The Conceptual Project is where I get to show my creativity through the many works we students have done at Freestyle Academy such as poetry, music, art, and website production. In the few months here at Freestyle, I have been able to use all these projects to express my own creative vision. I have learned how to use my DSLR camera and bettered my skill at editing in Adobe Photoshop. The Adobe apps have allowed me to turn my ideas and visions into something real. Using my audio recorder and Premier Pro, I was able to create and edit a video from scratch that plays my poem with cool text transitions. In my Design 1 class, I am creating many projects I dreamed of getting to make. Using the professional equipment given by Freestyle Academy I have been able to make my work more clear and creative.
During the Conceptual unit, I have appreciated all the work given to me by Freestyle. In my English class, we have read a lot of poetry which is something I didn’t find very much interesting until now. Why? you may ask well reading and understanding poetry has made me appreciate it more and want to read and understand work like that. Digital Media has really helped me and taught me how to take our work from English and turn it into edited videos that are now masterpieces. When learning how to use Premiere Pro for video editing. I also learned professional audio editing to make my poem recordings better than ever! My very first project in my Design 1 class helped me value the creative process more than I already did. I like to think about what I want and how I want it. Using other people’s reviews at freestyle 1Academy to help me come to a final idea that I liked. I really enjoy Freestyle Academy so far and it hasn’t even been my first full year here but the community is very hard working, passionate about their work, and friendly and that’s something I value very much.
Poetry
In my English class, we have been reading and writing lots of poetry. Throughout these writings, we have had to write and understand Ekphrastic Poems, Free Verse Poems, and Haiku. When we were given our project poem we were told to choose between one of these three I had chosen to write an Ekphrastic Poem. I wanted to base it on a piece of artwork I thought was unique. I used photoshop to apply my text from the poem I had created. I appreciated this piece of work because I never had thought I would be able to create something like that.
In “Distinctive” an ekphrastic poem in free verse I wrote about Yosef Reznikov’s portrait art of Pablo Paccaso. Seeing this unique piece of artwork caused my interest very fast and brought memories and thoughts back to when I tried this type of work myself in school. I wanted to create a poem that gave a better understanding and feel of this artwork and how it stood out to me a lot. I felt a feeling of uniqueness because of how the body parts on the face were placed. This painting shows a true artist Pablo Pacascowho was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and theatre and who also has very many famous paintings all around the world to this day. In this piece of artworkYosef Reznikovs recreated Pablo Paccsos’s self-portrait using different paintings and placement of body parts on the face. Looking at my free verse poem I wanted to make feel as if the reader could understand and also feel the painting. Looking at the unique pattern and shapes, I decided to compare them to “like waves across the shore”. Using metaphorical lines in my poem to show how the detailing put into this piece of art was outstanding. As my metaphorical lines shift to a tone that shows interest and statement. used this element of poetry to show the deeper meaning and make the reader feel as if what was being said was a statement of the art itself. During the peer review, my reader
enjoyed how I kept it short and simple not over the top but suggested that I fix the
usings of my metaphorical lines as they didn’t seem to be as metaphorical as I thought before. The feedback was helpful and I focused on changing those lines and turning them into metaphorical lines in the poem that could also give a visual sense when reading it. I was really interested in the art piece and how it was made using these specific patterns, shapes, textures, and colors. It showed a piece of art that was one of one and incorporating these made the piece have a texture also like paper magazines or from torn-up paper. Using the poetic techniques I was able to incorporate these feelings into visual feelings when reading my poem.
My photoshop and ProTools editing
Using Pro Tools, I was able to edit the recording of my poem. I made the audio more clear, removed unnecessary sounds in the recording, and was able to add a fade in and out. I had to find a song that fit my recording the best using YouTube I was able to find a relaxing song that went with my poem. I wanted to make sure that the audio of the song wasn’t too high nor too low. I valued this process cause it helped me learn a w skill to edit audio whenever I need to I also valued this because it helped me create a better piece of work than it was before.
Photo Haiku
In English, we were all given a concept statement to write a short haiku on. My concept statement was “I am experiencing the feeling of despair through storytelling.” I was very confused by the word despair and didn’t know what I would right I knew it was about sadness, no hope, and being let down but I wasn’t sure how I was going to explain that through storytelling. For my photo for the haiku, I wanted to show something that was giving up or showing no hope near. The photo should represent that something is showing despair through storytelling So, I found a plant that is dying slowly and shows no hope for it to come back to a living state through this process the plant has a story that it went through to grow and die. In Digital Media, we used Premiere Pro to animate the poem and the photo.
I valued this process a lot cause it taught me how to use a new editing software called Premiere Pro it also helped me gain new skills for future videos we want to put together.
Elements and Principles of Art
In Digital Media, we needed to research the different Elements and Principles of art. During this process, I learned more about how we use these everyday art forms all around us and how they apply to alos everything in the real world and art. after learning about the Elements and Principles of art, I now know how I can use these forms of art in my projects and idea and other 3work I do outside of school.
Design
In Design for our conceptual unit, we were to create a Photograph project. We needed to take a picture that captured our intention statement from our English class. We also needed to create a proposal for our picture and how it represented our intention statement. Along with a contact sheet of 60 photos that we took using different angles and lighting.
My concept statement
My concept statment was ” I am exploring the feeling of despair through storytelling”.
This photo shows despair through storytelling. When we hear the word despair we think of hopelessness, sadness, or even death. I chose the dead leaves, brush, and burnt distressed journal to symbolize despair. These things are hopeless because they will not go on in life. I chose to place the notebook on top of the dead brush making sure the journal was facing the left side as if it were discarded accidentally. The distressed journal is a symbol of storytelling. Storytelling is defined in many ways, storytelling goes far beyond a book from the library. We define our own story through our own personal life experiences. Journals are a unique way to learn about another person and their story. I chose to shoot at an eye level and close up on the journal. I wanted to capture all of the textures of the burnt pages of the journal where someone’s story once lived. The dead leaves and brush which are the background as well show despair by adding the feel of being forgotten. With the lighting, I wanted to make sure the sun’s natural lighting was shining on the journal’s right side to make it pop out more. This site has the most distress and leaves/brush on it. During my Photoshop process, I was able to give the burns and distressing on the journal a cleaner look. I also enhanced the look of the yellowing and brown of the burns. My Photoshop process also helped bring the red out on the journal creating a brighter look and made my dead brush and leaves look sharper and more clear. The photoshop process helped show how we see one’s personal experiences which were once living amongst the pages of this journal. The Photoshop process helped me create a destroyed journal with a story that has no hope of ever being able to read these stories or understand this person’s journey.
Macro Photo
In this photo we were to capture the a photo using the rule of 3rds and make sure that the part we were capturing was in the center. I then used Photoshop to bring the colors out more and blur the background of the photo so that it is mainly showing and focused on the bugs.
Linear Perspective
For design, we also learned the basics of Adobe Illustrator. During this, we were also given the project to recreate the examples given to us and to draw our rooms in 1-point or 2-point perspective. Using our skill on fading colors, creating backgrounds, and 3d shapes from a 1-point and 2-point view I was able to create both of these projects.
Halloween project
For this project, we were to have fun and use our skills to create a “negative-positive space mask paper”. I choose to create some time of ghost/jack-o-lantern using red and yellow paper.