Junior Year

Poster Designs

After learning to use Adobe Illustrator, I was able to design a multitude of new things, including posters. I used my new skills to make posters for multiple people and purposes.

1: This poster was made for Freestyle Academy, for the End-of-Year Exhibition.

2: I made this poster for Mark Hollingstead, for a class he teaches at his Buddhist temple.

Wooden Scrap Peacock

In our Digital Media Classroom, we have a laser cutter that mr. florendo uses for all sorts of projects. And not just student projects either. Mr. Florendo has many different wooden decorations, ranging from mandala like patterns to stylized animals to homages to stars wars. The common denominator between all of these projects is that they are made from sheets of wood. When they are laser cut, Mr. Florendo saves the excess scraps of wood and puts them in a box by the door in hopes that student would be a bale to find a use for them. They sat there for more than a semester before I decided that I was going to make something with them. I took wood scraps home in my backpack over the course of about two weeks, much to my mother’s chagrin. Little did she know.

Mother’s day was coming up soon, and I needed to make her a present. She is very difficult to buy presents for (mainly because she just buys herself anything she needs during the rest of he year, she is an adult after all). However, she has always appreciated handmade gifts and cards. I wanted to use the wood scraps to make something she might like enough to decorate our house with. She is a big fan of interior design, we have over 20 fake plants and quite a few random art pieces in our house.Our house has a few wood elements inside, so I thought the wood scraps would match with the interior.

My mom’s second favorite animal is a peacock (her first is a giraffe but those guys are too tall for this project), so I decided to try and arrange the wood scraps into a peacock shape and then glue them together so it could hagn on the wall. with some help from my dad, I got wood glue, and spent an afternoon gluing the peacock together. Then I let it, dry, and it was done! At least I thought so… I showed it my mom, and she really like! she even agreed to hagn it somewhere in the house if I stained it, which was more than I was expecting. I am glad she was happy with it.

Here is my wooden scrap peacock before being stained

I have not stained it yet, but if I do, I will update this page.

To any Freestyle students reading this, I would encourage you to try making something with the wooden scraps Mr. Florendo leaves out. They are free, and I bet you could make some pretty cool stuff with them.

Freestyle Yearbook

This project is currently a work in the making. I have committed to collaborating with Kaylee Jampayai and Nadeen Sheridan on making a Freestyle Yearbook next year. We have some ideas already, like making it have and ocean or under-the-sea theme, and following the art style of the animated movie “Song of the Sea”, which you can see below.

I wanted to include this post here because I want to encourage freestyle students to join groups that help plan freestyle events. My peers and I will become seniors next year, which means that we need to take the initiative in organizing events like dances if we want to have a freestyle prom as awesome as the one the seniors put on this year (2024).

Senior Year

Yearbook Cover Design

Yearbook covers design thumbnail sketches

Yearbook cover design Final

Father’s Day Gift: Lake Tahoe Wood Layering Project

When father’s day was coming up, I decided that I wanted to use the amazing resources available at freestyle to make my dad something thoughtful and high-quality. He is extremely hard to get gifts for since he is quite minimalist. However, since my family recently got a house in Lake Tahoe and he LOVES it up there, I decided to make a Tahoe-themed gift to decorate the new house. My final project was a map of Lake Tahoe with the location of our house marked on it by a star, including its address in addition to its latitude, longitude, and elevation. Using what I had learned during my Digital Media Multi-layer art project, I created a layered design in Adobe Illustrator that was then cut out using Freestyle’s laser cutter. I received my wood cut pieces the day after I gave my design to Mr. Flo. Pretty speedy! Another benefit was that I only had to pay $30 for the wood I used.

After bringing my wood pieces home, I got to work. I colored the parts of the lake that would be showing blue using wood stain from amazon, and then glued the piece together using copious amounts of wood glue and clamps. I actually ended up collaborating with my dad a bit while making his father’s day gift, which is not how these things usually go. However, part of why I love my dad so much is that he is always there to offer me guidance when I need it, especially in regards to hands-on projects. He helped me stain and glue the piece, and later suggested ordering a frame or display box for it to keep it safe. We ordered one on amazon, put the dried Lake Tahoe piece inside it, and viola! Operation make father’s day gift (with father LOL) successful. I look forward to spending more time with my dad in Tahoe over the summer, being out in nature and enjoying each other’s company.

Process – Adobe Illustrator File and Laser Cutter

Final Piece – Without frame, and with frame behind glass barrier