Altared Book Cover Page

For this blog I will be talking about potential ideas for what I can do with my Altared book cover page...

1)  I could cut up images and quotes from books and concepts I like.  The cover will have these images and writings put on the front of the scrapbook.

2)  I could shred up different projects I have done for the class and use them to create an image on the front cover of my scrapbook.

3)  I could use different green markers to cover the page in my favorite color and then place ceramic tiles on top to make it pop, then I will add artwork to the very top portion.  This will turn the scrapbook into something I enjoy looking at.

Class Take Away 7

Why am I here?
Well no one can ever really give a direct certain response to that question.  Life is full of opportunities to learn and grow, so the person I am today won't be the person that I am ten years from now.  In class the Brigg Jung personality assessment was mentioned.  I first learned about this personality assessment when I was in high school and at the time my personality type was an ENFJ.  A couple of years later I did the assessment and it said my personality type was INFJ.  For the last class project I did the assessment again and it said my personality type was INTP.  The first time I did this personality assessment I did not understand that the personality type I had would not be the one I would always have.  Now I understand that not only must I continue to grow, but I should also actively seek new ways to become the best version of myself. I know that there are parts of me that will always remain the same, but there are also parts of me that are still changing and growing.  I definitely will not be the person I am today tomorrow, but I cannot tell you who I will become.

Why Do I Do MAS?
I said before that media arts and science was not my first choice. I was in a Digital Arts & Media program in Central Nine when I was in high school.  I spent a year and a half in that program, it helped me to grow artistically and individually.  Needless to say I found happiness in the work I created at Central Nine.  Ever since I can remember my dad has worked eighty hours a week to support his family and he always looked miserable, this made me decide that no matter what I wanted to do a job that brought me happiness and satisfaction.  I believe that for me media arts and science is a way to find happiness in the work I do.

Who Am I? Why Am I Here?

     In class we did these blind contour drawings of a partner.  After we completed a timed session of the drawings, we gave the pictures to the person we where drawing.  Now we are supposed to come up with something that represents us to answer the questions, "who am I" and "why am I here", based on what we got about ourselves from the drawings we received from our partners.  Personally, I think it's hard to attain any real information about myself from a blind drawing of myself that's been generalized to fit someone else's perception.  For this particular project, I wanted to focus on both general and personal information about myself and why I am here.  I put together a little bag of different things that are meant to represent some aspect of who I am and/or why I am here.  My name is Arianna, which means silver and holy one, depending on the culture an individual is in.  I personally like the meaning of silver more than holy one, because holy one seems impossible to live up to and silver is a very lovely color.  I chose to represent my name with a silver gel pen and for the holy one aspect of my name I used a painting of the goddess Aphrodite, because I am not religious person.  My favorite color is green. I represented my favorite color with some green ceramic tiles and a green gel pen.  I put pennies and dimes in the bag to represent my financial growth.   I love to read and write.  I chose to represent this aspect of myself with the author and book that started it all, In the Forests of the Night by Amelia Atwater Rhodes.  I come from a poor family, but I work hard and have the money to show for it now.  I started out at Ivy Tech Community College, because it was the only school I could afford and they offer a great curriculum.  I had trouble parting with Ivy Tech, so now I work there as a public safety officer.  I represented my close ties to Ivy Tech with a picture of their logo, that I received on an academic achievement award.  I am a bit of an overachiever and I chose to represent this aspect of myself with a StrengthsQuest top 5 strengths quiz.  I was not the least bit surprised to find out that my top five strengths are strategic, commanding, input, individualization, and context.  I am good at taking charge in any situation,  I like taking in other peoples ideas and assessing them compared to my own, I see people for who they are as opposed to who they want you to think they are, and I reflect on the past to find better solutions for the future.  The last thing I put in the bag are two pictures of works I did during this semester with the help of my Seeing Sideways class.  This class has inspired me to be creative in ways I never thought possible and helped me to achieve some of my best work since coming to IUPUI.  I wanted to show this work as a representation for what I will during my time at IUPUI, but also how the creative innovations will continue long after I have settled into a career.

 The picture to the left is an 80's pixel character that I created recently.

The picture below is a photo I took of the gem stone at IUPUI. This photo is special because it inspired a short story and storyboard called Serenity and the Crystal of Destiny. 

 

Who Am I?

I am Arianna. My name means holy one and silver. I love the color green and its many shades.  I am an overachiever.  I am good at taking charge, thinking strategically, accepting input from others, seeing people for who they are, and looking to the past to make a better future.  I am extremely strong willed and stubborn. I love to read and write.  I started college off at Ivy Tech Community College, graduated last May, and transferred with my Associates degree to IUPUI.  I actually wanted to go to IU Bloomington, but IUPUI is closer and cheaper, aka the more reasonable choice.  I love my area of study, Media Arts and Science with a focus in Game Development.

