AAST – Jo

This week I have really been doing only things related to my Mastery. I have been working on my internship all week so there is not much I can say aside from what I wrote about in my last blog.

This is my entry I would like to enter into Art Fields, just because I think it is a really nice piece, and even though it is simple, it is my favorite.

It is a piece of Jeremy from Matt Parker and the Deacons on the tracks by Bob Evans.

For my “special someone” I am going to take him to dinner and get him the book he has really been looking for for a while. For Valentines day he is bringing me camping which is all I want!

 

( short again, but cannot fill word quota )

This week I solely worked on my Senior Mastery stuff and my Internships. This week during my Internships I have been working with Bryan on photoshop skills, Illustrator Works, and mostly videography and photography. For the first day we were in an editing room working on personal works on Bryan’s personal business; Wayward Productions; as well as a billboard sign for Ground Zero’s “Dragon Boat”. The second day we used a “soft-box” and the Ground Zero stage to create stunning and well portrayed artworks of food and other things. We recorded our research and went up to Bryan’s editing room to edit the photos in photoshop. The day after that we messed around with Adobe Premiere to create the premise for one of Bryans many ideas for a music video shoot I will be apart of next week for the band Matt Parker and the Deacons. 

I say working on these video and things have really exposed me to what I really want to do when  I graduate and get a job.

I learned a bit of how powering black and white photography can be. There are many ways of expressing yourself creatively in photography, and black and white is just one of them, but it certainly is a powerful medium. Trends come and go. Black and white adds a quality to your photos that helps emphasize emotion. Both landscapes and portraits can be powerful examples of this. The psychology behind this is that color competes with the other aspects of the photograph and a black and white photograph allows your brain to process more of the emotion being conveyed.

 

( a bit short )

I think first semester went fairly well but also fairly poorly at the same time. I did so much to start my senior mastery and it all started with /changing/ my senior mastery. I have gone from wanting to do something like a vintage works of 80’s movie posters to now doing black and white / black border photography. I am so happy with this decision because I think it shows a simplicity of my works.

I have been doing a little bit of everything for my mastery, including the portfolio cover, the mastery pictures themselves, and working on projects we have had in class.

My internship this week was amazing. We have been working on learning more proficient skills in both photoshop and illustrator. I did not realize just how little I knew about adobe products until Bryan showed me his processes of videography and photography editing. For the first day we stayed in his editing room to work on a banner for Ground Zero’s Annual Dragon Boat contest. Next day was Friday where we went onto the stage (because that was the only place to get a solid picture) and we set up soft boxes. We ended up taking pictures with the drum set on stage and a water bottle to get a better understanding on dimensions, backlighting, ad lighting in general. We then went back into the editing room for the rest of the day where I started to learn more proficient skills in photoshop. If anyone knows me they know I am strictly Illustrator. I hate Photoshop. I now have a better understanding for the program and can actually use t towards my photo editing!

 

I have decided to change my Senior Mastery drastically; even though it is halfway through the year. I do not have the same “mojo” that I had before to continue my works on it. I worked so hard to do them but I just can’t see myself making any more of them. My real passion is for the photography that I do and the editing I put into them. I really enjoyed making the 80’s cards and I would probably continue them in a different time, but for it to represent everything that I’ve done the past 2 years, I can’t see the representing me. I go out of my way to go to different places, usually hours away, to capture the pictures I take and I think that shows my true dedication to that medium of work, and so I will be doing Rustic Photography for my Senior Mastery instead.

I will be interning with Bryan Eckardt from Ground Zero and Wayward Productions for my interning experience. I will be following him in his photography and videography work throughout January to graduation. He is a very good friend of mine and an incredible mentor. I am really looking forward to working with him more and more; even though I was working with him a lot before anyway. I am excited to see what we will be doing one-on-one outside of Ground Zero.

I do not really follow many accounts; but if I have to choose one it would have to be @finn on Instagram. He is an English photographer from Wales and has made it his life goal to travel all over Wales and Britain to capture the most amazing shots of photography I have ever seen.

Last week I was Extremely Ill and was not here for a lot of the week. I didn’t work n much, but this week I stepped up my work at home and started to finish editing the pictures to add to my website for my Senior Mastery. I am really looking forward to starting the photography portion of my mastery and showcasing them to my panel.

