GIF Reflection

"Perfection"

My self symbol concept is a ballerina turning in a pirouette while the background color changes. I arrived on this concept by listing my different hobbies. Having danced dance recreationally for over 8 years, I have an unconditional love for the art and the sport . Therefore, I started listing ballet actions and ended up choosing the action of turning in pirouette as it is a difficult skill to master. The action ehanced my concept, because the changing background colors convey the joy and myriad of emotions one feels when successfully turning on pointe for it is a huge accomplishment in every dancer's life. Having mastered the skill myself, I wanted to convey my own emotions for its feeling of bliss is incomparable to any other. Additionally, since a ballerina conveys perfection, it shows my desire to be perfect. From her perfectly executed turn to her rounded arms in fifth position, a ballerina could not be a more appropriate definition of "perfection". Therefore, I drew a ballerina as opposed to just a regular dancer.

Originally, my thumbnail sketch only had a dancer standing on point in passe but did not move. In the post-its, the ballerina was turning with low first position arms. However, through the use of Photoshop, I added background colors and made the ballerina turn more seamlessly. The background colors enhanced the emotion aspect. Furthermore, I made the ballerina's arm in fifth vs. in first position like I originally had it to convey a ballerina's confidence. The higher arms show how that she can keep her head up high at all times despite  adversities. 

Thanksgiving GIF

Portrait Transformation Refelction

The Playground

Before:

NYC Skyline (not original photo)

Sunset Park Playground (Original Photo)

1. Concept: Inspired by the images of the Photoshopped environment as viewed in class, I was inspired to brainstorm ideas surrounding my environment, New York City. As New York City has many diverse features from skyscrapers to rats eating pizzas to an overabundance of squirrels to the point that they seem to be "flying"around the city, I decided to incorporate these images in my Photoshopped image to demonstrate the uniqueness of my city. Additionally, growing up as a New Yorker, I explored New York City similarly to how children explore a playground. I, therefore, decided to put the backdrop of New York City behind a regular playground to portray the concept that every New Yorker's true playground is not only limited to a regular playground, but also New York City.

Final Product

2. I am somewhat satisfied with my result, because I successfully included both the beauty and the absurdities of New York City while portraying my concept. However, I am unsure if my audience knows what I am attempting to portray as it might be unclear without any knowledge of my background as a New Yorker.


3: Process for Layer Mask:
1) After editing the NYC skyline layer with photo filters and curves, I added the park layer on top of the NYC Skyline layer.
2) I, then, added a layer mask on top of the park photo because I wanted to reveal parts of the backdrop of the NYC skyline to replace the sky of the park
2) I adjusted the size of the brush tool and used the brush tool in black to erase the unwanted parts of the playground picture to reveal the NYC Skyline background. Since there was a layer mask on top of the playground picture, the result when using the brush tool is the layer underneath it (NYC skyline) rather than a black paint.
3) I continued to use the black brush until I revealed all the parts of the NYC Skyline I desired, including the skyscrapers and parts of the skyscrapers' reflection in the water. If I made a mistake and revealed more than I wanted to, I used the brush tool in white to recover the playground picture.

Photoshop Mini Lesson

Letter Project Reflection

1)  Receiving the letter ‘o’, I first brainstormed words that started with the letter ‘o’ such as octopus, orange and oreo. As I stared more at the letter, I also brainstormed objects that were discretely shaped like the letter such as Earth, Saturn and the Sun. Finally, I narrowed down to more specific ideas that were related to my letter and my interests/preferences such as a Christmas wreath because Christmas is one of my favorite holidays and a wreath’s shape is in a letter O. 

 

The thumbnail sketch process was helpful, because it gave me many different options when choosing my final concept. In the end, I did not have to worry about brainstorming more ideas because of the excess amount of concepts I previously came up with.

Ultimately, I narrowed down my concept to a ferris wheel and a donut. Since I wanted to personally relate to my concept, I drafted a ferris wheel because of my love for theme parks and the adrenaline rush it gives me and a donut because of my love for food and more specifically, donuts. On my drafts, I tested out possible colors so my letter could be more visually appealing. However, after helpful peer review, I concluded with drawing a donut because of popular majority's vote.

2) To represent my concept visually in my design, I colored the donut a bright pink to make the donut standout. While the pink was bright, I made sure to color it darker so it would be visible from a far. I also chose to color the background a lighter blue to make the donut pop out from its background. 

 

3) The most challenging aspect of this project was coloring my donut because I had to be very careful not to color outside the lines. Since a donut is a perfect circle, it was difficult to keep it that way when using messy materials such as chalk pastel. I also did not outline the donut for aesthetic reasons, which made it difficult to keep colors from mixing.  

4)  I am somewhat satisfied with my project, because my goal of making the letter 'o' recognizable was achieved. However, since the chalk pastel made streaks and the donut was not perfectly circular due to colors of the donut and the background colliding, the coloring of the project could be improved.  

5)  If I could change my design, I would make the donut a different angle, because it would still show a letter ‘o’ but in a more creative yet discrete way. It would also be more realistic since it would add depth, making it seem 3-Dimensional where as a front facing donut seems very 2-Dimensional. 

Bio and Summer 2015

Biography: My name is Liana and I am a senior at Millennium High School. My dream job is to be paid to eat, sleep and breathe. 

Summer 2015

I started off my summer attending COAP (Career Opportunities in the Accounting Profession), a five day residential program held at Long Island University in which exposed high school students to accounting as a profession. We took a field trip to one of the Big 4 companies, KPMG, where we learned about resume writing and overlooked this beautiful view of New York City.

After COAP, I worked at my middle school, Transfiguration School, for a majority of my remaining summer. Working as a teacher's aid for fourth grade, I helped many cute but devilish kids. As a part of my job, I chaperoned kids on various field trips such as Governor's Island as shown above.

As this summer has been scorching hot, ice cream became a daily part of my diet. This picture shows my addiction to this cold delicious treat, showing one of the million cones I must have devoured over the course of the summer.