This unit was about gaining a deeper understanding of our identity to answer the question, “Who am I?” We created a lot of projects centered around our experiences, personalities, and values to represent ourselves through art creatively. Some of my Reflections projects reflect my core values, three of which are community, leadership, and compassion.
Core Values
In Digital Media I created a video in After Effects to represent a lot of my core values. I learned to apply basic motion graphics to text and familiarized myself with the After Effects tools. Watch it below!
Mandala
In Digital Media, we had to create a mandala that reflects anything that we connect with. I themed my mandala around personal growth and freedom and incorporated lots of leaves, flowers, and butterflies to represent this.
Can’t see my mandala?
On a Mac, press Command + (plus) then press Command – (minus)
On a PC, press the Cntrl + (plus) then press the Cntrl – (minus)
Black and White Mandala
Growing up, I always had a very shy personality. I’d sometimes struggle to be myself around others and I’d be hesitant to make new friends. As I grew older, I worked to overcome my shyness and let myself share my personality with more people. This mandala, moving from budding flowers to large plants, conveys my journey of overcoming those challenges and growing into a better version of myself. The butterflies serve as a representation of spreading my wings as I learn to express my true self to others.
Colored Mandala
Through the colored version of my mandala, I took a bit of inspiration from Tommy Heavenly6, a Japanese pop-punk artist I like listening to. A lot of her album covers combine feminine visuals with dark colors and elements, and I wanted to do something similar with the color palette of my mandala. I chose to use pink for the softer areas of my mandala and gray for the parts that were more “spiky.” The finished product is very girly, and I think I was able to capture some of the soft grunge yet feminine aesthetics featured in the Tommy Heavenly6 sound and visuals.
Design Productions
Surreal Summer Collage
Our first project of the year was the Surreal Summer Collage. We had to create a collage that employed surrealism and another 19th century art style of our choice to depict what we did over summer break. I chose to take elements from the style of the pop art movement and used bold colors and everyday objects in my collage about my trip to NYC.
Each aspect of the collage represents something I saw or did on my trip, like sightseeing or eating good food. Some of the visuals (like the fork) are a little funny to me now, but I think it makes the collage more lighthearted!
Public Service Announcement
Necessity, Not Luxury
We also made PSAs about social issues in Adobe Illustrator. We had to use limited text and create an eye-catching illustration. I designed my PSA around period poverty, since it is an issue I care about deeply. Through the text, Necessity Not Luxury, I aimed to capture the issue in a concise way.
After designing this PSA, I think I’ve improved a lot at working with Illustrator! I particularly enjoyed making the gradients for the cloud.
Click to read my artist statement!
PSA Moodboard
Before designing the PSA, we had to research our topics and create a moodboard with our chosen fonts and colors. We also incorporated images related to the topic. However, it turns out that I am terribly indecisive, and I ended up changing my fonts and color palette. Regardless, my moodboard was still very helpful as I was coming up with initial ideas!
Aboriginal Art
Transformations and Tranquility
This project required us to draw from our identities as we created a dot painting inspired by the traditional Aboriginal art style. I used Aboriginal symbols that I resonated with, like ‘moon’ and ‘people sitting.’ We also had to paint a creature that represents us. I chose a butterfly because I have experienced positive growth and transformation as a person over the past year.
Click to read my artist statement!