Introduction

During our first unit as Seniors at Freestyle, we learned how to reflect upon and represent ourselves through a variety of means. We identified our core values so we could provide insight about our unique lived experiences creatively. In Digital Media, we did this through creating personal mandalas which would represent us in some way. In English, we did this by writing a personal essay following the format of the Common App college essay prompt requirements. Finally, in my elective class, Animation, we learned the basics of 3D Animation and moved towards creating our own original characters in various programs such as Autodesk Maya, Zbrush, and Substance Painter.

The most important thing that I learned throughout exploring the question of “Who am I?” throughout this unit is that at my core, I am a storyteller. While the way that present may change based on my current subject of interest, I always am seeking to understand and find new avenues of people’s lives to interpret and tell. I was both able to see the importance of storytelling to the formation of my identity (Mandala, Personal Essay) but also see how that formed identity then informed the projects I would go on to create (3D Work, Core Values).

Art Curation for Personal Museum

The first project we took on our senior year at Freestyle was the Art Curation for Personal Museum project. Similar to the assignment we did last year visiting the SFMOMA, during our annual visit this year we were tasked to take 5 pictures of artworks. 3 of these artworks had to be ones we liked and would add into our own potential museum, while 2 had to be explicitly excluded. My own work as an artist and my own criticism of my artwork influenced my choices about which pieces made my Personal Museum and which pieces didn’t make the cut because I tend to prefer more bright, colorful, abstract and simplistic pieces. I like being able to see my own meaning in work and have various interpretations of the same text instead of having a solid single answer. I also tended to not like more somber pieces, because when it comes to tackling harder themes in works I prefer to have them have a meaning or some sort of happier resolve overall. I also enjoy more experimental pieces that have an actual functional purpose or are trying to push on a pre-existing things.

Personal Mandalas

The Personal Mandala project in Digital Media tasked us to design and produce a Mandala (which is a geometric figure often representing the universe in Hindu and Buddhist religions) in Adobe Illustrator. The Mandala we made had to represent a core aspect of ourselves. I chose to represent myself by making my mandala based around my original story, which some people may know as being the focus of my explorations project last year. Since the story is such a core aspect of who I am and how I got to Freestyle, it just made sense to base it around that. We learned about reflecting and repeating transformations in Adobe Illustrator and produced a Black and White, Colored, and then engraved version of our Mandala’s. We were also introduced to After Effects which we used to edit a video that revealed the process of creating our Mandalas.

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The kind of art piece I produced for our Personal Mandala project was a Mandala based on my original story, which holds great importance to me. I used the same story as the basis for my pitch book which was my project during Explorations. I created this piece by using Adobe Illustrator, and I used various techniques such as the clipping mask function, repeating/reflecting transformations, and pen pressure. I learned how to create various “slice” types of a Mandala and then chose my personal favorite and used reflection/repetition to have my patterns be mimicked symmetrically in a circle.

The important activity and value I focused on in my Mandala was the importance of storytelling to me. I chose not to focus more so on aspects of just myself, but of the things I create because the things I create help inform who I am as a person. I use creative media as an escape and way to discover myself, so it made sense to use imagery from the story that helped me most throughout my life in a Mandala meant to represent myself. The mandala is primarily space themed, because my story takes place in space, and key imagery from it (symbols, a shield sigil, aspects of the various character’s designs, etc) all appear. My thoughts on drawing tablets and using pressure sensitive brushes is that I think it is an incredibly valuable tool creatively. Without a drawing tablet, my mandala would’ve turned out less natural and more synthetic looking. Instead of focusing on a clean design, we were focusing on creating a visually beautiful piece of art, so it made sense to learn about a tool that’d help us better achieve that.

Before this project, I was admittedly a bit rusty not using a screen tablet and/or ipad for drawing, so using this specific Wacom tablet had a bit of a learning curve. However, I’d say overall I am more confident in using it for my creative work. I am also more confident in various illustrator features (repeating, reflecting, clipping mask, etc) and can see how they can be used for various creative projects I may do in the future. The best part of my black and white mandala to me would be what it represents. It’s essentially a tribute to my primary interest, and for that I feel a lot of love for it. It’s not perfect from a technical standpoint, and it won’t please everyone, but it means something significant to me. It captures a key part of who I am and looking at other people’s versions of their mandala’s helped me clarify and/or know more about my classmates too.

The kind of art piece I produced was a colored version of my black and white mandala. It is different from my black and white mandala because of the obvious addition of color, but also because it does a better job of visually showing certain aspects of my mandala (i.e, the space theming, colors of each of the symbols, etc). My reaction upon seeing the finished colored mandala is that I am proud of the overall color scheme and the emphasis on the theming of the mandala due to the addition of color. I think it came out very nice and is overall very pleasant to look at, and color made the overall mandala much stronger in my opinion.

