“Who am I?”, Its a strong question for a teenager just figuring out how to live. In this unit at Freestyle we got to reach in and actually explore who we are or debunk who we thought we were.

Mandala

For our mandala we got to use Adobe Illustrator. One of my favorite Adobe products, I think i’m way more better at Illustrator than any other one. We got to be free with this project, we just got to draw to our hearts content. I really enjoyed it.

Tales of the Heart

For my mandala project I used Adobe Illustrator and learned new very technical uses of the program features for it to repeat what I drew into a circle thus making the mandala. I really valued this unit because I got to really look into myself and push it on paper—well on the computer—and got to see myself represented into a piece of artwork I created. I really got to think hard with the black and white mandala because it will forever be engraved into a block of wood and with the colored one, I just let my imagination free.

Things I learned about myself in this project include it reminded me that I love drawing mandalas and how they represent my complicated thinking. Mandalas reminded me that when I was in middle school, they were the thing that got me into drawing when I would hand draw mandalas in my free time and in class when the teacher wasn’t looking. Now I rediscovered my love for them. I think something that I show in my mandala is that I have a very complicated overthinking mind as you can see in all the lines and zig zags. I feel like my brain never stops and goes in circles.

This I Believe

For this project in our English class we had to write something about what we believe in. I choose that reputation is what can get you far, from many of my experiences and my moms experience. Then in Digital Media we made a video to correlate with it. We used Adobe After Effects, Not my favorite but I endured and learned new skills.

“This I Believe Essay”
by Belle Williams
Reputation Precedes you
I believe that reputation can take you far. I arrived at this belief from many years of being the well-behaved and good-mannered child. For example, I get all my homework and chores done—most of the time. I’ve learned that if you treat teachers and other adults with respect, they will treat you the same way—most of the time. As I moved on to high school, I soon began to realize that if I slipped up, like being late to class, I would be forgiven and “get away” with it, unlike someone who was habitually late. I could get away with listening to music in class and talking to my other well-behaved friends.
Once in sophomore year, a friend and I worked really well together. The class we were in was full of misbehaving students. We asked the teacher if we could sit together and without hesitation, she said yes. We were able to goof off all we wanted—within reason of course—without the teacher yelling at us, but at the same time, we got all our work done together.
My mother told me of a story about when she was in college where she was also a well- behaved student. She got all her work done on time, participated in the discussions and attended all the classes. For the final, she tried to study, but she just wasn’t understanding the material and the exam was very hard for her. She figured she had flunked it and it would certainly bring down her grade to a C or worse. When she went to talk to the teacher, she saw that her exam grade wasn’t in the grade book. The teacher said he must have lost her exam, and since she was such a good student, she must have done well. He gave her a 98 out of a 100. My mom was beyond surprise but accepted it gratefully.
It might seem boring to follow the rules as a teenager, but there are rewards and ways to push the boundaries without being disrespectful and at the same time, keeping a good reputation. You don’t have to go overboard and be the teacher’s pet or a Goody Two-Shoes, but I think this attitude will help me in college and in my life. You have to put in the hard work, but always be respectful of others. A good reputation with a college professor or a boss can help to take you far.

This is the behinds the scenes for the this I believe video. There was a lot of little thing I had to get right which was very hard and frustrating, but I learned from it.

Photoshop Art

This was probably my favorite project besides the mandalas. We got to learn in Digital Media how to draw in Adobe Photoshop with a lot of different brushes and media styles. I had a lot of fun.

Belle Williams
Good Old Times
In this project we were allowed to paint whatever we wanted in Photoshop, from pastel to watercolors. I choose to do pastel and a painting of me and one of my best friends, Andrea. I decided to do this painting because I remember the day I painted being such a day full of laughs and being carefree. I look back and yearn for those days because of the current situation in our society with Covid-19. I thought I could show something that sparks a bit of hope that we will get those days back.

We used Adobe Photoshop and got to pick out any brush we wanted to use. I found out that painting digitally is much different than traditionally. I like it yet it brings its frustrations like layers and accidentally clicking on the wrong things. I think my art definitely grew with this project learning to try new things and putting my mind to the test.

Public Service Announcement

For our PSA in my design class we had to use our this I believe statement which for me was reputation can take you far and make a public service announcement to tell people about it.

Belle Williams

What Respect and Reputation Can Do

My ideas for my PSA was to show how respect and reputation can get you far. I did it by drawing a suit to show off being professional and caring about your reputation. Then I drew ying yang signs on the buttons to show the balance between the respect you give and receive. If you want respect, you need to give it and vise versa. In order to keep a good reputation, you need to maintain this balance. I choose the blue, green, and gray colors to give it maturity and a sense of calm but also because those are my favorite colors. I choose the text that’s going over the drawing because I feel like the typewriter aesthetic goes with my theme but also I wanted something out of the ordinary to go with it.

I used Adobe Illustrator to create this piece of art. I used mainly the pen tool to fill in major blocks of color then I used the brush tool to add in details. I believe that I am pretty strong with Illustrator but I got to work with the brush tool more than I usually do, which hopefully strengthened my skills. I struggled with making the ying-yang signs exactly the way I wanted them to be but eventually got there. In the end, I’m pretty confident with what I created.

Halloween Negative Space