Reflections

Reflections Project Introduction

“Who am I?”. That was the question that guided our projects for this semester. At this time when beginning to think more about our future and college I felt like this unit really helped me explore more about myself. We got to learn some new skills and get more advanced with the skills we already learned last year. Our year in Digital Media started with learning for to create repeating patterns and radial symmetry to help use create personal mandala’s with various important elements of our identity. We continued with our photo blogs to help advance our photography skills. Additionally we went more in depth into what matters to us with our core values video that directly showcased values that were the most important to us. In English we started the year out with brainstorming core values that we could use to help us with the college writing process. We then moved into reading core text that t guided our “Why I [write]?” essays. We slowly started to brainstorm more about world building and the writing that goes into for preparation of our bigger world building project coming up. In Design we’ve started to go into more aspects of design like graphic design and product design. We also explored hands on art with our cursive names and even art from different cultures with our Aboriginal art. Through all of the work I’ve done this year you can see more of my personality, who I am, and what I represent through my artwork.

Why I Write Essay

When writing my “Why I [write]?”, I was beginning my application to art and design schools. This essay prompt really made me question why I wanted to get into the field of design. This essay helped me realize and put into words why I love design and creation. I was able to express my deepest thoughts and reasonings behind a major life decision I am making. Through this essay I feel I was able to also answer the question of “Who I am?”. Between reading core texts that inspired my writing and writing style I also was able to better understand who I am as a person and how others might view me. A major thing that helped throughout this entire writing process was being able to get so much peer feedback from others. Writing meaningfully and deeply about yourself is challenging, so being able to get so much peer feedback about myself and my writing was extremely helpful. I feel like the outcome of this essay sparked so much inspiration for me about “Why I create?”, that is the backbone of some of my college essay writings.

PDF document of my “Why I Create?” essay and my process reflection of the overall writing process.

My Personal Mandalas

The Mandala project was our first project of our 2nd year at Freestyle. We built on our previous skills of Adobe Illustrator and learned new techniques that we hadn’t used before. The main technique we learned was creating rotations and reflections of symmetry. This allowed us to only draw one section of our mandala and we had Illustrator draw in the remaining sections. This allowed us to utilize Adobe Illustrator to its max. While doing this I had to think more about how the entire thing would look once completed rather than just when I was drawing it out. I knew the different materials the mandala was going to be printed on, so the whole time while creating it I was thinking of the end result on the different materials.

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Black and White Artist Statement:

This project challenged us to illustrate a black and white mandala that had elements of things that are important to us or that we like. We had many choices as to how we wanted our mandala displayed. Options like engraved on a wood slice, acrylic led stands, leather, metal, and a wooden pizza board; which is the option that I chose. To start this project off we learned how to create the mandala template in illustrator and how to make it so we only drew one portion of it and the rest would mirror and copy. We used a variety of illustrator techniques including repeating and reflecting transformations, drawing boundaries, clipping masks, pressure sensitive brush strokes, and much more. This was a useful skill to learn because it saved us the time of having to draw the whole mandala out and made sure that everything was perfectly symmetrical. For my mandala I choose to include pomegranates as the theme throughout my piece. Pomegranates have always been a big part of my life and it is something that everyone knows about me. Whenever someone spots a pomegranate at a store they always bring one back for me. My family back home in India knows when I come to buy a lot of them for me to enjoy. In my room I have a variety of pomegranate themed decor that I’ve bought and have been gifted to me. I featured out a large pomegranate in the center then through the piece I tried to make shapes that resemble pomegranate seeds and other elements like leaves. At the same time I also wanted to make it look visually appealing so I used a variety of illustrator brushes in order to help me achieve what I had in mind. Being a design student I have already had a good amount of experience with illustrator and wacom tablets so adjusting to using it for my mandala wasn’t a challenge for me. Something that I did struggle with for this project was knowing when to stop adding details. I wanted something that was a bit simpler so that when it was laser engraved onto the pizza board I chose the illustration would show up better. This project was very enjoyable and therapeutic for me. My favorite aspect of my mandala is definitely the big pomegranate in the center and the calming but fitting color palette that I chose for this artwork.

Laser Engraved Artist Statement:

Seeing my laser printed mandala printed on the wooden pizza board left me in a state of awe. I was beyond happy with the result of how it came out. From the beginning I had known I wanted to engrave it on the wooden pizza board. So when illustrating my design I kept in mind that the wooden pizza board was a dark brown and thicker more defined strokes would look best once it was printed. I’m glad I went for a simpler, more bold design because it was able to look good both digitally and printed.The main reason I chose the wooden pizza board was so that I could actually have a functional piece of artwork. As much as I love things just being displayed because they look good. I knew for this project I wanted something that could also be functional. The wooden pizza board felt perfect because although I probably wouldn’t be using it for pizza I could use it for other kitchen/food related purposes.

Colored Mandala Artist Statement:

The colored mandala challenged us to think about how color can tie into a project and how it can change the vibe and aesthetic of a whole project. For the colored mandala I knew it was going to be printed onto a white background so I knew I wanted the colors to really pop but also look good. I used adobe color to help me create a color scheme for my artwork. I used the same mandala as my black and white mandala because I liked the original one I made and wanted to color it, especially because I knew that the pomegranate in the center would look really good colored. Based on the previous printed colored mandala examples I knew how the colors showed up printed so I used that information to help decide what colors and where I put it. I used calming and relaxing colors that weren’t too vibrant or dull to balance out my piece. I also incorporated a lot of reds and pinks so I could properly color the pomegranate accurately. Working with color made me think more about the placement of every brush stroke and color since I wanted everything to look cohesive, with the black and white mandala everything blended and worked together well, with the colored one there was more thinking that had to go into each decision. The pomegranate which is the main part of my mandala stands out even more with the colored version. I am surprised how much more the mandala stands out by just adding color. I enjoyed seeing how the addition of color changed my mandala and how it is seen.

Mandala Build Video:

For this video we were tasked with creating a build video that showed the step by step process of creating our personal mandala’s in Adobe Illustrator. We learned how to use After Effects a new video software that we haven’t worked with before. The layers in Adobe Illustrator allowed us to turn on and off each path drawing we made in our mandala, showcasing our entire mandala process through each stroke. We then were able to take our recording of turning off and on the mandala layers and turned that into a build video of the entire process using After Effects. To make it a more complete video we added music to the background and a title intro to the video. With so many final results of this mandala projects it was nice to have one aspect of it just showcasing the process.

Working with the reflections and symmetry of the mandala challenged me more than I thought it would. I had to think more about the placement of my strokes, so that my mandala would look balanced and cohesive. I was comfortable using illustrator and the pressure sensitive brushes due to past experiences in design. It was interesting to see the difference in all of the different mandalas. How printing them in different ways changed different aspects of the mandala. I am overall very happy with the result of my mandala and my favorite one was definitely my laser engraved one. Through this project I was able to learn more about the different types of materials an artwork could be printed on and how changing the material can alter the effect of the end result. I was able to plan out that if I’m using a material like wood what does the design need to be like to show up well on the wood. I got to understand the work that goes into printing art on various materials and the thought that goes into it. I feel like this project made me appreciate wooden laser engraved artwork much more because I feel for the artists and how they have to think about the end result and the digital result.

Design

Concert poster intro text