I have not worked on anything for my Senior Mastery this week. This has not been a good and productive week for me and I am still in a “Mastery Funk”. I am overworked and exhausted, so I have spent the last couple of days chilling out and doing the bare minimum because I cannot do much more.

I had to work during Thanksgiving Break. Every day. I worked on Thanksgiving which limited me from spending time with my family. I had to leave Thanksgiving dinner early to go to work, which I did not enjoy at all. I also had to work Black Friday and that was probably the worst experience I had ever had in my life. The store was bombarded with people asking the same questions and doing the same things, and it got repetitive and out of control. Little to say 1. do not work in retail, and 2. just don’t work in retail. I ended up spending the following week there as well, I practically live there at this point. This is my first day off in about 3 weeks and I can’t even go home to res because I have to babysit, so I really have not gotten a break in a while. I also find that since I am getting home to 11,12,1 am every night I cannot sleep. I am running on a varied lack of sleep.

I have only made one holiday card as I am writing this, and after this I will be making another one to get the minimum of this card making assignment. It was a very simple design that I used a very easy to the eye color scheme.

I also have not wrote anything yet. I do not know wha to write because I hate writing things.

I have no learned anything new this week, as I had previously stated, I have done the bare minimum in class and outside of class. I need to find a time to just relax, but everywhere I turn I am being asked to do something and I am not getting a break from school, home, or even work, but I guess that is the price of being an adult and having an adult job.

I have been working diligently on my micrography for the last couple of weeks, mostly because I have been really in a slump for the past couple of weeks working on my senior mastery. I want to do more on it, but I feel like I’m missing something that would really tie it in with everything, so I have to just keep trying and figure it out. I ended up doing Hickory Jones from the music video “Sonora” by Spendtime Palace, because it is a song I find myself listening to more often than not. He is played by Finn Wolfhard, an actor I really enjoy, and actually directed and produced by Filmquake, whose real name is Josh Ovalle, a young 17 year old producer who has gotten famous from Vine. He, along with his 22 year old brother created their own music studio and create their own music videos for various bands, such as PUP and Spendtime Palace.

I think compassion and kindness needs to be the center of AAST, and it should indulge in said roots. I know that not everyone is going to follow ater everyone, but I think it is important that before ANYONE comes to the academy they know what kind of school this is, and the teachers are able to tell what kind of kid someone is going to be. Some kids, though they applied, would much rather be somewhere else than here, and that is not what this school is about. If you cannot give it your all and be kind to EVERYONE, you do not need to be here.

I thought the video had a lot of good points that everyone should see; and that everyone needs to see. It is in no way shape or form okay to judge others on their physical appearance. In Luke 6:31, it is said “Do to others as you would have them do to you”. We should all follow this scripture, because it in important for now.

I am thankful for God. I always have been and always will be. He is working miracles right now for me, and I could not be happier.

 

I have been continuously working on my Senior Mastery Micrography, more so than I have been working on my other items for my mastery, just because I feel I’ve been in a lull for it. I have no been so interested the last couple of weeks to continue the trail for my mastery of my 80’s posters solely because I have run out of the interest. I am hoping that once I finish my micrography that I will have more influence and passion for finishing my mastery. I feel I am in too deep to change it, and I don’t really want to change it.

My micrography is coming along fairly well, I just wish I had more time to work on the background because I feel with the background it would look more perfected, but I may just do some solid shapes in the background to counter the lettering in the text, but I am still unsure on what that would look like, and if it would look good at all.

I enjoyed the guest speaker(s) we had, even though I was only present for one of them, which was the woman from CCU. It was definitely a compelling speech and talk, and I was happy to know she was genuinely interested in what we were working on and how far we have all come into the design world, but that still did not peak or exclaim my interest to continue my education into college. She was very nice and she definitely peaked interest of others in the room, and I am grateful for that. I was also present for Justin’s wife, which was more fun than it was informative, mostly because I already knew where she worked and who she was, and I had already determined for myself that I wasn’t as interested in that as I was interested in what Justin was doing at my church. It was still fun to have her come in and talk to the class, and all that I can hope for with all the people coming in to talk to everyone is that someone in the class will get something out of it.

I was happy with the outcome of the grades I have gotten the first quarter. I was in the 90-80’s for all of my classes and I was not disappointed in the way they came out. I know I have been working hard for the first quarter and I am hoping I can express and do the same for the rest of the semester, and the semester after that.

