Intro to Reflections

This reflections unit was all about looking deeper within yourself to find out who you are. This was an especially helpful and well timed unit because seniors are writing essays for college applications right now. In fact our English project was to write two college essays that could be used for our personal statement. The first type of essay that we wrote is called a this I believe essay, and we were supposed to talk about the value that is most important to us. We started by listing our top ten values, and I came up with competition, friendship, freedom, perseverance, success, creativity, collaboration, self expression, family, and health and fitness. These top ten aren’t in any particular order, but I chose to write about perseverance. Writing about this subject made me think of times that I persevered, and it made me realize something about myself. I am a very hard working individual when I enjoy what I am doing, it is very hard for me to spend a lot of time and energy on a subject like math because I find it boring.

Mandala Project

For digital media we did a few projects to help discover ourselves, but my favorite one was out Mandala project. The mandala project was very fun for me because I really enjoy using Illustrator, but this was also a new use for Illustrator. It was very fun to put together the complex patterns, and lines that is my mandala. Here is my first attempt at an all black and white mandala.

This next one is the color scheme I chose to implement on my all black and white mandala. I really like a yellow and red color scheme, and I always seem to be using it for my projects. I am not too sure why.

Build Video

In Digital Media we also made a screen recording of turning on all of the layers to our mandala to simulate a build video. It shows how the mandala came together.

Initially I thought designing a mandala that showed my personality would be really difficult, but I just started drawing out some designs with the brush tool and it looked really good. While I was creating my black and white mandala I created a design that sort of had s similar pattern to a chess board, and this is really cool because I have been playing chess since I was 6. I really valued that when I was creating my mandala I sort of mindlessly designed things that represent something about me.

When I was picking the colors for my colored mandala I went straight to dark red, and gold/yellow. This tells a lot about me because some of my favorite superheroes wear this color scheme, including The Flash and Iron man. I also especially like the color red because of how it represents energy, strength, adventure, and excitement. The mood of yellow doesn’t match me as well, but it looks really cool with a darker red.

This I believe Video

In digital media we made a video about our this I believe essay from English. We put in music and images that go along with the theme of the essay. My essay was about was about perseverance, and so I put motivational images and music into my video. The music is just background noise behind the sound of me reading my essay.

Process Of making the video

Design Work

This project was to take the value that we wrote about in English class for our this I believe essay, which for me was the value of perseverance, and make a public service announcement about it. PSA’s aren’t meant to have a lot of words, just a tag line that holds a powerful message. So we made a project on Illustrator that depicts our value without explaining it in so many words, like we did in english. To show perseverance I decided to illustrate a man loosely resembling myself struggling to climb up a mountain. At the top of a mountain is a building that says Harvard on. This compilation represents how high school is a never ending mountain that you have to persevere through if you want to get into a good college like Harvard. This is obviously very relevant to my current situation of applying to college.

PSA Artist Statement

I made this project with almost entirely one tool in Illustrator, the pen tool. I used the pen tool for everything on this project from the mountains shape and detailing, to the Harvard building, and to the shape of the person. I have been using the pen tool for a long time, and I had no trouble making most of the design. However, I had some trouble with the perspective of the mountain. The top was too small for the building I wanted to put on top. I didn’t know how to extend it without making the mountain look like it was stretching farther up. I looked at many pictures of mountains before I was able to extend it in a way that didn’t make it look awkward.