Our reflections unit was all about inner reflection about who we are as people, what our values are, and why they are important to us. This consisted of writing a personal essay in English, creating a Core Values video and personal mandala in Digital Media, and creating a composition inspired by Aboriginal artwork for Design. We began with brainstorming our core values and essence objects, which are objects that are important to us in some way that connects with our core values. Some of my most important core values are personal growth, courage, and empathy. We then applied these to each of our projects in our classes.

Personal Essay

To help with the writing process of our personal essay, we read the book College Essay Essentials: A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a Successful College Admissions Essay, by Ethan Sawyer. This step-by-step book guided us through the process of writing a personal essay. Although it was meant for writing a personal statement to submit with college applications, everyone in the class read it, regardless of whether we chose to use this essay as our Common App essay. Through exercises like the essence objects exercise, we were able to find a lense to write our essay through, and chose core values that are important to us to incorporate into the essay.

I think I was successful in answering the question “who am I?” through this essay, and I really enjoyed all of the brainstorming exercises. They helped me learn more about myself and I enjoyed getting write such a reflective piece for class.

Mandala

The mandala project taught me new features of Adobe Illustrator, like how to use clipping masks and being able to mirror brushstrokes multiple times. To create my mandala, I used my list of core values from English to think of different elements to represent each value. I included these elements in my mandala.

For the Personal Mandala assignment, I wanted to show my personal values of love, growth, and connection. These are represented by the heart, the boxy shapes, and the flowers on the outside of the mandala. These values are all incredibly important to me because they have shaped who I have become throughout high school, and have been important to me in discovering who I am. I also included a star of David, to represent my connection to Judaism, and the letters R and B, which are my initials. I have always felt a strong connection to my name, as I feel it is very representative of who I am and I like the name a lot.

The process of making the mandala was really therapeutic because I could experiment with drawing different shapes and lines, and I could just watch it grow as each stroke reflected 12 times. A lot of the elements that I ended up with were not really intentional, but were created through little accidental strokes that ended up being my favorites. However, for the strokes that were more intentional, it was sometimes difficult to get them exactly how I wanted them to look, so I had to become more comfortable with trial and error throughout this process.

The colored mandala assignment was especially fun because I was able to choose a color scheme and decide where each color would be. I chose to have a black background so that the colors would pop. Although the colors look pastel when they are against white, they look more neon when they have a black background, and I think the final effect with all of the colors together on a black background looks super cool. Each of the colors feels very crisp, but they all combine in a cohesive way.

Seeing my mandala design engraved was exciting. Being able to hold the physical product in my hands, I could see that all of the details I had put in were still visible when engraved onto the wood, and it was entrancing to be able to follow each line with my eyes. It is also a cool tactile experience, to be able to trace the designs with my fingers and feel the different textures of the smoother parts next to the engraved, rougher parts. Finally having a physical product gave me a sense of accomplishment, and made the whole process feel worthwhile as I was able to hold my design in my hand.

PSA

For the PSA project, we found a subject that is important to us and we want to raise awareness about. It could be anything from climate change to drunk driving to mental health. I chose to do light pollution because I love stargazing but I have noticed I can only really see the stars when I am away at camp. When I am at home, I can only see a few stars. So, I decided I wanted to use my PSA as a chance to express my sadness and anger about this.

In the foreground of the PSA is a lamppost, which is shining its light onto a city in the background. The words “Can you see the stars?” are in the shape of the cone of light coming from the lamp, but there are no stars in the sky. The idea behind this piece is to spread awareness about light pollution. The lamp casting its light onto the city is representative of how much light cities constantly shine, which builds up over time and stays in the sky as light pollution. This prevents us from being able to see the stars in the night sky, which is why there are no stars in my PSA. The absence of stars is meant to be noticed by the viewer, because it feels wrong, but it is our reality. I used mostly blue and yellow because they fit with my composition and the objects in the project. They also are complimentary colors and I knew that the yellow of the light would really pop against the dark blue background, and create an emphasis on the light and words.

I enjoyed the process of creating a moodboard, because it was something new for me and helped me stay organized when I was creating my piece. Because I had my color scheme, font, and inspiration all in one place, I referred back to my moodboard a lot throughout the process of creating my final PSA. It took me longer than normal to settle on the final design for the project, and I went through a few rounds of trial and error before I figured out what I really wanted. Overall, I am really happy with my final product because I think the composition and topic are unique, and communicate the message that I wanted to share.

Aboriginal Artwork

This piece was created in an aboriginal style, taking inspiration from the Aboriginal people in Australia. Traditionally, they painted using all earthtones and created their compositions using only dots. They also used specific arrangements of dots to represent different things and actions. In my piece, I used the symbol for water to create the river and the symbol for stars in my constellation. The constellation is for Taurus, which is my star sign, and I included an otter because it is my spirit animal. I also used the symbol for a campsite to further tie in my star sign, which is an earth sign. I arranged the otter so that it seems to be looking up at the constellation, as if it is stargazing. Stargazing is one of my favorite things, so I felt that this incorporated more of who I am as a person. I really love how each piece of the composition represents a part of who I am, because it feels very authentic.

The process of creating this piece required a steep learning curve, as I have never used Photoshop in this way before. It was difficult to get started because I could not change the color of the dots I had already drawn, so I had to restart a few times. However, once I figured out a system to organize each group and color of dots, I was able to work much faster, and I am really happy with how it turned out, as well as the skills that I gained throughout the creation process.