Week 15

Assignment

Finish working on our website and publish it.

Craft

iWeb and Xythos were used in the process of making final changes and publishing the website. The process of publishing the site on Xythos was rather simple.

Composition

I wanted my site to be calming. The layout that I used accomplished just this. The colors were very cool colors (an array of blues, greens, and tans) and the fonts were classy cursive and classic standard fonts that were easy to read. The combination of the colors and fonts on my site made it very simple.

Concept

The concept was to display all of my artwork done in Visual Communication as well as tell the visitors to my site a little bit about myself.

For a more in depth explanation of my site, click here!

Week 14 - NEW WEBSITE!!!

I have a website so if you want to see it, you had better CLICK HERE!!!

Weel 13

Assignment!

Create a webpage

Craft!

Gather a couple of pictures as well as digital copies of our projects for the webpage. Use iWeb to create the webpage.

Composition!

"All That I Am..." - An explanation and introduction of myself to the world (not to mention anyone else who wants to meet me), complete with 2 photographs of myself and some personal information.

"Visually Communicating..." - An explanation and introduction to the world of Visual Communication (better known as Art 100), complete with the explanations and digital copies of the 3 completed projects I've done thus far in the course.

"My Artwork" - A more detailed look into my completed artwork, complete with before and after pictures/drawings.

Concept!

I wanted to tell a little bit about myself and a lot of bit about the course, explaining the concept of Visual Communication through the use of my artwork (and maybe a little bit of wording as well).

Week 12

Assignment

Finalize Comic Book and make any needed changes

Concept

I wanted to tell a comical story in a way that everyone would understand

Composition

After the critique, I received a lot of comments about how the order and layout of my first few frames didn't make sense. I got a few suggestions to switch some of them around. I put my original first frame a few frames later and my original second frame first. My story still managed to make sense. It actually made more sense than my first layout. I also received comments about how my last few frames needed more color. So I threw in some oranges and reds to brighten it up.

Craft

Of course for the coloring part, I used Photoshop. To reorder my frames, I used Comic Life and shifted around my frames, as well as added a few pages. I found a nice pink color for the background. I also found some cool frame shapes and layouts for the pages. My comic totaled out to 5 pages. Kinda long, don't you think? It's still pretty gosh darn hot, if you ask me...

Week 10

Assignment

Add color to the pictures for the comic. I used a series of reds, grays, blues, and yellows for mine. Unfortunately, it owuld not upload on here, no matter how many times I tried. But the show must go on!!!

Craft

PHOTOSHOP!!! What else??? Start with the main layer, which is the picture. Make sure it is multiplied so that the lines will come through. Then, simply add a new layer for each new color you choose to use. The paint bucket, paintbrush, and eraser come in handy for this.

Composition/Concept

I chose bright colors to make my picture pop more and give it a more "cartoonish" feel. It's a comic! It's supposed to be fun!!!

Week 9

ASSIGNMENT
Print out the images that we already have for the comic. Attend a critique in which our fellow colleagues would look at our "rough draft" of our comics.

CRAFT
I DREW THEM!!! HAND-DRAWN!!! Then I scanned them and put them on my USB. Then I printed them out...





COMPOSITION
The people who looked at my comic understood it well, even the "flashback" and "flashforward." I did my story this way because I wanted the reader to go back in time and see all the crap that the main character had to go through that led up to the point where the story actually started. The only thing that they did not completely understand was the empty wallet picture, which represented the character not having any money. I'm going to remove that picture from the comic because I was told that the cell phone picture of her not having any battery or signal would be enough to get my point across.



CONCEPT
I wrote my story the way I did because it takes the reader through the journey of the main character. All of the negative things throughout the story lead up to the dramatic ending.

Week 8

Assignment

Write a story that will be converted into a comic strip. Bring in pictures to begin using for the comic strip that you will create. They can be photographed or drawn. Drawn pictures must be hand-colored using Photoshop.

Concept

My concept was to try and get across every aspect of the story using as less words as possible. This means that the pictures being used should be very detailed. I ended up using one very short line in the last cell of my comic. The pictures that I drew are HIGHLY detailed, and I feel that they get the point across just fine!

