Looking Back at the Course...

At last, we've arrived at the final blog of the year. Not only does this mark the end of the 2008-2009 school year, but the end of the TGJ201 course. I can honestly say that this course has benefited me because i was able to attain knowledge and skills that will assist me with my future jobs. I had the privilege to be taught how to use various computer image-editing programs, a skill that is probably useful in the near future. Not only can i take important skills with me, but the fun pieces of art I've created.

The multiple exposure assignment was my first major project of the year. Though I was still quite new to Adobe Photoshop, I thought I had handled the tasks pretty well. I had all the ideas in my mind and everything seemed perfect; until doom headed my way. After changing wardrobe between the shots and adjusting the lights, the final 5 photos were saved onto my trusty USB. The next day, in the Communication Tech. area, I realized that the final pictures didn't make sense when put together. I grew tired of trying to put together the impossible so I decided to take completely new photos at school to finish the assignment immediately. In the end, I chose the staircase by the Art Department as my scene. I took several snapshots, all with various poses in my uniform and rushed to crop each image with the almighty magnetic lasso tool. I regret not being able to add more creativity, but with procrastination comes consequences. I feel the strongest component of this piece were the different uses of leveling and positioning on the staircase.

The circus collage assignment was another Adobe Photoshop project that i looked forward to. I approached this with much more excitement and confidence. The collage was meaningful because I was able to create a piece of art that i could personally connect to. The collage was a representation of my personality and so I decided to choose the trapeze artist because I am adventurous and daring and i enjoy taking risks. Cropping images was much easier at this point in the course as I've had previous experience. At the beginning, arranging the images was tough because I wasn't able to fit every aspect into my collage, but the result of my finished product satisfied me. I didn't encounter many problems with this project as it was quite simple and I understood the concept thoroughly. The strongest component of my collage would have to be the way i portrayed a trapeze artist by being in a swinging position to make it seem like i was an actual circus performer. Then, with Photoshop, i added a swing to my hands and it instantly looked realistic.

The vectorized pattern assignment was confusing at first because I was just introduced to Adobe Illustrator, another image-editing program. After several attempts at vectorizing, i was able to achieve a clean look for my images. I thought that Illustrator was a lot more complicated than Photoshop. My three randomly chosen objects were a spoon, a hamburger and a lightbulb. Vectorizing was only frustrating at first, but the effort to make each detail matter was well worth it in the end. After my three images were vectorized, i had to conjure up my creativity to combine all three objects to generate a pattern. After much rotating and flipping, i arrived at an unusual design that somewhat resembled an insect. I was quite proud of my pattern, as it took a combined effort of imagination and patience. I felt that the strongest components of my final art piece were the three individual vectorized objects. They looked amazing on their own and I couldn't help but marvel at the difference vectorization could make. My images were instantly transformed from dull to lively.

The eccentricK inspiration assignment was one of the most frustrating projects I've ever completed due to its inability to save onto the computer and USB! I had to redo my project FIVE times, but thankfully, i saved my vectorized portrait and pattern individually so I didn't have to restart each time it failed. After attending the seminar, i immediately proceeded to brainstorm and research a candidate proven to be eccentric and inspirational. After considering Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler and Ben Stiller, i decided to settle with Edward Norton, known for his notorious movie roles in both "Fight Club" and "The Incredible Hulk". I was content with my final portrait but it would've looked much better if my pattern had a coloured background. Also, there weren't many vectorized areas, so you could barely recognize who the celebrity was. I believe the strongest component of my project would have to be how I adjusted the size very small to make it congested, so that the white spaces in between were only partially visible.

The WeccentricK video assignment was without a doubt my favourite project of the entire course. I always enjoyed filming and editting videos, but i felt that the friendship i had with my partner Olivia contributed to most of the fun i had while working on it. Our project exceeded my expectations completely because we felt alot of difficulty creating a storyboard at first. The turnout of our project was somewhat unlike what we had in mind when we first began. After 3 weeks of filming, photoshoots, and editting, our final video entitled "Vively" (a merge of our traits lively and vivacious) was finished and in our perspectives, a perfect portrayal of our personalities. Most of the video was unscriptted and we just acted naturally as the camera rolled. We used the song "The Fear" by Lily Allen as our music and faint giggling and singing can be heard in the background. I feel that we were able to overcome every obstacle that headed our way. The strongest component of our video would have to be our concept and the various methods we used to make the video interesting and different from the others.