Junior Blogging

This week in photoshop we learned how to restore and colorize damaged photos, save different types of ways for uploading your art for certain purposes, and now we are in the process of learning how to design an event flyer. When we were learning Illustrator I liked the videos better than the book, but now for Photoshop, I like the book better than the videos. One of the tutorials we did was called Ena the Ballerina. It was kind of an event advertisement I guess. I really like the way it turned out, though.

On Wednesday, I wasn’t in class for too long. That morning I was out for homebound, then I went to Socastee for the junior class ring ceremony rehearsal, then I came for a little, then I left school to go to counseling. During my short appearance in Digital Communications I attempted to brainstorm for my thumbnail sketches for my candy bar wrapper. I was not very successful. Brainstorming and doing thumbnails are my least favorite part about designing things in the major. I hate doing that. That and blogging are hands down my least favorite things overall about the major. And right now. I’m blogging about thumbnails, so thats two of the worst things, PUT TOGETHER! Wow, how knew that was possible?!

I think I have decided to make my candy bar wrapper project dedicated to my best friends Brooke, Sterling, and Paola. There are four of us in our group, just like there are four pieces of a king size Kit Kat, which is the bar I have chosen. Just like the pieces on the bar, even though they came together from the same place, they can be separated, but they will always belong together. It is kind of a stretch, but it makes sense to me, so it’s fine. A long distance friendship bar. Great idea.

I am so excited for this weekend because Paola and I are going to Night of a Thousand Candles and we are going to take some pictures that we can edit next week.

Thanksgiving break was alright. I got to rest a lot which was good but I missed out on a lot of family time with my grandparents that were visiting from California. We all hung out at my dads house in Charlotte for the whole break. I missed out on a lot because of my post concussion syndrome, including black Friday shopping on Thanksgiving, and going to get a Christmas tree. But, I guess you have to do what you have to do. On the bring side, I ate a lot of green beans on Thanksgiving. Green beans are one of my favorite foods and my stepmom made them per my request.

My holiday card designs weren’t too shabby at all. I really like the simplicity of my cards. I did get kind of unmotivated and rushed towards the end and ended up using the same font for both of my cards, but it’s fine, I’m fine, and it really doesn’t look bad. Only when they are right next to each other and it’s obvious. But, imagine them in a Hallmark store. I think they would look pretty good in there, and that was the goal.

Since I am writing this after formal, I am going to write a little bit about it. Formal was so much fun. That is even an understatement of how much fun I had. Some would disagree, but that’s just my opinion. It was a great night spent with my friends and I will never forget it. It was awesome just to get my mind off of everything for just a couple hours and simply just have fun dancing and singing. The DJ was really good, unlike the one at Socastee High’s prom last year, lol. And I looked really good at formal, not even gonna lie. Everyone looked really good,  actually. It was funny because a lot of girls including myself looked like we had just rolled out of bed at school, then at formal we got ready and made ourselves look like we belonged on a runway or something in that amount of time. Overall, I ad so much fun dancing with my friends, it will definitely be one of my favorite memories of high school, and I will most definitely be attending next year.

I got a seventy five as my grade on my hot sauce label. Alright, deal. I didn’t do my five thumbnail sketches that well. So if I redo them I could get more points, which is nice.

My first quarter grades were not that good and I am not proud of them. But, I did the best I could with the given circumstances that I had and was in at the time. I really need to improve all of my grades during this second quarter. It is so hard this semester for me. This semester reminds me of my whole freshman year because I would cry all the time. On the way to school, after school in the dark alone, and basically anywhere else, I would cry. School was a horrible place. I get so much anxiety when I come here and I just can’t wait for it to be over. My grades are suffering and I am no longer motivated.

Adobe Photoshop is more confusing than Adobe Illustrator in my opinion. I really like Adobe Illustrator because I feel like I am more creative with it. It might be just because I am more comfortable with it since I’ve used it for longer than Adobe Illustrator, but I do enjoy using both of the Adobe programs.

I really liked the Savannah College of Art and Design Presentation because I went there two summers ago for summer camp. That is where i decided I want be a graphic designer. I absolutely fell in love with graphic design and advertising. That was also one of the best weeks of my life. When I talk about the best times of my life I talk about that summer camp, and when I went to Disney World with my show choir at Socastee last semester of sophomore year. But, at SCAD I made lifelong friends and knowledge. The most important thing was it helped me decide my career path. I also fell in love with Savannah, Georgia. Going to SCAD for my junior and senior year of college if I decide to be something in the creative field would be ideal. HGTC for freshman and sophomore.