Composition

I used bright colors for my first cell picture because I want my comic to not only catch, but also keep the reader's attention throughout the storyline. The bright colors also make the pictures pop more.

Craft

I used Photoshop to color in my pictures. The paint bucket, eraser, and paintbrush were my BFFs in doing this. The zoom function was also another close friend of mine. It helped to erase those details that I might have missed, and also to fill in little spaces that were IMPOSSIBLE to fill in when the picture fit the screen. The use of numerous layers (a different one for every color) helped to make coloring and erasing a lot easier than it would have been if I were just using one layer. Since this was my first time using the coloring function on Photoshop, my draft is a little rough, but it can be fixed!!!

Week 7

PERSON 1: (Walking angrily down the street block towards the brown two-flat near the corner. A box is being carried) This wind is blowing a little bit too hard for my taste. It would be so freaking nice out here if the wind wasn't blowing eight gazillion miles per hour. It's bad enough this box weighs a ton. She'd better be happy I like her because I wouldn't be going through all this crap if I didn't.

FLASHBACK

Car driving on expressway.

PERSON 1: (In car, looking at gas meter) Oh my gosh, I'm about to run out of gas! GRRR!!!

Car is pulled over to shoulder and slows down to a complete stop.

PERSON 1: CRAP! (Tries to start car, but it will not run) UGH! Now I'll just call a stupid taxi. (Looks in purse for cell phone and money. Finds cell phone, but has no money in wallet) Oh great. No money. (Attempts to make call on phone but hears nothing) And the phone is dead. GREAT! I knew I should've charged it at home! (Stands on the shoulder for a minute thinking of what to do. After coming up with nothing, she sighs heavily, gets the box out of the trunk, and begins to walk) I can't believe this. Her house is a 10 minute drive from here, so I can only IMAGINE how long this walk is going to be.

After walking for about 15 minutes, she turns a corner onto the block that PERSON 2 stays on. A child's skateboard is left in the middle of the sidewalk, and she trips on it, nearly falling onto the ground. Her shirt catches onto the gate of a house and rips. She stumbles backwards and the heel of her shoe breaks off.

PERSON 1: WHY ME?!?!?

FLASHFORWARD

PERSON 1: (Limping to the front door of the building) I hate my life. (Rings doorbell. Door swings open, and PERSON 2 stands there smiling. PERSON 1 carelessly hands the package over to PERSON 2) Here!

PERSON 2: (Grabs box excitedly) Aww, for me? You shouldn't have! (Invites PERSON 1 inside and sits box on the living room floor to open it. Pulls out a framed and hand-painted portrait of three people; PERSON 2 hugging a younger girl, and a man standing next to them smiling) This is so nice! I've been looking for a painting to hang over the mantle! Thank you SO much, hun! (Reaches out to hug a PERSON 1, who reluctantly hugs back)

PERSON 1: Yeah, well... You're welcome. I found an old picture of us before dad died and decided to paint it. It took me about 3 weeks to complete it, 21 days of late nights staying up mixing pigments, a car with an empty tank, a broken heel on my shoe, a ripped shirt... But I GUESS it was worth it. Haven't seen you smile in years since dad died. Happy birthday, mom. (Smiles and reaches out to hug PERSON 2)

CONCEPT

This was a story for my next project, which will be a comic strip. PERSON 1 is going through all this hell to get this heavy painting to PERSON 2, who is her mother. PERSON 1 is trying to make PERSON 2 smile since she hasn't seen a smile in so long, and this is why she's doing what she's doing. In the beginning, she's a little pissed about all the mess that she's going through to get this package to her mother, but in the end, she realizes that it was all worth it just to see her mom smile.

Week 6

ASSIGNMENT
Mashing up our own pictures to convey a message to viewers

CRAFT
Gather a bunch of pictures and use Photoshop to make them funky (i.e. shrink people, put giant heads on little bodies, etc) and mash them all into one big deal.


