Introduction
During the conceptual unit I learned how to take creative-risks through poetry, art, music and web production. In Digital Media, I expressed myself through photography, making a website, and making music. In, English I was challenged through poetry and writing. During the poetry unit, I learned how to think more metaphorically and not so literally. I was able to better my reading and writing skills. In Design, I was able to play around with different Adobe apps. Along with Digital Media, in Design, I was creatively challenged through photography. In all of these classed I got to express myself in a creative form that I wouldn’t have been able to do in regular classes.
Haiku
In English, all the students were given a randomized concept statement to write a Haiku Poem about. My statement was “I am exploring the feeling of wonder through dejá vu.” In Digital Media we took a photo based the poem we wrote in English. We learned how to add music and a voice over to our Photo Haiku using Premiere Pro.
In this assignment we got creative freedom on writing our poems and on how we wanted to create the video. Although there were some rules we had to follow writing of the poem we still got to be a creative as we wanted. My poem gives off a fall vibe with the line “Leaves crunching beneath my feet” so I based my photo off of fall to tie the two together. I also added music to my poem that I thought fit that fall vibe. I found it very interesting learning how to edit videos in Premiere Pro.
Poetry
For our big English poem we incorporated skills that we learned in Digital Media and in English. In English, we got the creative freedom to write any poem we wanted. In Digital Media, we found photos that matched the vibes of our poems. Then, we recored us reading out our poems. We took that recording and used Pro Tools to edit the poem. I really liked having the collaboration of the two classes.
Intention Statement
Spiders from the Pits of Hell is an ekphrastic free-verse poem about a common fear of mine: arachnophobia. The speaker in this poem is stuck in a room with these giant spider looking creatures that are portrayed in Louise Bourgeois’ sculpture The Nest. The exit of the room is too far for them to run. They sit in fear as the creatures inch closer to them. I wanted to leave the reader in a state of fear for the speaker. The first two stanzas are describing the spider-like creatures and then the last two stanzas are telling the story. I hate the feeling of being trapped and I also have a distaste for spiders. I put those fears into this poem because I know a lot of people can relate. This poem shows the fear that occurs when people with Arachnophobia are put in a room with spiders. Throughout my entire poem, I used alliteration with the letter C. The sound that C makes in the poem kind of sounds like what I imagine these metal spiders sound like when they are moving. The kind of sound that hurts your ears when you hear it. I used endstops to slow the reader down and make them really think about what I’m saying. I used the phrase “creepy crawlers” because it gives me the chills and describes the spiders in a way that many people know. It is easy to imagine these creepy creatures. I said “lined up like Russian Dolls” because in the sculpture the creatures are lined up with each one getting smaller, when I look at that I think of how Russian Dolls when they are lined up each one gets smaller. During peer review, my readers enjoyed the relatability of being afraid of spiders. They also enjoyed my description of these “hell like” creatures. One thing they suggested was to extend the detail and to make it more into a story, rather than just describing what these creatures are. My inspiration for this poem was Paper People By Harry Baker. I really liked all the alliteration in his poem and I tried to bring that style into my poem. Even though I didn’t go as crazy as he did with all the alliterations, I still used as much as I felt was necessary.
I valued learning how to use multiple applications for the same project. During this project I really got the hang of using Pro Tools. My favorite part was the writing of the poem because I got to be really creative and write something I really enjoyed.
Photoshop Blend Mode Editing
One of the many things we learned in Photoshop was blend modes. Blend modes allows you to brighten, darken, overlay, and combine different images together in easy ways. We were able to test all the different ways in blend mode on different images.
- What are your thoughts about using Photoshop Blend Modes?
I found using Blend Modes useful and interesting to do.
2. What did you value about learning Photoshop Blend Modes?
I liked that I now know easy ways to edit photos.
Design
In Design, we focused on producing images that has to do with the Conceptual theme. We created the Alpha Name Photography, Negative Positive Space Halloween Project, the Conceptual photo, ect. I really enjoy this class because I like how creative I get to be. I find all the projects really interesting and fun to do.
Alpha Name Photography
For this assignment, we were challenged to take pictures of each letters of our names out in the world. We were not aloud to shape the objects into the letters, we had to find the letters. This was really challenging to find each letter and it took a lot of creativity.
Conceptual Photo
In English, we got a concept statement and in Design we found objects to represent our concept statements. My concept statement was “I am exploring the feeling of wonder through dejá vu.” My object for wonder was a potted plant. Nature makes me wonder because there is always stuff to learn about it. My object for dejá vu was a mirror with fake cracks in it. Dejá vu is the thought of being in a place before and the mirror is reflecting showing “being in a place before”. The cracks represent the fact that when you experience dejá vu its not always the exact same the world seems a bit distorted.
Artist Statement
In my image I have a fern in a pot reflecting in a mirror with lines on it. The fern represents wonder through nature. Something I wonder about is nature. It is very complex and it makes me wonder how everything works. The mirror represents deja vú because deja vú is the feeling of being, seeing or feeling something before. A mirror reflects the same thing looking into it. I put lines on the mirror to act as if the mirror is broken. Deja vú is a feeling and isn’t really reality so it’s not the exact same. The “cracks” represent it not being the same, they distort the image that is being reflected.
In Photoshop, I learned basic editing skills. I learned how to layer mask, use curves, ect. Although I didn’t use layer masking in my final photo, I used curves to fix the lighting. I changed the brightness and exposure to fix how bright some parts of the photo were. Parts of the photo were a little over exposed so I had to darken it. Overall my photo didn’t need much editing besides the little bit of over exposure.
Negative Positive Space Halloween Project
For this project we got to draw a halloween related image. we used colored construction paper and x-acto knives. This project taught us balance, shape, line, and color. We were challenged because nothing was thrown away, each positive piece of paper flipped over on to the negative side. This project used a lot of attention to detail and meticulous cutting.
Color Theory Pastel Drawing Project
For this project, we dove into color theory by using soft pastels. We started with a black piece of paper, we applied glue in many shapes all over the the paper. After the glue dried we selected different color schemes for each of the different sections. We learned how to blend the pastels and created analogous, complementary, monochromatic, and triadic color schemes.
