Reflections

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Intro

The Reflection unit is all diving deep into our core values, and who we are as a person. Our very first project had us making a video on our core values in After Effects, and animating the different words.

*Insert Video Here When it is Out*

In English, we wrote an essay embodying core values, which for many doubled down as the college essay for the Common App. In Design, We did an array of projects including a collage on Photoshop detailing our summer, a Public Service Announcement, and piece inspired by Aboriginal Art.

Mandala Project

In Digital Media, we made Mandalas that reflect an aspect of us.

I have always loved learning about astronomy, and science in general. It is one of the few more left-brained activities I enjoy, as for the most part I am a right brained person who likes creativity. Being creative means that I am “spaced out” and “in my own world” some of the time. So, I felt like a more night sky and space themed design for my mandala would be a fun idea with how it encapsulates both sides of me.

Overall, the Mandala project was an incredibly fun one for me as it let me showcase my artistic skills and use Illustrator.

College Essay

This essay was meant to showcase to colleges who the writer is as a person, highlighting things like passions, challenges, and core values. I believe I successfully conveyed my character through this piece, especially by showing how I discovered the importance of self-advocacy and grew more confident in making decisions that align with what I believe is best for me.

Summer Collage

The Summer Collage project is all about bringing together pictures that represent various experiences that happened over the summer, and turning them into a surreal collage. Then, we had to edit the photos in Photoshop to make them resemble a certain historical art style, and then draw over the collage in Illustrator. I tried emulating the ancient Egyptian art style with the iconic way they draw eyes (or should I say eye-conic), and how there are usually a few smaller art pieces next to one larger piece. On the top there is a computer, which represents how I taught at a digital art camp over the summer. In the middle, there is a giraffe as I went to the zoo for my birthday. On the bottom, there are books for how much I read over the summer.

Public Service Announcement

My PSA portrays a miserable looking girl, with blood-like tears streaming down her face. Her hands are folded over her stomach, where a Dahlia flower is resting. The dahlia flower has vines coming out of it poking parts of her body hard enough to cause blood. This is supposed to represent invisible disabilities, as other than the flower and her facial expression, she looks completely fine. But the flower is there inside her causing pain and distress. Her hands are folded over the flower, keeping it partially hidden to emphasize its “invisibility”. I specifically chose to do a Dahlia flower due to how darker dahlias often symbolize pain. For the color scheme, I went with fully blues and some blueish purples for the girl, because of how those colors represent melancholy and sadness. For the blood and the dahlia, I went with a dark magenta to create a contrast, and also since that color is close to the red of blood while still being in the range of my color palette. The background is the same color as the dahlia so that it is tied together with the drawing of the girl.

To make it, first, I sketched out a rough draft of the girl’s body in Illustrator. Then, I went back with the pen tool to fill it in with color and smoothen it. I then made one petal of the dahlia flower, before copying it multiple times and placing all the petals together to make up the flower. The hardest part for me was probably drawing her hair. I first drew the outline of the hair in a lighter color, before highlighting the flow of the curls in a darker color to give them more volume.

Here is also a shot of my mood board, and my work in progress:

Aboriginal Art

Inspired by Aboriginal art, we made our own digital drawings in Design. The art piece had to consist of an animal we resonated with, our constellation, our star sign, and any two aboriginal symbols. I really love penguins, and therefore chose to draw one. My sign and constellation is a Leo, so the drawing has a lot of orange, yellow, and red, as it is a fire sign. The symbols I chose were rainbow and woman as I liked how they looked.