I think everyone’s job shadowing presentations were pretty good. Most people’s were very repetitive of each other though. The only one that really grabbed my attention was Jake’s. He went to WPDE Channel 15. Unlike the usual, “I job shadowed a photographer!”. Like, okay, we get it. Photography is fairly simple and that why the majority of us job shadowed photographers. Because we are lazy and like to do the bare minimum, and that includes me too. Don’t get me wrong though, I do enjoy photography and so does a majority of my classmates. I would like to job shadow again, but I would like to job shadow a high school guidance counselor, music teacher, or computer class teacher. But, I don’t think I can do that on school time since it doesn’t have much to do with my major at all. But, it is what I am interested in. I’ve realized by coming into this major that I want to do things that pertain to this major as a hobby, not really as a full time job. I think I’d like to work in a high school. But, I guess I’ll have to try that out later, which is fine.

I thought the video that we watched in advisory on Friday was very interesting, educating, and eye opening. If I was in the video I would say “It is not okay for you to make fun of my post concussion syndrome and act like everything is fine. It is okay for you to ask me questions and not make me feel bad for having to remove myself from situations that are too stimulating to the brain.” But, nobody asked me so I’ll just shut up. I didn’t like how kids watched the video in advisory and would giggle and give each other looks. Can people just care about one another? Is it seriously that hard? It blows my mind.

I am thankful for everything. Good and bad. Everything has shaped me into the person I am today, as cliche as that sounds. Though I may not like the person I am sometimes, it is what it is. I am especially thankful for my DC Hoez. They help me not go insane and they are the best.

The design process for the hot label was kind of hard in my opinion. It’s hard for me to be creative on command, ya know? But, I ended up pulling it together and made a “final” to show the class and have Ms. Franklin and Ms. D give tips on. They told me, and basically everyone else, that our designs needed to be more eye catching. The name on mine needed to grab the audiences attention more, and the wrapper needed to draw less attention so that the viewers eyes would go straight to the name and point of the product. After I fixed that I was pretty content with my design. My final design definitely looks so much better than what I started with as my beginning design.
My first AAST spirit week and fall festival trunk or treat were so so so much fun. AAST is a school where you can be weird and go all out, so that’s exactly what everyone did for spirit week. So many participated and looked so cool. It was so cool to walk through the halls and see so many students dressed up. Plus, I love dressing up in tutus and glitter so I loved it. The trunk or treat fall festival was so much fun too. It was also a really good bonding experience for the junior and senior class I thought. We really had to pull together as a team since Ms. D sadly had to miss it, so we kind of had to run our car ourselves, but I think it turned out fantastic. We all wished our DigiMom was there though.
My first quarter at AAST in finally finally finally over. I am so happy to say that. Finally. Wow. It was ROUGH! My grades are struggling worse than they ever have before, my life is being crazy like it never has before, and I’m trying to get adjusted to a new school. It’s hard to get used to a new school when you don’t feel like yourself and you don’t know what to do about it, who to turn to, who really cares, what really matters, and when is the point when you actually need help. I need help, so that’s what I’m getting. I can’t keep struggling like this. I’m working on myself and my grades and I see a light at the end of the tunnel, and at the end of the semester in January!

Illustrator book chapters fourteen through sixteen haven’t been all that hard. I just absolutely hate watching the videos. They take up so much time. But if I don’t watch the videos then I’m confused, so therefore I have to watch them to understand. Oh well. Anyways, we took a trip last Friday all the way to the famously hot Columbia, South Carolina to go tour the University of South Carolina and go to the South Carolina State Fair. Both of these activities were super fun. On Friday morning we all got up around 5:30, got ready, drive to Dunkin’ Donuts on International Drive to eat breakfast with each other, then we all went to school to get on the busses. Then we were on the way! The drive wasn’t even that long! Or at least it didn’t feel that way. We finally eventually got to Columbia after the long wait that had extended since school started. We got out of the busses and walked to the University of South Carolina’s art building. There we met one of the professors and he took us everywhere around the building. It was cool seeing classes actually being in session, students walking around campus genuinely doing what they would be doing if we weren’t there, and just plain college life in action. The art hung around was super cool and it really made me think it was a good art school, even though I don’t see myself ending up at the University of South Carolina, it was still cool to see. Then from there, we got some free time. We went to the cafeteria and I got to see some of my old friends. It was such a happy surprise to see my friends Autumn Melton and Mackenzie Patterson. It definitely surprises them when they saw me since I didn’t tell either of them I was coming because I didn’t think I’d have time to see them or even running into them. But, yes, of course, I saw both of them. Then we ate in the cafeteria and the food was actually pretty good. Then we shopped, went to the fair, then came home and slept for a very long time. The trip was exhausting was totally worth it. I even made it in the State Fair art show! Til next year!

