Reflections

Introduction to Reflections

During our reflections unit, we contemplated the question “Who am I?”. In English, we thought what we believed in through our essays. In Digital Media, we created mandalas and a video based on one of our English essays. In animation, we worked on digital sculpting, which gave us a lot of time to think about ourselves.

Honestly, I am a person who actively avoids the question we were supposed to be considering because I have no idea how to answer it. It took a large amount of mental effort for me to get through this unit. I valued the skills we gained from learning the software, but I generally don’t think very highly of myself so I would rather not spend a lot of time thinking about that again. However, I learned that I can be surprisingly helpful to others sometimes so that was cool.

Animation Projects

Digital Sculpting

We learned how to sculpt digitally in Zbrush and model with Autodesk Maya. We added details to our weapon modeled in Maya with Zbrush. We also created a skull and head in Zbrush. In Maya, we created a temple scene and tried variations of fire hydrants.

Creature Head

Facing Front
3/4 View
Side View

Colorful Shader
Wood Shader
ZBrush Behind the Scenes

Skull

Skull

Weapon Creation

Zbrush Behind the Scenes

Maya Modeling

Temples
Fire Hydrants

Digital Media + English Projects

Mandala

We used Adobe Illustrator to design a black-and-white mandala and a colored one. We used the brush tool and a clipping mask to create repeating and reflecting patterns. Our black-and-white one was engraved on a material of our choice. I filled my black and white one with a lot of references to my friend group and the ocean. I tried to make my colored one look kind of spooky because I like creepy-looking art with dark backgrounds and bright colors.

Black and White
Pizza Board Engraving
Colored Mandala
Mandala Build Reveal Video

During the creation of the mandalas, I liked how one stroke could create so many patterns. It allowed me to add a lot of detail without the process being tedious. I enjoyed being able to zone out and watch the mandala come to life as I was drawing. I appreciated having the ability to fit a lot of different characteristics into the mandala. 

The mandalas gave me a chance to realize I appreciate when art pieces have a lot of little references and hidden parts within them. I liked blending happier aspects with darker ones in the mandala. I also like the look of bright colors against a dark background. I think that really makes the art stand out. Contrast makes life interesting in my opinion. 

Photoshop Art

We learned how to use Adobe Photoshop to create art. We created a painting, converted photos, and 360 art. I enjoy using Photoshop for drawing, so this unit was interesting to me.

Painting

Fish

For this project, I decided to paint a portrait of one of my characters. I learned a lot about digital painting. As an animator, I’m used to digital drawing, however painting is very different. I did not realize how different it was at first, and it took me several attempts before I was satisfied with my work. I learned that in painting, it looked better the more messy I was with my strokes and that I shouldn’t be trying to blend the colors too much. It was also helpful to stay zoomed out during the majority of it, because it allowed me to see where I should block in the colors. 

If I could change anything about this painting, I would change the hair. That was by far the most difficult part of the painting for me. Every time I tried to paint the strands of hair, it would just look like weird streaks instead of strands. After trying to figure it out for hours, I settled for a more solid look. Although it was challenging, I appreciated the knowledge I gained in my attempts to fix the hair. I am most proud of the colors in this painting. Pink is a difficult color to work with but I think it worked out well overall. 

Overall, this project inspired me to get better at painting. I enjoy the look of paintings, and I’d like to be able to improve in terms of the time it takes to make one and the quality of the work itself.  

Photo Compositing

We used Photoshop to learn how to composite pictures together. We used different blend modes, layer masks, and clipping masks. It was fun.

Honors: Memoir Essay

In our English class, honors students read a memoir and then chose a prompt to write about it. I did mine on Jenny Lawson’s memoir, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, and evaluated it based on how well she showed her values and vulnerability.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to read someone’s stream of consciousness?  In Jenny Lawson’s memoir Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, she writes  about her life as a writer in Texas with seemingly no filter. Although at first glance the memoir appears to lack any formality, Lawson surprisingly shows a lot of vulnerability. Her book demonstrates that she appreciates uniqueness, home, family, and especially humor.

To begin, early in the memoir Lawson makes clear that she embraced being different from everyone else. In an argument with her sister while they were in high school they said: 

“‘People think I’m weird because I wear a lot of black?’ I asked. 

‘You’re dressed as poultry.’

Lisa shrugged indifferently. “That may be true, but I was elected to dress as poultry, and when I walk down the hall in my costume tomorrow, people will smile and high-five me. When you walk down the hall tomorrow, people will spit and avoid eye contact to keep you from putting voodoo curses on them.”