COMPOSITION
So I'm mashing about seven or eight pictures together, all of them being things and people that mean a lot to me. The main focus of the piece is going to be me, sort of looking off into space. All of the other pictures are going to be "floating" around me as my "thoughts." Why? Because these are the things/people that are important to me and that I'm constantly thinking about. The piece will have no specific order. It will just be my "thoughts" floating around.


CONCEPT
The idea that I'm trying to get across is my love for all of these objects in the piece. I want the picture of myself to be the most noticeable because the main idea of the piece is to show MY personal thoughts. I want the viewer to think to themselves "she is the focal point of the piece, so these objects outlining her must have something to do with her and her life."

Week 5

Assignment

Mash up two pictures that you have photographed yourself. Try and communicate something specific to other people using visual art (i.e. the photos).

Craft

Pick up a camera, point at a subject, and click! Well, in this case, point at 25 subjects (no, not all at the same time), and then click.

Concept

I'm not sure exactly what pictures I'm going to be mashing at this time, but once I do figure that out, I'll have a five-star (that's right, FIVE-STAR) concept. I have absolutely no idea of what I even want to do at this point as far as a concept goes. But it's okay because I'll eventually get there!

Composition

Even though I'm not exactly sure what picture I'm going to use, I'm most likely going to mesh up pictures of people and things that are close to me, seeing that most of the pictures I took for this project are pictures of people and things that are close to me. The only problem with this is that I will have to find a way to show that these things are the things that I care about. This is my missing piece. Posted with this blog are some of the pictures that might be used. From top to bottom, the descriptions are as follows: one of my nephews holding Spongebob; my older sister picking her teeth after a delightful lunch at Weber Grill; COLDSTONE!; my music awards; my bestest friend in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD; another one of my nephews laying on the floor; my mom and dad holding hands and looking both ways before crossing the street. Got any suggestions???

Week 4

Craft

The craft of my final print came out very nicely. There were no funky white edges or weird shadows anywhere. Abe's head was sized and rotated to perfection over the original head. His glasses (which weren't originally his, of course) gave him a very intelligent look. The original pictures on the banners hanging on the museum were replaced with photographs of Lincoln, and they were sized and fit perfectly. The only thing that was suggested that I should change in my piece was the brightness of Lincoln's head in comparison to the rest of the piece. It was quite bright compared to all the other elements in the picture (not intentionally), so I lowered the brightness and contrast on his head, and raised the brightness and contrast on my sister's body and the background. Now, everything flows better, and Lincoln's head doesn't stick out like a sore thumb.

Composition/Concept

I chose to mesh these series of pictures because as I've stated in previous blogs, Lincoln is a major figure in American history, and I thought that it would be pretty awesome for him to visit a museum and see the impact he has made on America. Also, it's a museum in Illinois, Lincoln's home state. What better place to have Lincoln see his own history than in his home state? The title of my piece is "Studious." I came up with this title in our second critique. Prof. Peck inspired it. As he began to "state the obvious" in my piece, he said "So we see Lincoln visiting a museum to see himself. How very studious of him." I thought it was pretty funny when he said it, and I became attached to the word and decided to use it as my title. It fit in really well with the backpack and glasses Lincoln happened to be wearing.

Week 3

Craft
I changed the pictures that I was originally going to use, but I'll get to that once I begin to talk about my concept. I chose these three pictures because my sister (the girl in the photo) was at SUCH a perfect position for Abraham Lincoln's head to be placed over hers. So hey, why not stick his head on a body with a polyester jacket? That's not something you see everyday! The background is there to just give extra insight into the concept of the pictures.

Composition

Who knew that you couuld change a photograph so drastically by using just a simple computer program? It's amazing! I cut Lincoln's head off of his body and placed it on my sister's. Then I cut my sister out of the picture that she was in (the background was so... Blah) and placed her on a picture of the Field Museum (which just so happened to be where we were when I took the photograph of her). My sister wears glasses so I decided to put them on Abe's face. It turned out to be pretty cool! Hanging on the front of the museum are two banners; one with a photo of a dinosaur and another with a photo of a mummy. I plan on replacing both of those with photographs of Abe.