Chapters 6-10 really haven’t been all that hard. I really liked chapter 8 where we made spirals because it was fun and easy. Chapter 10 was also fun because we got to cut shapes and fill them with gradient.

The coolest thing I’ve made on Illustrator so far was definitely by far the landscape and fox I made from tutorials. It looks super cool. It’s definitely something I totally thought I would never be able to make on Illustrator before I came to school here. Everyone always said to not be overwhelmed coming into this major because it looks like everyone else knows what their doing, but really, most of us didn’t know, but we are learning now and it’s crazy what we can do just after these few short weeks!

So, we have to decorate a door for Breath Cancer Awarness month. The thing that makes this really interesting is the fact that it’s a competition. Last year Vaught’s door won and I know that because I’m pretty sure he has made that clear to everyone in the school. But this year, I think the DC juniors really have a chance as Vaught’s door looks almost done and ours already looks better ;). We have plans to put lights around the door, hang up streamers, we even put pink paper all around the entryway so we really aren’t just decorating our door. Go big or go home, am I right? Some people also want to put our hand prints up on the door with pink paint and have a disco ball hanging from the ceiling, so we may do that too, because why not?

I have good news! I can go on the USC college visit and state fair trip next week! My grades were super low so that was a concern but I finally brought them up to passing. Thank goodness. I didn’t want to miss out on the trip. I love fairs and this will be a super fun bonding experience for me and all my new friends to go out of town together for a little bit. I can’t wait!

This week in the Illustrator book we went over chapter 1 which was Introduction to Adobe Illustrator, chapter 2 which was Working with Documents, chapter 3 which was Creating Basic Shapes, chapter 4 which was Fill, Stroke, and Color, then lastly, chapter 5 which was Reshaping Objects. After going through the chapters we were supposed to pick out some tutorials to do. I decided on a fox and a landscape. I put them together at the end which I thought was really cool. The fox was frustrating to me at some points because it was my first time really ever creating anything in illustrator so of course I was going to be confused and it took me a while to figure things out, but it was okay in the end because I think the fox turned out pretty cool. I didn’t like the background that the original tutorial gave me to make so I used another tutorial to make the landscape background. It was fairly simple and I liked it a lot better than the original background that the tutorial gave me to make. Plus, it made my art look different than the other peoples who did the same fox tutorial as me in my class. Everything that I’ve done  in Illustrator thus far has surprised me. I never thought I would actually be able to create things like this in Illustrator. I mean I knew that it was possible, but actually doing it is super crazy to me.

State Fair… I submitted a picture I took at a coffee house by the boulevard with my moms camera. It is a picture of Emma Greer DiBiase, before she passed away due to cancer. It was a very special show for her because it was really her first and last time performing with her band. The whole time her band was playing I focused on capturing the moment in pictures for her family, knowing she could only be around fro a couple more months. So, the picture ahs a lot of meaning behind it and I have an emotional connection to it, and that’s why I chose to submit it.

Several contests have been offered to me, and I know that I should enter them, but I probably won’t enter more than one or two because I lack motivation.

I feel that my presentation went decent. Being out for four days really made my project take a hit. But, I pulled it together last minute, and it could’ve been a lot better. My favorite presentation was probably Jake’s because he brought in examples. Mainly because he brought in The Weeknd vinyl and I love The Weeknd. What were my first impressions of AAST? This school is just too big for itself. They accept too many kids and it’s weird that they have both the STEM program and the majors. It’s like two schools in one. It’s feels really divided because of those two programs, and even if you belong to a major, you belong to your major, and it makes it feel even more divided.