‘Okay, first of all, you can’t even get real high fives because you don’t have hands. And secondly, I’d need to have someone’s hair or nail clippings to put a voodoo curse on them.’

‘THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT,’ Lisa yelled, pausing her bird routine to cross her wings in frustration. ‘You shouldn’t even know how to do voodoo curses. It’s bizarre. WOULD IT KILL YOU TO JUST TRY TO BE NORMAL?’ 

‘Oh I’m sorry…. could you repeat that last part?’ I asked. I can’t hear you through YOUR GIANT FUCKING BIRD HEAD.'”(59)

Lawson’s frustration with her sister indicates that she enjoys going against what is considered “normal” and doesn’t care that her style is seen as strange by her peers. After this argument, Lawson decided to follow her sister’s advice, which only resulted in her having the worst, most embarrassing experience of her high school life. That experience only solidified her desire to be unique and not conform to the status quo. Her need to be different is also seen within the way she wrote this memoir. She swears frequently, makes up words, and overall writes like it’s for a social media post rather than a published book. It’s not at all what one would expect from a memoir, but it truly showcases how strongly she values non-conformity. 

In addition, Lawson reveals that she cares deeply about having a sense of home. She and her husband moved to the city, away from the countryside that she was used to. During a vacation back to her hometown, she reflects on how everything was different from how she remembered. She wrote: 

 “Later that night I sat out on the porch, looking at the same stars I’d stared at when I was ten and had longed to travel to places that existed only in my mind. They were places like Egypt or France, but they were the Egypt and France of a child’s mind, filled with blurry visions of perfect pyramids, and warm sands, and Eiffel Towers, and something that people called ‘wine’. They were visions of places that weren’t quite real, but that was long before I discovered that the romanticized places on the map were more than just pretty pictures, and that included things I couldn’t have even imagined when I was young. Things like political unrest, and dysentery, and hangovers. 

That night I looked up at those same stars, but I didn’t want any of those things. I didn’t want Egypt, or France, or far-flung destinations. I just wanted to go back to my life from my childhood, just to visit it, and to touch it, and to convince myself that yes, it had been real. Victor could tell I was upset, but I couldn’t find a way to describe it without sounding ridiculous. ‘It’s nothing,’ I said. ‘It’s just that… Have you ever been homesick for someplace that doesn’t actually exist anymore? Someplace that exists only in your mind?” (116)

This passage really stood out to me because it was weirdly eloquent compared to the style of the rest of the book. There weren’t any swearing or sarcastic comments in this paragraph, making it have more impact on the audience. Earlier in the story, she described her childhood as kind of crazy, and when she was a kid she wanted to escape it. However, this passage establishes that she now misses it, showing that she valued the home feeling that her rural town once had. She is especially vulnerable in this passage because she doesn’t try to make it funny in the same style as the rest of the book, yet there is still a trace of her humor when she talks about dysentery and hangovers. 

Lawson also illustrates that she cares a lot about her family. After having multiple miscarriages, the doctors gave Lawson medicine that would help her keep the baby. As a result of having many miscarriages before, Lawson developed OCD routines in an attempt to do everything that she felt was in her power to save her child this time. 

“I kept my appointments and adamantly insisted that none of them fall on an unlucky numbered day. I took to calling that number twelve-B. As in eleven, twelve, twelve-B, fourteen. People thought I was insane, and I was. (Still am.) But I wasn’t taking any chances, and curing my worsening OCD wasn’t as important to me as the possibility that asking the cats to wish me luck was keeping the baby alive. Once, as Victor drove me to work in the morning, I realized I’d forgotten to ask the cats to wish us luck and demanded that he turn around immediately. He tried to logically explain that the cats didn’t actually have the ability to give me good or bad luck, but it didn’t matter. I knew that the cats weren’t in charge of good luck. These were the same cats who would stand inside the litter box and cluelessly poop over the side, Of course they weren’t controlling my destiny I was controlling my destiny. I was just doing it by following all the little OCD routines that I’d picked up that made life keep going. They were, of course, all the bizarre little routines that made my life incredibly complicated as well, but it was a mental illness I was willing to live with if it kept my baby (who we’d just been told was a girl) alive. ” (144-145)

Lawson explains how her fear of miscarrying again affects her mental health. She adds a bit of humor with her explanation of the cats and the litter box, making the passage a bit more lighthearted to read while maintaining her vulnerability discussing a serious topic. It also shows that she values her family a lot, stating that she would live with mental illness if it meant her daughter would live. She’s also a person who generally seems to value her independence highly and doesn’t like following rules, so her keeping up with all the appointments and doing all these things to ensure her child survives shows how much she cares about her baby. Aside from this specific passage, Lawson also mentions her husband Victor often throughout the book, and there are a few chapters dedicated to just her interactions with him. She also talks about how much she loved her dog near the end of the book. Lawson exemplifies how much she cares for her family throughout the memoir. 

