Reflections

Introduction

The Reflections includes a Reflections film produced in Film class, a Personal essay in English class, and a Mandala in Digital Media. Students are encouraged to ask themselves the question: Who am I? Using their answer, they create works of art that represent their identity, and how they move through the world. I drew on different aspects of my life, things I like/care for, and my positive qualities to inspire my work for this unit. It was difficult, at first to answer the main question. This project helped me to gain a better understanding of myself by forcing me to dive deeper into this question. Now I know that I am many things, and I have been able to show different sides of myself through each of the projects in different classes.

Art Curation for Personal Museum

Every year, Freestyle students take a day trip to the SFMOMA. For this project, we were tasked with taking pictures of three artworks we would add to our personal museum creation, and two we would exclude. Our choices are a reflection of our tastes, and what we consider to be good art. The artworks that I found to be worthy of my attention were the ones that were interesting, eye-catching, colorful, or meaningful. The artwork that I like represents my unique taste, which is another way to answer the question “Who am I?” My likes and dislikes are a significant part of my identity.

The pieces that I liked are the ones that made me feel something. The first piece, with the fire, was fun. It also made me feel like I was watching myself burning to ashes. Which was an odd feeling. I felt strangely distant from the image of myself because I was seeing it on the screen. But at the same time, I understood that I was on fire (on the screen). I think this separation creates an emotional experience. If I were actually on fire, I would be afraid. But since it is an illusion, I am not. I also think the artwork was touching on empathy: “why should I care if she is on fire, as long as I am not on fire?” Only the person on fire is you.

The second piece made me feel uplifted and happy, and the third piece made me feel uneasy and nervous, but also intrigued. 

The pieces that I didn’t like as much were a little bit abstract. I would have liked the first piece more if there had been some kind of story. The second piece didn’t resonate with me because it seems emotionless and storyless, and I didn’t feel connected to it.

I also would like the art I make to make the audience feel something.

My Personal Mandalas

The final product of my Mandala project consists of a digital black and white drawing, a digital colored mandala, an engraved wooden pizza board, a printed colored mandala, and a mandala build reveal video. The first step was to draw the black and white mandala using Adobe Illustrator. I first created a custom brush, and learned how to use a clipping mask to reflect the image on one portion of the canvas to the other sections. I chose to do a 16 slice mandala, which means that the image drawn on 1/16th of the circle was first reflected over and then copied all around the circle. The next step was to color the black and white drawing in using Adobe illustrator. This was my favorite step. It was very therapeutic and calming. After that, both the colored and black and white versions were printed/engraved, and the next step was to take photos for the before and after slides below. Then, using the Illustrator file for the Black and White mandala, I showed the step by step process of the mandala creation.

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I was very happy when I first saw my laser engraved mandala. I chose to engrave my art on a pizza board. It isn’t perfect, but overall, I am very proud of my creation. Some of the thinner lines didn’t show up well in the physical analog artwork, compared to the digital artwork. But, all of the artwork is on the wood, and I think it turned out well.

I chose to engrave my mandala on a pizza board because my family loves to have make-your-own pizza nights. I want my engraved pizza board to be functional and so that my family can use it regularly. My mandala-engraved pizza board is a gift to my parents, to use for make-your-own pizza night. I grew and learned a lot from this project. I first learned to create a mandala template in Adobe Illustrator. Then, I drew my mandala using the 16 slices template. I learned how to create my own brush, and reflect my drawing all around the canvas in a circle. After I finished my black and white mandala, I colored it in using the brush tool. Then, I created a reveal video for my black and white mandala. The reveal video was my first time using After Effects, and it was very challenging, but a good experience. There were many components to this project, and I am very happy with how everything turned out. I am most proud of my colored mandala, because it was the most time consuming part, and also the most enjoyable. I found it very therapeutic to color in my artwork, and I saw how it brought my piece to life.

I produced a colored Mandala using Adobe Illustrator. I took the Black and White Mandala that I made and colored it to make it pop and add more detail. The color provides further context to the symbols and illustrations in my mandala. It differentiates the sections and paints a clearer picture. My reaction upon seeing the printed colored mandala was joy and satisfaction. I am very happy with how it turned out. I think the lines are much clearer than in my Black and White pizza board engraving, and the meaning/feeling I wanted to convey comes through more clearly.

My intention with the color scheme was to make it very colorful and true to myself and my imagination. I love the color green, so it was natural that I used a lot of it. I also had a lot of nature-related symbols like leaves, trees, flowers, and animals, so I kept the color scheme simple and the kind that would occur in nature. Working with color brought life to my mandala. It made it more fun and interesting to look at. I found working with color much more challenging than drawing the mandala, because I had to work within the barriers I had made for myself, by coloring the shapes and gaps. It was frustrating and required a lot of patience, but it was also very rewarding.

This project has taught me a lot about using Illustrator. I feel very comfortable using the brush tool and the Wacom tablet, and I think I have improved a lot in skill since the start of this project. I am very satisfied with how my artwork turned out. I believe it successfully answers the question “Who am I?” I think the way that I think and live comes through, especially with the colored mandala. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this project and hope to continue digital drawing in the future.

The Mandala Build Reveal Video was one of the most challenging parts of this project. I used Adobe After Effects to show my drawing process for the Mandala. I chose background music that fits the feeling of the artwork to set the tone for the video. I had never used After Effects before this assignment, so it was very difficult at first, but I am now more skilled in using After Effects and feel more confident about using it again in the future.

After the Mandala project, I feel very comfortable using Adobe Illustrator and drawing on the Wacom Tablet. This is exciting because it means that I can create my own digital artwork using Illustrator, which I have never done before. This project has given me appreciation for digital artists and digital art, because I realized it can be very time consuming and tedious. It requires a lot of patience, attention to detail, and discipline. I plan to continue to draw digitally using Illustrator and the Wacom tablet in the future.

Core Values

The core values video is a project where we were tasked to choose some of our values and key frame and use text effects to make an interesting video.

Film

In the Reflections Unit in film class, I made a 1 minute collaborative video, a video essay, a 1 period movie, and a surround sound video.

Reflections Video Essay

The Reflections Video Essay was meant to be a reflection on an aspect of your life. I decided to base mine on existential ideas, and the feeling of being insignificant when faced with the vastness of the universe. To counteract the feeling that nothing matters, I wanted to make something more cheerful by emphasizing the things that do matter.

Behind the Scenes

1 Period Movie

For the one period movie, we were given only the time in one period to plan, shoot, and edit an entire short film.

Surround Sound Video

For this exercise, students were tasked with recording audio and video, and keyframing the audio to different sides of the room. When the class watched them in the film room, the sound traveled between the front, back, and side speakers.

Reflection

Film class this unit was full of challenging assignments, but also fun, meaningful work. The 1 period assignments taught me to be decisive, make quick choices, and improvise to make things work. Technical skills I learned include assigning different portions of a clip of audio to different speakers. A lot of projects were in small groups, and I learned to compromise and keep the energy productive and positive, and make sure that everyone’s voices are heard.