid Pro Tools.

In my ekphrastic poem “Shallows,” I decided to embroider the feeling of anxiety through the metaphor of the sea and manta rays that was shown in the watercolor painting I chose. The painting was created by an artist who goes by the persona of “Heikala,” and features a person swimming in an ocean with manta rays. Firstly, I decided to name my poem “Shallows” as a play on words to both the ocean and to shallow thoughts. I wanted to try and encapsulate what it feels like to be the person swimming with manta rays, or rather, show how it feels to be swimming with your own thoughts. As a student myself, I understand the perspective of being alone and thinking of nothing but insecurities. However, for the poem, I wanted to show more of the idea of how you are able to surpass those insecurities and remind yourself of the positives in life. Silence is more likely able to bring more calm and collected ideas as opposed to ones that are constantly throwing self-doubt. Being anxious entails stress and worry; so much to where those thoughts can build up and to where it feels like it’s the end of the world. When I say silence, I do not just mean the absence of sound. I also mean the silence of negative thoughts— in some cases even positive thoughts. After more brainstorming and peer review, I realized that silence for some people is not always peaceful. This is where even the silence can become too much; positive memories starting to trail back into negativity. From personal experience, I find that there is also no harm in asking for help from others. As I said previously, sometimes even the meditation of silence can get overwhelming. That is why there are questions within the poem in the third and fourth stanza. Silence also means not speaking out about feelings or letting others know of your mental health. It is not always healthy to bottle up feelings and is always better to talk about them to others. Silence can go both ways both good and bad. “They,” within the last stanza of my poem, are the people who help out. It is never the end of the world just because of the negative things that have happened in a person’s life. Many others have experienced anxiety and that should not downplay another person’s experience. I heard of the idea of thinking back to all the things that have happened a year or two ago, and seeing how much has changed since then. That person’s advice helped me because it made me realize that it is always more than just change— it is improvement. Learning to accept that we are learning is what I want people to get out of my poem. We all make mistakes, we all deal with these emotions, and sometimes breaking the silence is the best way to go.

From producing this poem and its many elements, I have valued all that I have learned when it came to editing audio within Avid Pro Tools. I find that this is actually way more difficult and advanced than what it may seem, and I am proud of my poem’s final outcome.

Elements & Principles of Art

For my Digital Media class, we were assigned to learn more about the elements and principles of art. The whole point of the assignment was so then my classmates and I could understand the different types of elements and how to fit them into principles to create an enthralling piece of art. Below is the presentation of all the elements and principles of art with photo examples. Click to view.

Design

For this Conceptual Unit, our assignments were the Macro Practice Photo, the Conceptual Photo, the Negative Positive Space Halloween Project, the Interior Linear Perspective of Bedroom, and many other projects! The Macro Practice Photo and Conceptual Photo were both photo practices with the Canon DSLR Camera and an editing practice with Adobe Photoshop. The Interior Linear Perspective Bedroom was an assignment to practice one-point linear perspective with Adobe Illustrator. The Negative Positive Space Halloween Project, rather, was a way to practice using X-Acto knives on construction paper to create a Halloween themed project to show negative and positive space. After all that I have learned in Design, I have valued all that I have learned when it comes to Adobe Illustrator and how to use all of its different tools/abilities. I find that Design is actually very different from Animation especially, and I now feel like I am always excited to learn more about design as a whole since there are so many aspects to it.

Macro Photo

For this macro practice photo, we were assigned to go around and take pictures of flowers with a Canon DSLR Camera with a EF-S 24mm macro lens. I ended up choosing this picture of light blue flowers and cropped the photo as well as altered the hue/saturation, curves, and brightness/contrast in Adobe Photoshop.

Conceptual Photo

Above is my conceptual photo both in Adobe Photoshop and as the final JPEG result. It is a photo meant to represent my English Haiku Project and the concept statement, “exploring the feeling of enthusiasm through taking a risk.” Here features a pair of hiking boots with a mask walking across a line of rocks. As shown in the Adobe Photoshop screenshot, I cropped my photo and edited it with color balance, brightness, and a silhouette filter. Below is my artist statement for the project:

I am exploring the feeling of enthusiasm when taking risk.

In this photo, I represent the shoes ahead and behind the mask to show action; meant to pose as a person walking with a mask on. The objects are featured in an outdoor lighting to give the impression that the person is going outside during the day, and to give it more of a “happy” feel. I specifically chose to use hiking boots because it best represents the idea of adventure and risk; while I chose a mask as my representation for enthusiasm as a reference to the coronavirus pandemic. The reason for the rocks was to show how dangerous it can be to walk on them. The danger being in reference to people who are near others in public areas.

With the pandemic, some people use the excuse that they just want to “live their lives” in response to the epidemic. People are choosing to have fun and go out to public places while risking their health and even their lives to do so. This is how I am able to represent my idea of enthusiasm through taking risk.

When making final touches to my piece, I used Adobe Photoshop to crop and edit my photo. I ended up cropping the majority of the background to make the subject seem more up-close; in reference to how I am trying to emphasize this person’s story. In addition, I increased brightness, contrast, vignette, and added color balance so the lighter background better contrasts the subjects and is able to emphasize them.

Negative Positive Space Halloween Project

These medias above were of my Negative and Positive Space Halloween Project. The first photo was my final result after using an X-Acto Knife, construction paper, and glue to create a witch. The video is a 20 second time-lapse sketch I did on Procreate of my original idea; a day before I worked on paper. This project was meant to have symmetry when cutting and flipping the paper and I decided to create vertical symmetry. As you may see from the final product, the piece shows alternating negative and positive space.

Interior Linear Perspective of Bedroom

Shown above is my Interior Linear Perspective of Bedroom project. This was all about creating a vanishing point towards the middle of the canvas and to create a close recreation of your room. I decided to add a drawer, a beanbag, a bed, a chair, a carpet, a window, a fan, a computer with a keyboard, mouse, and PC, and a clock. I also added additional textile designs to the bedsheet and the carpet.

Other Design Assignments & Extra Files

This macro photo project also required us to take at least four other pictures of flowers with the Canon DSLR Camera with a EF-S 24mm macro lens (I took one additional picture). This features all the flowers around my house! Unlike the light blue flowers, these pictures were not edited in Adobe Photoshop.

This conceptual photos contact sheet is filled with all the photos I took for the conceptual photo project. The contact sheet was created in Photoshop and all the pictures were taken with a Canon DSLR Camera. I took 60 photos in total in multiple locations with differentiating shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. On the contact sheet, I ended up choosing the final image, IMG_2537.

This project was primarily to familiarize ourselves more with shutter speed, aperture, and ISO on a DSLR camera. I took 5 different pictures all with differing shutter speeds, apertures, and ISO’s.