The Reflections unit was all about finding who I AM as an artist. Artists don’t just create to create, they create for others and mainly, for themselves. So, throughout English, Digital Media, and Film, I explored this very idea of finding who I am as an artist through various productions. In Digital Media, we spent a large portion of the semester focusing on various Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop techniques alongside Adobe Dreamweaver and coding for our websites. In English, the majority of our time was spent perfecting our personal essay’s for CommonApp which was a great experience and really helped me throughout the whole process. After that, we dived into something known as a “lyrical essay” which by definition is: a literary hybrid that combines elements of poetry, essay, and memoir. Finally, in my elective class, Film, we spent the first portion of the semester creating an under 2 minute Reflections video where we made ourselves vulnerable and told a short story about something that is often hidden underneath surface level. For the remainder of the semester we spent all of our time planning for the biggest project of all of our creative lives so far, the Senior Narrative Film.

At the very beginning of the school year we were asked to create a series of “essence objects.” These objects were anything from types of food that we enjoy or objects that we have held on to for all of our lives. And to answer the question: How does your work reflect your “essence objects” and what you value? I honestly don’t have much of an answer which is pretty wild to say. Although as a creator I really value what I make, especially in film, I never really want to create the same thing over and over again. And in my pieces it’s not so much me wanting to reflect my values upon the world, but rather to create pieces that are visually interesting to me. Ever since I started getting into art, it always about the way things looked. And since then, it’s been like that. However, in the past year as I’ve started more screenwriting and creating more stories, maybe that will lead me into the direction of reflection my values more vividly in my art. But until then, I don’t have a solid answer to that question. I’ll come back to it at the end of the year.

Mandala’s

The first big Digital Media project of the year was creating Mandala’s. Prior to this, I didn’t really know what a mandala was, but by the end I not only knew a lot about them, but I loved creating them. We used Adobe Illustrator and our Wacom Drawing Tablet’s to reciprocate figures across the canvas, ultimately creating a layered circular piece with multiple sections ranging all the way up to 16 slices.

Black and White vs Colored Mandala

Laser Engraved Mandala

Mandala Build Reveal

Artist Statement for “Complexion,” my Mandala

If I were to re-create this Mandala Production, I would’ve done brainstorming prior to going into Adobe Illustrator and also would’ve created multiple versions of both the BW and Colored Mandalas. When I actually got into class and opened up Adobe Illustrator, I had a pretty big creative block. I spent so much time struggling with where to start and what I wanted my Mandala to represent. So eventually, I just got to drawing and formed something together that I liked and was unique to me. But going into the project, if I knew what shapes and values I wanted to represent would’ve made it all the easier. And as a result of brainstorming I would’ve been able to fully create multiple Mandalas rather than just one. I feel like often you don’t like the thing you create the first time the most. So, in a way, I feel like I could’ve produced something I liked more, but in the end, I’m happy with what I created.

I really valued the process and the creative space we were given to find our zen and ultimately ourselves. One thing that really helped me was listening to music while I curated my piece. To me, music is really important. I’m listening to it all the time and it really helps me set my mood. In short, it affects me a lot. In a way, my music is a representation of who I am as a person which helped when drawing my Mandala.

I think I learned that I don’t and never really have associated myself with certain shapes, strokes, or designs. Which is kind of odd because I’m such a visual person and a filmmaker so one would think that I would have certain associations. I also don’t have a ton of sentimental objects and more often than not, the objects I do feel sentimental towards are the art pieces that I create whether it’s a film, a photo, a screenplay, or even a mandala. So now leaving this project, It’s opened up a branch in my mind to reflect on who I am and what sort of designs represent who I am. I really enjoyed and appreciated this project and It’ll leave me thinking for quite a couple days. I know who I am, personally, but the Mandala project opened up a new approach to how I think about who I am.

Photoshop Art

Photoshop has always been a program that I’ve wanted to become more familiar with. This semester’s reflections work within Photoshop taught me a lot about all of the different features and the visually striking things you can do to any image. You can make images pop out more, blend in, or even do your own watercolor painting over a picture.

Photoshop Pastel Painting

I had a challenging yet fun and enjoyable experience creating a Photoshop Pastel Painting. I’m really glad we got the chance to do these projects. As much as I call myself an “artist” drawing has never been one of my expertises, especially digitally painting something, I’ve never done that. It was really helpful to paint on top of the photo I was basing it off. If I were to do it completely free-hand it would’ve been a lot more problematic. I especially liked this project but it wasn’t easy at all, it really challenged me, so I enjoyed that.

Knowing how to paint in Photoshop is one of those skills that not a lot of people have. It’s also a fair amount of fun as well. I think just like all of the Freestyle Academy projects where I’ve learned new software applications, it’s really preparing me for future endeavors, experimentation, and artistic pieces. I also really valued the challenge. I tend to find projects most interesting when it really causes me to think and put a lot of thought and effort into it.

To be honest, I learned that I have a lot of improvement to make as a digital artist. Mr. Florendo pointed out that it takes a lot of practice to get to a solid point as a digital artist and now, after doing it myself, I certainly agree. You always have to start somewhere though and I think my pastel painting of my gas station didn’t turn out too bad. I think it turned out a lot better than I thought it would, that’s a plus. Excited to try out more digital painting in the near future and see where I can go with it!