 Finally, Lawson includes many, many embarrassing moments throughout the book, illustrating how she cares about  humor. She ends her story with a conversation she had with her sister about what she wants for her kid, explaining why the majority of her book is embarrassing things that happened to her. She wrote: 

“‘I guess those would be the things I’d wish for Hailey.’

 Lisa looked at me quizzically. ‘Yeah, I don’t think anybody wishes for their kids to get mauled and stuck in a cow vagina.’ 

‘I just mean metaphorically,’ I added. 

Lisa nodded and closed her eyes as she rested her head on the porch chair. ‘Well that’s good,’ she said absently as she stretched her legs out to bask in the sun. ‘Because in real life that’s the sort of shit that haunts you forever. Those are the kinds of memories that get seared into your mind for good.’ 

I looked over at her and mimicked her pose, feeling the sun bake into my bones as I let her words run through my mind. I smiled gently to myself as I closed my eyes and thought, ‘My God. I certainly hope so.’” (384)

Lawson shows that she values the embarrassing weird moments in her life because they’re the ones that you remember. Although they’re awful at the time, she looks back on them fondly and hopes that her own child will have fun moments like that as well. This passage is also a perfect blend of Lawson’s humor that she uses throughout the book mixed with the more serious message of appreciation for life’s weird moments. 

Overall, through her vulnerability in being able to express the most embarrassing moments of her life, Lawson showcased her core values in a humorous way in this memoir. She was also unafraid to show the audience some of the darker parts of her life as well, and maintained traces of humor without undermining the seriousness of those moments. The way her values were shown throughout the story gave a lot of insight into how Lawson is the type of person who can find a lighthearted part to almost any situation. She’s bold, and writes what people think to themselves but wouldn’t dare say out loud. In conclusion, Lawson’s memoir does an excellent job at illustrating what she cares about and the type of person that she is. 

Works Cited – Lawson, J. (2013). Let’s pretend this never happened: (a mostly true memoir). London: Picador.

This I Believe

In our English class, we wrote an essay on what we believed in. This was one of the hardest things I’ve had to write. I am still young, and I know that I’m not sure about anything I know anything yet. After a very difficult process of trying to find a topic to write about, I settled on believing in sharks. I was inspired by how they just live without constantly worrying and planning their every move for the future.

This I Believe Video

Learning to Think Like a Shark

By: Maya Sullivan

After Effects behind the scenes
After Effects Behind the Scenes

I believe in sharks. They seem to live in the moment. There’s no worrying about tomorrow, only what their next meal will be. They’re so powerful, yet so simple. Most importantly, they keep moving forward gracefully through the water, no matter what. 

Conversely, I am a person who overthinks everything. Even as I am writing this out I’m worrying about whether or not it will sound right. I will remember every embarrassing thing I ever did, and I’m never 100% sure if I’m doing the correct things. I think I could learn a lot from the way sharks live.

When I was a bit younger I used to be more like them. I met a nice girl in music class the summer before kindergarten. I wanted to get to know her, so we spoke, and there was no wondering about what the other person would think. Over time, we talked more, occasionally got into mischief, and never looked back. She became my best friend. Then she moved away, and suddenly the closest friend I ever had for over 9 years wasn’t with me anymore. We still keep in touch but we’re both a little different now. Nevertheless, I have no regrets about that first day in music class though, when all that existed was me and my new friend ready to move into the future without fear of what it might hold.   

However now, I have to do my best to keep myself together if I get a C or less on my academic work, and I can’t initiate conversations because I’m afraid that the other person will think I’m weird. Then history repeated itself. I met a few people and I really wanted to become good friends with them. Only this time I wasn’t in a kindergarten music room, and I couldn’t speak the way I used to. Holding back my desire to strengthen my friendship because I was afraid I would ruin the future hurt more than I realized at the time. It all suddenly hit me when I had a massive breakdown during a cold autumn afternoon. A few days later, both my old and new friends all showed me that they truly cared about me more than I thought was possible. That made me very happy, and then I realized that I was stressing out so much over absolutely nothing. 

Experiences like that are why I believe in thinking like a shark. I want to act the way I did when I was younger. I can be seventeen, and appreciate my life and choices the way they are now. I can make mistakes, and move forward from it. I’ll focus on what’s in front of me, seize opportunities without fear, and step forward into the future no matter what it holds.