Reflections

Going into senior year, It was quite a journey. It it is an adventure of self discovery that I know every senior I know has gone through and now myself is as well. As I now try o apply to collages with essays and interviews, I constantly have to ask myself: ‘Who am I?’ At freestyle, we explored that question in many different ways. In English, our requirement was to create a personal essay about that same question. In which we had to condense our whole life or certain important moments in our life into 650 words maximum.

Here are my 20 Items

-Sketchbook

-Pencils 

– any bottle of water 

– glasses 

– my metal ring

-my house keys 

– a sweater 

-nice, loose clothing 

– an apple iphone 

-some type of earphones/ airpods 

– a fantasy book of my choosing 

–  black, elastic hair tie 

– an blackened eraser 

– pockets 

– laptop

– my cat 

– Air conditioning 

– fuzzy socks

–  warn down sneakers 

– Black colored clothing 

Mandala

For this art piece, I first had to think about what I wanted it to be about. At first, I though about making it edgy in a sense, kind of creepy. But, then I realized it really wasn’t what I was going for. I wanted to put in my love for my original characters as well as my love for building on those character’s stories. So, I called this Mandala, “A Dove’s cycle”.

In each intricate row, I created a part of the character and his life. The character in the middle of this Mandala is who I consider as my favorite. Leander. He is my most built upon character with the most depth. The dove represents his heritage as a demigod. The urn with the fawn is like his childhood- as well as the wilting flower. Though, most of it can be interpenetrated as whatever someone thinks. This character really is close to my heart because I made him with myself in mind. His character is complex with many layers that need to be pulled in order to see the real person.

When I first saw the colored version all carved out, I was quite surprised at how nice it actually looked. Though the colors had dulled a little more than I expected, I was still happy with the results. For the non colored version, I chose plastic with rose gold. I just really liked the idea of having the mandala be shiny and make the engravings pop. 

(Introduce Mandala reveal video)

 While creating this piece, I didn’t really use any wacom tablets and preferred to use my own mouse even if my hand was unready. I merely felt more in control of my strokes as well as where my mouse would be on the screen. Looking back, I had noticed that my artistic skills have been slowly but surely improving with the time I’ve spent creating art. Using Illustrator gives me less barriers than I usually have with just a pen and paper. It gives me more options to try new things. I believe that my favorite and best part of this mandala is the middle because I spent a lot of time on it the most and it is the one that will have the most color and detail because it really brought the piece to life. Though, working with the color, it took a lot more time to finish it. But, I’m happy with the details and I hope the middle stands out the most.  With the video, it took a lot of time to even record the screen because not all the layers would appear when clicked ouon it and it was pretty slow sometimes so it took a lot of time to reveal each stroke and layer. But I the end, I’m really most proud of all the meanings in each layer that probably I only understand because this character is so dear to me. 

My Personal Museum

In this project, we as a class traveled to the SF MOMA and were required to choose a total of 5 art pieces. Three that I would want to out in my own art museum and two that I would exclude. The choices I chose were based on how I view art and weather the art speaks to me or I am able to read more into the piece instead of just noting the color and shape. The art pieces that I can create my own visual as well as see another image inside the painting, are the ones that I would choose.

As an artist, it really influenced my choices of which painting I chose for this assignment because of what kinds of art I see on a daily basis. Most art that I consume usually has more than just one or two colors with cool designs that aren’t just regular shapes. Another thing that has influenced me is my dislike for modern art. Nowadays, modern art can literally be anything and usually have no meaning.

core Values

For this project, our objective was to lean how to animate on Adobe After Effects in which we leaned about word transitions and inserting audio of ourselves speaking our Values out loud.

(Insert Video Here)

For this art piece, I wasn’t sure about what I wanted to do in the first place. But then, I decided to go simple. During this process, I chose to do certain transitions because I knew they would have certain meanings in my mind. For example, I put in Loyalty in purple, which usually symbolizes royalty. And I added the flickering effect to it because I know that loyalty is not always permanent, it can always waver at any time. Another thing that I added was kindness and the effect I chose for when it disappears. I made it go off screen last because losing kindness is probably the last thing someone wants to lose, but it is the fasted to be forgotten. That’s way it disappeared faster than the rest. 

Most of the colors were somewhat random except for loyalty as well as Love. For music, I just really liked the beat and I thought it was really catchy and I tried to match each animation with some downbeat of the music, even if it wasn’t for each one. For placement, I somewhat put it in the order in which I sorted which values I value the most in life. 

FILM

Reflection

For this film, it was meant to be a reflection of one’s self. We had to add visuals that would be able to convey what was being said by the narrirator (me). I had lots of fun with this project because I really got to be vulnerable and it really made me feel seen as well as heard.

Surround sound

Fois project, we had leaned about the different techniques film people use to make the audience feel immersed in the experience. For this, I worked with Karen and we both played table tennis together and in the last part, had to make it seem that there was a sound coming from the back of the audience. While in post, it was somewhat of a struggle to make it accurate enough so it was believable, but we still managed.

one Minute Collaborative Video

For this project, we were tasked to create short stories in which we drew the as storyboards. Then, we switched groups, meaning that my group- who made a story about a Grim reaper[er trying to kill dude was given to someone else to film. The same thing happened when editing. We all played a role in creating a film. whether that was filming, creating, or editing! I had lots of fun with it and I thought everyone’s ideas and editing skills were great!

1 Period Film

In this project, we were tasked with creating a film with only the time we had in class. I did this with Steven, Emaa, and Luca. It was a film based on Squid games.