Concept

I originally didn't have a solid concept when I began the meshing of the photographs. I was hoping it would come to me as I went along. I didn't get a solid concept until the day of the critiques. I got a few really good ideas from different people. Ultimately, I ended up with this. Museums are full of history. Abraham Lincoln is an important figure in American history. What In this photo, I have Lincoln going to the museum to see himself. What would Lincoln think of himself after going to the museum to look at his own history?

Week 2

Assignment
My assignment was to find 50 photos; 25 from the Lincoln Era and 25 from the contemporary era.

Craft
To find the Lincoln era photos, I simply went to numerous online photo search engines (i.e. google, photobucket, flickr, etc) and typed in "Abraham Lincoln" in the search bar. Tada! An array of Lincoln Memorial, Abraham Lincoln, and some irrelevant photos popped on screen. I selected the ones that appealed to me the most (especially the ones where his hair was fUnKy).

As far as the 25 contemporary photos, I had to invest in a disposable Kodak camera (I would've used my digital camera but somehow, the screen on it cracked. Yea... I almost cried...). I started snapping away at random things; a telephone display in Office Depot, some liquor bottles in CVS, a couple Lincoln Towncars. After taking 15 "new" pictures, I found 10 more on my computer that I had already taken. Most of those were fun memories of dates, trips out of town with my nephews, and museum trips with my sister.

Composition
The contemporary photo that I chose as my favorite is a picture of my little sister. No, she's not my real little sister, but... Well that's another story. Anyway, this is one of my favorite pictures because it was taken in mid-action, kind of a spontaneous picture. We were walking briskly to the parking garage outside of the Field Museum. It was FREEZING that day, but she still managed to give a really cute and cheesy smile, despite the -47 degree weather (no, not really but it sure did feel that way). My favorite Lincoln Era photo was a photo of his lovely profile. The background is darkened, which causes his head to pop out more. It's a very dramatic photograph, in my opinion.

I plan on meshing a picture of Abraham Lincoln standing up with a picture that I took at my nephew's kindergarten graduation. Why? Well, I just think it would be pretty funny; a president who's been dead for over 200 years at a 2008 kindergarten graduation. Good times...

Concept

Basically, the concept of my project as a whole is to give viewers the impression that Lincoln is a fun-loving guy who likes to party and live life on the edge (AFTER he graduates from kindergarten of course). He's so serious in almost all of the pictures that I seen of him. He needs to break out of his shell.

Week 1

Assignment

-Set up blog

Craft

-How you did it/Process

I was prompted to create a gmail account. Creating that account would have started off my blogging birth, but being rejected for making it pushed back the labor time. After numerous "try again" clicks and trial and error processes with different usernames and passwords of mine that were already in existence with different email accounts, I quit trying; it was becoming pointless, and not to mention, very annoying. I decided to attempt to start my blog with a different email address that I already had. Lo and behold, it worked! I filled out a few "display name" and "password" boxes, clicked a few "accept terms of agreement" circles and thus, "Visual Communication" was born.

Composition

-Why this photo? Why this template?

I took this photo of myself while I was sitting in my dorm room during my freshman year. I guess I was just kind of bored one day. Ever since then, I fell in love with it. It's one of my favorite photos. I've never taken any other photo of myself like it. My eyes big, warm and brown, my smile wide and bright, long eyelashes and soft, silky hair... It's a beautiful interpretation of myself; soft and sweet, with a warm stare that can be easily embraced. If you're lucky, maybe they'll even embrace you back.

Being the "girly-girl" that I am, this template immediately caught my eye when I saw it. I loved the colorful polka dots, the different hues of blues, oranges, and greens, and the cartoon-like and cute little icons. It fit my girlish personality.

Concept

-If you had a soap box, what would you yell to the world?

I'm a quiet and shy person, sort of introverted, if you will. Since I'm not accustomed to being very loud but I like trying new things, I would probably just yell through my soap box. No sentence forms, no words. Nothing but yelling. Maybe a nice "YEEEAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!" or maybe even a "WOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!" would definitely satisfy me. Yeah... That'll work.