Why Am Here?

I initially wanted to get my degree in Criminal Justice, so that I could become a criminal analyst.  In order to be a criminal analyst an individual is required to obtain top level government security clearance and I could not do this because my father constitutes as a foreign national.  Without the ability to pursue the career I wanted I decide to pursue the next best thing for me, which is Media Arts and Science.  I naturally have an innovative personality, so this field is a perfect fit for me.  I come from a poor family, so I am using my time in college to get a degree and save back money for the future.  I don't want my future family to suffer the way that my parents and siblings did, simply because we where too poor.  I am here to build a better life for myself and the people I love. 

Class Take Away 6

     In class we talked about our projects involved with "bible dipping" and we explored our fears associated with this project, along with the in class assignment of blind drawing a partner.  One thing I noticed is that when the class talked about the "bible dipping" project and their word re-use, either they did not understand what context to interpret the word in or they were not comfortable with their own personal interpretation of the word re-use.  This was interesting to me, because like my classmates I had a similar problem with my word treason.  This class session served as a good reminder that language and word usage can be active, therefore words can be interpreted or even re-interpreted as a way to understand these words through each individual mindset.  With that reminder I was able to do something fun and creative with my word treason, because I kept interpreting the word itself until it turned into something I could understand and relate too.
     I liked some of the ideas presented in class.  For example, re-using old dreams to something creative and new was a great idea.  I had heard of a word cloud before class, but the way he turned the world cloud into his favorite movie script was pretty clever. He wrote out all of the words in the script and based their size on what words where repeated most often in the script.
    We talked about our fears too.  My personal fear of failure to myself was what I talked about.  I always have high expectations of myself, so when we did an assignment that I knew was impossible to succeed at my fear increased.  The others became more successful when they acknowledged that they could not be successful and their expectations of their work dropped, but mine did not because of my fear of not succeeding in my endeavors to create something good/worthy of the expectations I set for myself. Other people began to explore their fears in these projects and life, after I had the courage to express my fear of failing my own high expectations.  Some where worried about others projects being more creative and better than the projects they come up with.  Some where afraid of failing in the general sense of failing.  Some where afraid of upsetting others with their failures.  Many of us could relate to the feelings of being overwhelmed, making deadlines, letting others down with failed works, failing ourselves personally, and inadequacy.  Some where afraid of being alone forever, while others in the class where afraid they would never get time alone again.  It was helpful to see that others are going through the same things that the rest of us are going through, because it reminds us that we are not alone, whether we achieve or fail.   

Red Book "Bible Dipping"

For this assignment, I was supposed to determine a word from a red book, page forty-two, third paragraph, tenth word and once the word is determined I have to create something that represents this word.  The only red book I happen to own is The Beefeater's Grisly Guide to The Tower of London and the word that this led to was "of".  This word was not going to work for this assignment, but their where two words beside of that would make great selections.  One was guilty and the other was treason.  I think that both can be in a sense related to the beheading axe I decided to create, but the word I chose to go with was treason.  I chose to represent treason with a beheading axe, because the section of the book the word is in is about Anne Boleyn and her supposed treason against Henry VIII.  For this treason, Anne Boleyn was beheaded and this is why I chose to create a beheading axe to correlate with the word treason.

Class Take Away 5

I didn't get a chance to go to class this last Tuesday and I almost forgot to do this class take away.  I really like all of the projects that we have done so far and the journey this class is taking us on.  The project based on breaking the rules in our major focus was good for me.  Almost everything I do in my life is structure based, so sometimes I need to be reminded to loosen up and relax a little bit. This project was perfect for doing just that.  I think that it is possible for the project to end up on either spectrum of a good or bad project, but it gives you a chance to let loose with your creative side and get in touch with a younger child version of yourself.  Its great for the imagination to be able to tap into the child that lives inside every adults heart.  It gives a person the chance to just sit back and enjoy their creations.

Breaking Photoshop Rules

In Photoshop you are not supposed to upscale an image, free transform an image, or use multiple filter types.  I did all three in this image.  The upscaling of this image made it look pretty bad and distorted at first.  After I upscaled the image, I tried free transforming it a couple of times until I got an angle on the image that I liked.  Once I had the image at the angle I wanted, I used two different filters (glowing edges & colored pencil) and I used a blend mode (pin light), to make it turn into this wonderful image of rainbow puke.  This is not how I expected the image to turn out, but I like the fact that it ended up looking like a painting of a My Little Pony or Care Bear puke fest. The original photo was of a sliced rainbow cake, that got turned into a rainbow sketch with outlines of the original image.  I am going to keep playing around with the concept of breaking the rules and see where it will take me on my creative journey.