𝗥𝗘𝗙𝗟𝗘𝗖𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗦

Introduction

This semester we focused on answering the questions “Who Am I?” through projects in English, Digital Media, and Animation. In English, we explored this question by starting out with writing a college essay, reading Citizen, and writing a lyrical essay. In Digital Media, we created a personal mandala and furthered our skills in Adobo programs. In Animation, we were introduced to 3D animation using software like Maya, ZBrush, and Substance Painter. The following list was brainstorming for English where we wrote down “Essence Objects” that represent us:

Multimedia sketchbook
Headphones
My cats
Oil paint
Red bean matcha bread
Uncle’s dumplings
Leave-in conditioner
My cranberry-colored shoes
UNO cards
My pillow
Strawberry smoothies
My dad’s sneakers
The little red car I drove around the neighborhood as a kid
My favorite jacket
Favorite dangly earrings

Mandala Project

Mandala Build Review Video

I valued how the Mandala Project enabled me to become more familiar with Illustrator and I was able to discover more of the program’s strengths and weaknesses. I also thought it was cool to be able to turn my digital art into something physical. I gave my mandala a cultural theme so I was able to explore deeper into the cultural aspects of my life with this project. I was able to fit a lot of small, meaningful images into my composition.

I would change how I approached the line art/ black and white portion of the mandala process. I created a lot of intricate designs using a very small brush. This ended up being a minor problem when the design was transferred onto the bamboo board because some parts were really faint and not carved as deeply as other parts. It was even more so a problem when coloring because it was hard to find the right colors to create contrast in a really detailed design. Next time, I would like to plan out the colors as I’m doing my line art so I don’t end up in the same situation.

Photoshop Art

In this unit, we learned how to create digital art using Photoshop. This included digital painting and editing.

Painting

I was able to find Photoshop brushes I liked from Google and it was really fun to experiment with some textures (table, glass, etc). I chose to paint using this image as a reference because painting plants was something I had never tried before. I also enjoyed illustrating a scene with perspective as well. I valued that I was able to become more comfortable with digital painting and expand outside of traditional mediums. I also learned more about Photoshop which I will apply to future projects. I learned that I am a pretty ambitious digital artist as I spent 35 hours on this painting. It was a lot less tiring using Photoshop than traditional mediums which made me want to add more details and experiment more.

The subject of my painting is a little boy who likes the color red. The reference was taken of him at the circus and I used a light green background to make the colors on his face and hair pop. The first article mentioned how they struggled with whether or not they were good enough to call themselves an artist. I have experienced the same thing because I used to constantly compare myself to other artists and would lose confidence in my own abilities. I also relate to the second article mentioning that it is important to find the right mentor and to enjoy creating art. I have learned much more quickly and efficiently from having an art teacher than I maybe would have if I had continued to teach myself. Additionally, I agree that an important factor in creating art is to enjoy it. I think it is easy to tell the difference between art you are forced or assigned to create versus art you make of your own volition. I enjoyed the watercolor style of painting because I was able to build colors to make them opaque and the brushes I used had nice textures that elevated the piece. For the Pastel Painting, I also liked the textures of the brushes and thought that they contributed a lot to the work. Personally, I was definitely able to transfer my skills from analog to digital painting. Painting digitally makes the process a lot less time-consuming.

Editing

The subject of my first image is the steering wheel and control area of a ship. That picture was taken during this summer when my family and I went on a houseboat trip to Lake Mead, Nevada. The second image is a picture of a cafe in downtown San Luis Obispo I visited frequently during my road trip there. The third image is of my cat in her favorite area of the backyard. I thought it was really interesting to see how you can transform an image to look just like a painting. I enjoyed experimenting with the Color Blur layer and Vignette. I plan on trying out different filters with other pictures in the future. This assignment has shown me a new way to edit pictures that I will definitely try out again with different images. It has also made me interested in trying out watercolor painting. I think the effect looked really nice over the images and I hope to be able to paint something like those edited photos.

My composition portrays the varying perspectives between people. For the boy, the water is a lake yet for the woman, it is a glass to drink from. They see the same thing but have different interpretations of it. I found using the layer mask very helpful for blending things into their surroundings. I also found that the quick selection tool made the process a lot more efficient and the adjustment layers helped me to achieve the look I wanted for my composition. I painted warm yellows or cool blues to create more contrast between light and shadow in parts of the piece and used a magenta fill layer to cancel out the parts I felt were too green. I think Surreal Compositions allow for more creative freedom and experimentation and personally are more fun for me. The Realistic Composition was interesting but I was more focused on making the work appear cohesive rather than the idea behind it.

Animation

In Animation this semester, we focused on 3D modeling with Maya to Zbrush and then to Substance Painter. I really enjoyed the transition from 2D to 3D modeling. We created a character and weapon in preparation for our Zenith project and we also did some practice modeling.