Reflections Project Introduction
The reflections project is meant to get students to play around with personal essay forms to develop insights about their identities. This is then translated by students into multiple visual forms, like websites and mandalas. In this unit, we also further developed our technical skills using the applications we learned in Junior year, with new programs like aftereffects mixed in. In animation, we started learning how to 3D model in Maya and Zbrush. Through this unit, I learned to connect more with why I like doing the things that I do. This connects to some of my core values of individuality and creativity because the process of learning more about myself and my interests through creative projects means that I am learning more about what only I can bring to the table.
Why I [Write] Essay
For English class, we wrote a personal narrative essay on why we do a creative activity of our choosing. I chose to write about why I tell stories, because I felt like that choice encapsulated all of the ways I get creative and why. Writing the essay got me thinking about my motives for creating and the background of why I create the way I do in the first place. I really started to realize who I am through the writing process, because I was thinking more about what makes me, me.
My Personal Mandalas
For this project, we were tasked with illustrating a mandala that answered the question of who we are. We learned new skills in illustrator, like how to use reflection and rotation to make a repeating mandala, and how to use pressure sensitive brushes to make varied strokes. Mandalas are a meditative process, requiring the artist to slow down and really think about where they are placing the strokes.
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My reactions to seeing my laser engraved mandala were positive. I loved the way it looked. The physical version was nice compared to the digital version because I could really see the texture of it. The laser engraving may have been slightly less precise, but I like the way it looks.
I chose leather because leather working is something that I find intriguing, and I thought my mandala would look nice on a softer material. I also used leather because it represents me in that I love natural materials, but also that I am a soft person, and of the materials, leather is softer than wood.
The whole mandala process allowed me to slow down and really work with intention on my art. The black and white strokes allowed me to get loose while maintaining precision, the colored strokes allowed me to slow down and think about what colors I think look good together, and seeing the mandala engraved got me to think full circle about the process as a whole. I am most proud of my digital mandalas, as they both show a lot of myself in them.
For this piece, I simply colored my original black and white mandala using the true colors, or the closest to them that I could find, of the items and characters that I drew. There isn’t much difference between the colored version and the original black and white version, other than the lineart color and the fact that the items are colored in. My intention was to use the colors that spoke to me instinctively, as well as the closest colors to the actual objects that I could get. I also chose colors that I thought were quite pretty, like the reds in various places and the greens of my character’s vest. I honestly just went with the flow when choosing colors to use. Working with color allowed me to slow down a bit and really sit with what I was drawing, more than working in black and white could. The workflow was slower, the technique was less focused and precise, asI used a rounder brush to color things in. I also went back and changed the stroke colors of my previous strokes to go with what I colored them with. My use of a yellow center piece stands out against I white backdrop and a darker colored foreground, helping to emphasize the center piece as a whole. Through this project, I had fun with using color and placing it in ways that appealed to me, but I feel like I could have slowed down even more and thought about what colors I was placing where in more depth.
For the final step of the mandala project, we were tasked with making a build reveal video. We took screen recordings of our mandala, slowly revealing all of the strokes by turning on their visibility one at a time. We then used Adobe After Effects to compile those recordings into an edited video, with a title screen, moving text, and music in the background.
I can now truly appreciate the way art can really slow down and be a meditative process. I can apply this mindset to any future artistic endeavors, but also just to life in general. This project strengthened my appreciation for others’ art, as everyone’s art is very personal to them, and this project really helped me see that.