Photoshop Watercolor Painting

The story of my painting is very random. At this point in time, the movie, Dune, is being released into theaters. In the trailer, we are exposed to so many beautiful shots of a desert landscape. Not to say that what I painted looks anything like Dune, but it inspired me to look up some simple desert paintings I could emulate.

A painting that can inspire: I’ve never been much of a drawer or painter because I’ve been afraid that I can’t make something look good, even if it’s highly simplistic. However, with this simple drawing I did and the way the colors flowed together inspired me that I could progress as a painter, digitally or on a canvas. Paintings yet to come: I think this is the first of many watercolor paintings I will do. I am more interested in painting on a canvas though. I just feel like I’m able to connect with pieces more and will ultimately be more able to create what I want to. Paintings that hold memories: I think when I look back on this painting, it will remind me of this point in my life. The music I was listening to when painting, my friends, and honestly, probably how far I’ve come with my watercolor abilities I hope.

I valued trying out both pastel and watercolor paintings through Photoshop. It also made me realize that I’m a much bigger fan of watercolor than pastel. Pastel is still beautiful in it’s own way and I’m not criticizing the artists that do love it, but for me, watercolor is better. I think I just find the end result to be more realistic looking? Especially on a canvas. I think digital painting provides artists with a variety of new tools that are at their disposal with the click of a button which is super cool. Analog painting is also a lot more difficult I’d say, but I may not be the person to make that assumption. Analog painting also feels more engaging to me and it really causes you to go back. If you make a stroke you don’t like, you can’t just hit “COMMAND Z.”

Photoshop Watercolor Painting Effect

For all three of my productions, when I selected them, they were very visually pleasing, and aesthetically beautiful to me. For the first production, there is a beautiful sunset surrounding a lake and beautiful mountain ranges. Personally, it reminded me of one photo I took a couple of summers ago in Wyoming. My dad lived in Wyoming for a couple years and it’s one of the most beautiful places on the planet. So it holds a special place in my heart as I don’t see him as often. In the second production, there is a hot air balloon. I’ve always had an odd obsession with hot air balloons. Especially just alone in the sky surrounded by blue sky, just like the one I did the water color effect on. I think if I were to skydive I would want to do it off a hot air balloon rather than out of a plane, I feel like it’d be much cooler, in my opinion. And for my final production, I really loved the idea of a guitar shaped island and the perspective, bird’s eye view, the image is taken from. There is no super deep meaning beyond the fact that music is extremely important to me and at the time I was choosing what to do for my third production, I was listening to a guitar heavy song.

I love it. I’ve mentioned in past artist statements that even though I’m not particularly great at painting by hand, there’s just something so special and unique about it compared to digital watercolor painting. But now, after doing the water color effect and even using the textured paper to give it even more of a watercolor look, my mind has changed a little bit. My generation and future generations are super lucky with the various tools and technology we are being exposed to and we should most definitely take advantage of them. We’re super lucky to be learning about all of this.

Taking photos is one of my greatest passions. Most of the time, right after I take a photo, I go straight to editing it. I have very specific color and aesthetic preferences. And I think the water color effect could be a super cool effect I could do for some photos I take. And now that I know how to do it and it doesn’t take too long, it could be a fun and really cool look on some of my photos.

Photoshop Compositing

Photoshop Surreal Art

In my Surreal Composition, there wasn’t a particular message I wanted to convey, but more so a visually striking piece with a lot of layers to it. At first, when brainstorming for this project, I was really unsure of what to do. But after some brainstorming I came up with the idea of incorporating basketball in some way. I then drew some inspiration for the basketball player sitting on top of the world, which in this case is a basketball with Covid masks. For the landscape portions I knew I wanted to choose a pink/purple sunset background and incorporate a lot of chaos amongst that photo hence the Golden Gate Bridge, clouds, and lightning. Last but not least, the green aliens peeking out the corners of the TV were just some final fun additions.

I really find a lot of the techniques we learned in Photoshop Compositing 1 and 2 to be extremely helpful. I needed to mask out the player, basketball, and TV for example which was easily done through the tutorial we learned that feature in. And then, for the landscapes, the various blend modes allowed me to get the right contrast and color that I wanted for the final piece.

I’d say that Surreal Compositions are harder, yet easier at the same time. It’s harder in that it’s hard to make it all come together and look interesting, but it’s a lot more fun. Whereas, in Realistic compositions, you are often trying to copy or emulate a real feature. And when I find myself really trying to make something accurate, the process becomes super nitty gritty and it can be super frustrating. But, in the surreal, you can make your own image and create whatever you want from wherever you want.

Film Production II

For Film, our first major assignment of the year was our Reflections video. This piece had to be under 2 minutes long and the idea of it was to let the viewer inside your mind. To make yourself vulnerable. So, for this project I decided to talk about something that has been apart of my life for as long as I can remember, overthinking. I’ve taught myself overtime to overthink less and be proactive and get things done. But prior to that, my life was tortured in many ways because I wouldn’t let a thought go. If you have the same issue, maybe you’ll relate to my piece in some way. Enjoy:

I really valued being able to express myself and show I side that nobody really knows about, even some of my closest friends. Rather that fictionally creating a story, I was able to tell a story about me, through my own voice. I love the idea of making myself vulnerable and opening up.