introduction
Our reflections units was – as you can probably guess – all about reflecting on our lives and creating works that were personal to us. The ultimate story, visually communicating to the audience who you – the artist – are. This unit was incredibly personal, as it overlapped with the college application season, when I was scrambling to write essays and complete my college portfolio. College apps are the epitome of personal statements, so that’s exactly what we took on English. Our assignment was to write an essay that we could use for our Common Applications. In class we read Ethan Sawyer’s College Essay Essentials, taking what we learned and applying them to our essays. The first task was to brainstorm some essence objects that personified who we are.
MY ESSENCE OBJECTS:
- toy carousel –> from Korea when I was little
- little blue notebook –> I wrote everything in there, chaotic organization
- sparkly rock –> been on my porch since I was little, found at Lake Tahoe
- Meet the Robinsons –> my favorite movie
- Amsterdam –> a book I bought in the UK
- turtle collection –> little turtle figures given to me by friends
- game ball –> given to me after I made a game winning catch when I was younger
From there, we found core values that were associated with each object, and we created a Core Values video in Digital Media. This was my first time using After Effects, and although I disliked it at first and preferred Premiere Pro, I grew to appreciate what I could do with the program.
Mandalas
The Mandala project! The first project in Digital Media for the year. For this assignment we were tasked with creating two mandalas that represented us, one that was in black and white and one colored. We used Illustrator for the project, using transformations and reflections to create multiple templates with different slices. Drawing in one slice would repeat the line in a circular pattern, creating the mandala effect!
I took drawing my freshman year, and in that class we also had the assignment of creating a mandala, although with paper and pencils. I created a mandala about my Korean culture, although looking back the final product did not portray my best creative skills. I saw this project as the perfect opportunity to “revamp” that drawing. The different Illustrator brushes allowed me to maintain the hand drawn feel, while producing a clean look. If I could do the project again, I would incorporate more Korean flowers and dragons into the piece, as well as including more dark space to better unify the outer and inner circles. However I’m very proud of my final product, and I love the circle of creating a mandala both freshman and senior year.
My black and white mandala was primarily focused on my Korean heritage, so I decided to focus my colored mandala on my Filipino culture. At the center is a Kalabaw, the Filipino national animal. Throughout the piece I sprinkled doodled flowers, meant to represent sampaguitas. I didn’t grow up speaking Tagalog and I’ve never visited the Philippines, so my main connection to my culture is my grandparents and cousins in San Francisco. My Lolo would always wear white converse, so I included those in the mandala. My grandparents also had rose bushes and a lemon tree, so I made sure to draw those in as well.
This project was a good way for me to reflect on my culture and family. I’m really happy with the piece, and I included a lot of little details that are personal to me. I wanted the color scheme to reflect the nostalgia I was feeling when I created it, so I went with a limited scheme. This was very different from what I’m used to, but I’m very happy with the result!
We also got to engrave our black and white designs into wood. It was so exciting to see my mandala in its final engraved form! I decided to use wood because of the natural and earthy look, which reflected the flowers – the main subject of my mandala. I’m really happy with how the negative space turned out, you can see the texture where the laser cut. I chose to take my final photo with the wood surrounded by flowers, for more emphasis of the nature.
college personal essay
Writing out our essence objects was just the first of many exercises we did to brainstorm our personal essay. The specific assignment was to convey our core values and be vulnerable, using “So What” moments and organizing our essay in either a narrative or montage structure. I chose a montage structure, but I found my essay leaning more towards narrative as I began to write it. I decided to connect my passion for design and biology, writing about my emotional connection to my grandparents in San Fransisco and how that sparked my creativity and love for drawing. I plan on using my essay for my Common Apps, and I’ve already applied to a few colleges with it!
Motion Graphics
This unit was all about After Effects, and we learned about the power of keyframes as we were video editing. We learned how to do motion graphics, such as rotoscoping and syncing graphics up to audio. At first After Effects frustrated me, but the more I played around with it the more I began to appreciate it.
Our first task was to create a video that implemented rotoscoping. Rotoscoping is when cut out an object frame by frame, and in this case we cut out the girl so that we could place the words behind her. I also learned how to use clipping masks, which is how I created the opening slides as well as the image flipping with the words.
For the audio graphic video, we were given the freedom to be creative with what we created! The only requirement was that we included a song, and synced up the graphics to the song. The pink bars you see follow the sound waves of the song I chose. This is my favorite out of all the motion graphics videos we created.
Design
SUMMER COLLAGE
Our first assignment in Design was to create a collage in Photoshop that reflected what we did during the summer. Although this project was meant to be more of a quick warm up to remind us how to use Photoshop, I really enjoyed it. I decided to center my collage around a UK trip that I took this summer, and I played around with a lot of different blending modes. I’m really happy with my result, and I’m glad I can look at the collage as a reminder of my trip!
PSA
For this assignment, we were told to make a public service announcement poster about a current issue we are passionate about. Immediately climate change came to mind. We created a moodboard to get a grasp of what we wanted our poster to look like, which helped me brainstorm some ideas. We used Illustrator for this project, and I’m really happy with the clean look the end result has.
My PSA consists of the Earth with a distressed expression, his mouth open as garbage spills out. As the garbage flows down the image, it slowly merges into blooming flowers. Oftentimes people use the excuse that “There’s no use in recycling” or that “It’s too late anyways” when it comes to fighting climate change, and I wanted to address those statements directly. The message of my PSA is that there is still time to save our planet, especially if everyone does their part and comes together. I chose bright colors for the flowers to represent new beginnings and hope.
This project took me many tries to get right. Initially I had a completely different idea that was more static and straightforward, but I realized that the result wasn’t as effective as I wanted it to be. When I finally figured out a concept that fit, I had issues with representing a clear image that wasn’t too busy. Changing the colors of the trash to a monochrome color palette helped with coherency, as well as referring back to my moodboard. I also changed the strokes on the PSA to match the fill color, so that they did not stand out as much.
Aboriginal art
This project was very personal, and we had to include a lot of symbolism that reflected ourselves. The project was based on Aboriginal Art, which is native to Australia. We created it using Photoshop, using a brush to create repeated dots. This project took a lot of patience, which made the end result even more rewarding.
I wanted to emphasize human connection to nature in this piece. The style is inspired by Aboriginal art, which typically used earthy tones. The focal point is the hawk in the center, representative of my spirit animal. I chose a hawk because I’m freethinking and expressive, my mind often drifting as a bird in the sky would. In the background are some more subtle details, the Aboriginal animal tracks symbols walking up behind the bird and the Aboriginal star symbols lining the borders. I chose the star to unite the border to the constellation: the Leo constellation representing myself. There is also the Leo symbol in the bottom right corner. The Leo is also associated with the fire element, which I subtly included in the dot texture behind the symbols. The piece is named Hawkeye, as the bird is looking down upon you.
My initial draft of this project was similar to the first in terms of symbolism, but the hawk in the center was far too detailed. I included too much 3D form in the piece, something you wouldn’t see in traditional Aboriginal art. I referred to real Aboriginal drawings of birds during my second draft, and I am much happier with my result. I also began to include more white as well, which gave the bird a nice pop. If I were to do this project again I would experiment with more red and orange tones; I’d like to see how they work with the hawk. This would also put more emphasis on the fire aspect.
