Poetry
During the poetry unit in English, we learned about some different poem types and grammar structure. During the first week, we were lucky enough to have a Poet-In-Residence, Ms. Moor. She gave some great feedback and helped us all get started on our poetry. While she was here, we learned about free verse poems, that have no limits on structure, cento poems, which combine lines from other poems to make something new, and ars poetica, poems that are about poetry. For the final draft of my exploratory poem, I did a free verse poem that I based off of the idea of rhetorical questions with no real answer given the context of the poem.
Questions – Griffin Polika-Engle
When will I be able to bathe in
splendorous gold
and sin?
Why does the
flaming sun’s dance
curse my eyes with pain?
What watches me
from beyond the sky
to stalk my every action?
How does the blood’s
desire to weep
come true?
Where did the hands
and claws of darkness
pierce my fragile framework?
Who owns the heart
dripping ink and tears
within my chest?
Music Recording
For the music recording, I got a group of four friends and we decided to do a karaoke version of Let It Go from Frozen. The point of this project was to get comfortable with the recording studio and have some fun as a final project in digital media! I think we did pretty well overall, but I do wish we spent a bit more time learning the lyrics, because there were times when we got a bit quiet over not knowing them.
Artist Statement:
For our music recording project, we sang a cover of “Let it go” from Frozen, Hannah, Griffin, Josheline, and Kylie. AJ played drums. We got to use the recording studio, which we hadn’t gotten a chance to do before. The process involved setting up the microphones, headphone, and the drum recording. After that was done, we had to mix the audio and create the album cover
Mr. Flo assisted us in the process of getting everything set up. First, he worked with AJ to get the drums ready to record. AJ did a few practice runs of the recording while we all got ready. Then, we moved onto setting up the audio. Mr. Flo taught us how to adjust the headphones on the microphone, so we could set the correct volumes of backing track, drums, and our own vocals. We did two takes of the singing, and focused on having fun. We tried to move past our mistakes.
Once it was done, he gave us a chance to listen to the recording. It wasn’t perfect, but we had a great time sitting together and hearing each other sing. Then, we went back to the studio so we could get photos taken.
After we had the recording finished, Griffin worked to mix the audio in Pro tools. Joseline created the album art with our input and we all worked on this artist statement together.
Explorations Project
The main part of the Explorations unit is the exploratory project, basically deciding something you want to learn more about, and doing it. I’ve always wanted to create an olde medieval letter or map, so I chose to do that. When I told Ms. P, my design teacher, about this, she suggested using a deckle edge ruler to create a good torn edge and to coffee stain the paper for an older look. Thanks to her, I got most of my ideas for the process quickly and was able to begin working on my project quickly.
I began by using a deckle edge ruler to tear the edges of the paper. I then used test strips from the paper to see what the colour of the paper would be depending on how long I soaked it in the coffee. I found that about three minutes on each side was best. A major problem I ran into was that because the watercolour paper had different textures on each side, the front and back didn’t absorb the same amount of coffee and were differenly coloured. I tried using watercolours to fix this, and did pretty well, but I was still disapointed.
After using watercolours, I let it dry then decided that I needed to add something for more visual interest. To do this, I asked Ms. P if she had a lighter I could use to burn the edges, and she did, so I went outside and burned the edges to look a bit more crispy. I think that it was one of my favourite things to do, mostly because fire is cool. Then I crumpled the burned papers to make it look a bit more damaged. I then decided to use some of my extra papers that weren’t my final draft as scrolls that were rolled up with a wax seal to try testing the wax stamping process. Burning the wax and pouring it onto the letters made me feel super cool, but It was difficult to figure out how much wax to use per seal since I had a limited amount of it.
Once I finished with the rolled up versions, I began with writing the letter. I first made a digital version that I edited down to fit on the paper, and then wrote it on the paper using a calligraphy pen. I completely and utterly failed at this, because the ink bled really badly, which could contribute to the look, but I find it kinda ugly. I also chose to burn some holes where the bleeding was the worst to reduce the look of it being unintentional.
Overall, I’m really happy with my Explorations project. I think that I made what I was aiming to make, even despite the failures I achieved as well. I think that this helped me value the control that digital programs give you, because ninety percent of my tools were out of my control. This project was really fun, and even though I didn’t use many of the skills I learned during my time at Freestyle, I still used some of the main design concepts like spacing, visual weight, and more of a Freestyle concept, but grit and perseverance over hardship.