Reflections

In Reflections I was given an opportunity to express myself through my art. I learned that when creating art the environment, or the world tends to be a frequent trend, as it’s something I really care about in particular. The opportunities to review and further explore our different utilities such as photoshop lead me to create many things that I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to make without.

Mandala Project

For the Mandala Project, we practiced making templates on Adobe Illustrator, for personal use, before we were given free range to create a mandala of our choice. We created different templates with differing amount of slices for personal use and created 2 different mandalas, one of which was laser engraved as seen below.

Naturopath

In creating my personal mandalas I valued the learning of different mandala techniques and the variation between the amount of slices a mandala could have. It was also nice to have the creative freedom that I was given while creating my own mandalas. I used different techniques, and numbers of slices for both mandalas, and obtained deeper insight into how they were created. Producing my own templates, so that I can make mandalas in the future if I so please. It was also important for me to get more practice with adobe illustrator, and the tools available.

I learned that I have a particular interest in nature, and find the colors that are found outside the most interesting. Thinking of things to draw into my mandala I could think of nothing better than islands in the black and white. Whilst in the colored I drew fruits, vines, and flowers. I enjoy bright vibrant colors mixed together with natural greens. I value the environment more than anything else in this world, and I think I expressed my interest in it through my art.

This I Believe Video

For my This I Believe Video I considered why it was considered polite to be engaged and speaking often at the dinner table. When I know that many people believe that sometimes saying less can be more meaningful. For this project we used Adobe After Effects to produce a video too which would complement our recorded performance. I valued how for this project we revisited things that we had learned about in the prior year. This helped me better reinforce the knowledge of how to use the tools, and fill in some things that I had forgotten.

Saying Less

I believe saying less can mean more. Saying less is what colleges want when you’re writing an essay. Limiting you to an amount of sentences or words, making word choice necessary, but with that in mind you’re also expected to be brief so that you can tell as much as you can about yourself. 

Or even in school now,  making a science paper, saying less can mean that you’re more precise. Having good proportions of qualitative data and quantitative data so you aren’t distracting your teacher with extra words. Just the facts and observations, no need for anything fancy, will help you communicate better. Using easy to understand words can help people understand you more, giving you a wider audience. Which can be helpful if you’re working with younger kids, or even older adults, preventing confusion.

You really have to learn from experience, when I’ve interacted with my family, I know how much they enjoy speaking. It’s less of a conversation, and more of a lecture if I speak to someone like my dad, no matter the topic. Sometimes I sit there and regret having come to ask the questions that I ask. I go for an answer, and just an answer, not a whole explanation of things that I understand. But what I’ve learned is just sitting there and saying “Okay” repeatedly is the fastest way out of it. Once he begins speaking he isn’t going to stop, any sort of distraction he will take as rude and a sign of lack of interest. Which may or may not be accurate, sometimes though I’m excused from the whole explanation due to the fact that I now have timely zoom meetings that I cannot be late for. Sitting around the dinner table after a long day at school of listening to people, I have to be patient and listen more. I am given the chance to talk but, diving into the boring days work is exhausting and just the simple “okay” will get my family off my back. It will save me all the work of having to explain the ins and outs and the complexity of even the simple school day. With all its social challenges, and my thoughts, that aren’t even concise in themselves. This can be hard, especially if you’re sitting at the table and it’s expected that you should make communication, when I just want to sit and keep to myself, saving everyone and myself from the discussion. Although, if you must talk, eating slowly, and also talking slowly, being sure to be concise and not delve far into the intricacies which I know people don’t want to hear. Considering that it bores me half to death sitting and listening to someone go on and on.

This is why I believe that saying less can be more. You may not be able to keep your thoughts completely organized; you’re able to make it easier on everyone else. However, it also makes it easy on you, stopping you from having to re feel the emotions of the whole day.

The photo above shows my Adobe After Effects workspace, with all the different layers, and some of the keyframes that I used to control things such as sound, position, and scale.

Photoshop Art

In Photoshop we were able to learn different new mediums, such as pastel and watercolor painting. We were also taught how to use photoshop to edit photos together, applying textures, recoloring, making different clipping masks, in an effort to make surreal art. As well as a understanding of how to present things in a 360 degree gallery.

Quarantine Hiking

I was able to learn how to use photoshop to make watercolor and pastel paintings, I struggled mostly with organization and getting proper layering. However I figured out that by using proper layering and taking time to make layers it would make it easier to focus on certain aspects of my painting without worrying about coloring over other parts. I’m proud of how my pastel paintings came out in the end, even though I don’t think I’m an exceptionally good artist, I think that the pieces I created are pleasant to look at. Being all created after photos I had taken whilst running in an effort to get in better shape and get more motivation back in my life. I will use the ideas on this project and try and continue making pastel paintings, as I found it to actually be really relaxing and somewhat simple. I can make it an even longer process with likely better results by decreasing the pixel sample size (which determines the colors used in the painting), and working on even smaller details. I appreciate and understand the time it takes to create the art, and know how difficult it may be especially since the tools that I used to create the piece aren’t widely available, and most famous paintings I’ve seen didn’t get the ease of access that I did.

Lobster Ocean

In the creation of my Surreal Project I learned different ways I could combine photos together, it was actually very enjoyable compositing the photos together and throughout the process I repeatedly looked back to the lesson videos to try and keep redoing the techniques until they stuck with me enough to complete my own pieces. If I could change anything about my piece I’d try and find higher quality photos, as the images I used weren’t the highest resolution as I would’ve wanted. I’m proud of the quality of my piece despite the resolution being lower than ideal. The ideas I learned from this project will make it easier for me to edit photos together later if I continue to use photoshop.

In photoshop we learned how to create a virtual room with painting frames, which we could use to make a virtual 360 degree viewing gallery.

Personal College Essay

Short Video Narrative

For Film Production we were tasked with making a 2 minute long video essay that was an old Chapman prompt. Because I was applying to Chapman rather than make the video essay, I was prompted with making a 2 minute long silent narrative film. Which I have used as my video piece instead.

I created the production on Adobe Premier Pro, using my Digital SLR, and my family as actors. This was because of quarantine, and my inability to find actors outside of my own family. The film produced was produced after I had scrapped the idea for a hit and run short story.

I edited together a large amount of footage to just under 2 minutes, using many different work days to compile it all, and using old photos from my dads previous trips to complement the piece in a montage. I edited in non copyright soundtracks, and sound effects to make it more realistic.

I valued how at Freestyle Academy we were creating content that was getting us ready to make actual content such as college essays and this prompt that had used to be a chapman prompt. I was under my own constraint for this project, and was managing myself, rather than creating it just for a grade, it was part of my college application and future. I really appreciate how my Film Teacher Mr. Taylor was willing to count it for something, even though it didn’t perfectly follow the prompt.