 

I think I am finally getting the hang of mandating and maintaining a good time to do my Mastery every week. I have been working very hard the last couple of weeks to make sure my Senior Mastery in right on track. I am currently working on doing me 3 + 4 Annotated Bibliographies that focus more on how the color schemes could relate well with the colors that I have incorporated into my works. I am going with ver deluded, dull colors, but it works well because of the color palettes that I am doing. I have such far, created about 10-12 works so far, but I need to go back and make sure they all still have the same measurements so they don’t look uneven and sloppy.

I did not really care either way how good my poster for this came out, but I did what I could, based on the fact this whole time I had been waiting for my brother to have free-time to be my main model, but that never happened so I had to improvise after a while and do what I could. I slapped on some photos of a pill bottle and a beer bottle and put an inspirational quote and I decided that that would be good enough to do for the poster itself.

I cannot say how happy and relatively proud I am of the ones who participated in the IT cast for Character Day. I loved everyones efforts, (even if they were minimum), to participate in our last character day….ever. I wanted to reflect on everyone because it may have been a small gesture, but it really meant a lot to me to see everyone come together and just…do it. I was specifically impressed that we could get MS. D to dress up, and she actually looked REALLY GOOD! I believe everyone really got into their characters during the little “photoshoot” we did. I was really interested and touched by the fact everyone signed everyone’s polaroids. I loved how not even our major, but a bunch of other majors had a little group of friends that they had coordinte costumes form similar themes, and also coots to Conor for wearing the dress!

I, in my own words, I was only half paying attention to the things that our tour guide was saying, only because I genuinely had no interest in what he was saying about the college.  I did however, enjoy going through the student gallery and seeing all the unique works that the people have have made.

I had a very fun last year going to the State Fair. I was pretty much with the same group of people from last year, give or take a few people, but it was still the same group of friends that I had started to make last year and I am so grateful to spend my last year with them as well. I enjoyed hanging out with Milo because they would go on the big scary rides with me (thank you Milo!) and it really put into perspective on how much of a push I could give myself to do scary rides like that.

I am happy to say that I had finally gotten a Chicken on a Stick! After hearing about it for quite some time I was finally able to try one, and was not disappointed in the slightest. While we were there I was able to go on the giant dropping ride that drops you straight down, and I was absolutely terrified; but I surpassed and was triumphant!

Toward the end of the trip, I will admit I was struggling and was a bit upset on the ride back. I found myself getting very emotional about my sisters’ father, and I cried almost the whole way back. I was so grateful and blessed t have all the people around me though and those people (you know who you are) that were there for me the whole time. I do not think I would be tat composed afterwards if it were not for you guys. I appreciate you all more than I could ever ask, and Im glad that we could spend this last State Fair all together as a family.

My Senior Mastery is going very well, I just have a few more things that I need to touch on, but aside from that and my annotated bib, I am on track.

I finished a couple more of my Promotional Cards for my Senior Mastery, including The Outsiders and Beetlejuice. In my opinion, I think they look really good and I am really proud of the progress and the things I am creating. I also started perfecting the layout on the website I am creating. I think I want to go with just a simple black or white box outline aesthetic, but I’m not entirely sure yet. I really want the background and things around the website to not stand out as much as the actual designs I incorporate into the website are. I really want the things I put on there to pop and stand out, so I think a very neutral colored background that is soft to the eyes would make my work really stand out. I really and truly am enjoying working on my Senior Mastery.

My part in decorating the door, really wasn’t anything. I guess there is this part of me that just refused to do it because It hits a bit close to home, and sooner than others. I had my sisters father pass away and I really haven’t healed from it just yet. Part of me wanted to wear all black today to support Melanoma Cancer, but I knew today was for Breast Cancer, so I will do the best to offer my support for both, while I can. I did, as I am writing this now, went home early, just because this is such an emotional topic for me, (Ms D I got it done on Friday though). I am hoping that taking this day off to just relax with my family and remember him as he was will be enough for me to return to school on Monday ready to take on anything anyone can throw at me and give 100% into everything I do.

My final for the Humans Affair logo was alright, in my opinion, even though I further reflected on it in my previous blog. It just has a nice sense of blue mixed with the diversity colors. It was something I wasn’t really interested in making but I had fun doing it.