My intentions and visual expressions with the color scheme was once again tied to the fact that my mandala was based on my main story I’m working on. Due to it taking place in a space setting, a lot of space imagery and spacey colors ended up in the colored mandala. Additionally, as a fun easter egg, I decided to make the primary color palette of the mandala to be similar to my pitch book slideshow and color scheme. This would both tie into the mandala’s premise itself but also be a fun call back to those who were there for my explorations presentation.

Working with color changed my artistic technique and workflow because it allowed me to get a more full picture version of what I wanted for my mandala. While solely doing the line art was fun and nice, I think adding color really made the whole thing come together very nicely. The things that stand out best in my mind about my mandala are mostly the center. I think the white line art change and the galaxy background really look good with the rest of the mandala. Other reflections I have about my colored mandala is that I think in the future I want to create more colored mandalas like this one because not only was it relaxing to draw and then color, it was also fun and helped me explore an important side of myself.

After we’d created our Mandalas (both black and white and colored) we were tasked to use Adobe After Effects to edit together a “Build Reveal” video that’d show us creating our mandalas. We’d slowly reveal each part of our mandala in illustrator to show the behind the scenes process so that people would. have an insight into the creative thinking that goes into the creation of a project like this. We added text, appropriate music, and sped up footage to our video.

My reactions upon seeing my laser engraved mandala were incredibly positive. I think both the wood finish and the colored print came out wonderfully. My physical analog (pizza board) helped bring out a lot of the depth in my mandala, and I am really excited for its use practically.I chose the material I did because I really liked the idea of having a more practical use for my mandala. I live in a big family where having stuff act like a coaster for food can be extremely useful, since there’s so much to go around. I also wanted to be able to have a way to practically hold my mandala as well. I also just liked the look of the wood finish.

My reflections about the entire mandala project is that I learned a lot about creating art for the sake of creating it. This project held a lot of relaxing meditative elements to it, which helps considering the stressful work that comes on during senior year. I also learned a lot technically about Wacom tablets, certain features in Adobe Illustrator, and the stages of a project’s production. My favorite outcome overall of this project would be my colored version of my mandala, although I preferred the photographs for my black and white engraved version.

I will use the ideas I learned on this project in future projects via using what I’ve learned to respect the process and create for the sake of creating. Not everything about my mandala is perfect, but it is a personal representation of who I am, and I had a really good time making it. I hope to make more mandalas in the future because it allows me to indulge in a passion I enjoy (drawing) while also getting to not think too hard while doing it. That isn’t to say I wouldn’t pursue more detailed mandalas in the future, but I think the more meditative approach to doing them could be a huge benefit to me overall.

Core Values

As we learned more about After Effects, we were given multiple mini-assignments to let us experiment with various text effects. This culminated in us answering the question of “who am I?” by creating a video in After Effects utilizing various text effects to showcase each of what we considered to be our core values.

My Core Values video had to embody the very aspects that make up who I am as a person. As a result, I had to take careful consideration into what I would be including in my video. The final 7 values I went with were respect, creativity, ambition, curiosity, compassion, flexibility, and perseverance. 

I chose to do a rainbow color scheme for my values because of my love for the rainbow aesthetic and allegedly colorful personality. I also went with a space background because I have a love for space imagery, especially since it’s a core part of my primary story project. I mostly leaned towards cute or doodly sort of fonts to embody my more playful side, and similarly chose more bouncy text animations to reflect this. 

I also chose a very upbeat sounding soundtrack because it evoked the sort of energy I try to bring around whenever I meet new people. I timed the words to appear on beat with the music because I enjoyed the idea of having the words sync up and because it was recommended to do so for the assignment. The main difference between my choices for how I did the beginning/end and value portions of this assignment was that I wanted one to be more stable and secure and the other to be more bouncy and fun.

Personal Essay

For English, we were tasked to write a personal essay using the Common App word count and prompts. I answered the essential question of “Who am I?” by writing about how storytelling has shaped the person I am and how I seek to be a storyteller in my professional work as well.

We went through several drafts using several writing and revision methods, most of which being derived from “College Essay Essentials” by Ethan Sawyer. I learned a lot about myself via writing this essay, and it gave me a lot of clarity on the direction I wanted to go in both the college application process, but also where I want to go in my professional life.

Additionally, I recorded a short audio of me reading out my English Essay that you can listen to below. You can also read the essay yourself clicking the image below, which will load a pdf of the document.

Intro To 3D

In Animation, we began to focus on 3D animation, modeling, and sculpting in programs like Autodesk Maya, Zbrush, and Adobe Substance Painter. We started out by doing simple object exercises in Maya. We made a table scene, a temple, a weapon, and finally, a 3D character. We did some additional assignments in Zbrush, such as a skull and a human face to test out the program’s sculpting abilities. Finally, we added additional sculpting to all of our previous models and then moved them into Adobe Substance Painter, where we added texture and color to all of them.

3D Animation is a completely new realm to me, and learning to understand concepts such as extruding faces, UV mapping, and texturing has been a difficult but rewarding journey. This new avenue of an interest I already loved has made me not only love the medium more, but appreciate all of the hard work that goes into creating not just one, but all types of animation.