To future Seeing Sideways students

What the class is about
Going into this class I heard that it was a way to help with creativity and to help think outside the box when it comes to projects. Now that I have finished this class I can say while it does help you with your creativity, whether that is to be more creative or to change your perspective on your creativity, it helps change your approach to projects. If you feel like you are in a rut and your projects follow the same pattern, this class can help break that cycle and help you find a new approach.

What you did (or did not) get from this class
At the beginning of this class, I really struggled to get something from this class. I went week after week creating mediocre projects and feeling pretty disappointed that I wasn't having that moment that something would click for me. We talked about how in new media our target audience is for our client but in art our target audience is ourselves, and that really stuck with me and how I haven't created anything for myself and that is probably why I've really lost a of my passion for designing. Being able to talk about how I feel like I have lost that passion really did help me find the motivation I needed to start a personal project for myself and something that will hopefully become my capstone.


How this will (or will not) have an impact on your approach to future classes
What I have really taken from this class that I will apply to my future classes and projects is to find a way to apply a little bit of myself into the projects that I'm working on. It's easy to get caught up in the requirements of projects that teachers want and forget to have some kind of fun with what you are working on. If I can find a way to just throw a little bit of my style or signature into the projects I'm working on, I can make it fun. If this is something that I'm going to be doing for a living, I don't want to get burnt out on it and lose all my love for what I do.  

My Research Project

Since I've been doing my 365 project, I've been on a big photography kick so I had a feeling that this project would be photography based... which it did. 

About a year ago, I discovered Tilt-Shift Photography which absolutely fascinated me. I've always wanted to give it a try so I decided to do my research into this type of photography.  What I found out was that I did not have equipment to do it, but I did have the abilities to fake the outcome of tilt-shift photography.

I did not have any photographs on hand that were suitable for this process so I had to go out and take some pictures. I went on campus to the campus center and took some pictures. With tilt-shift photography, it's best be up at least on a second story or higher and to take shot of people or things that would look good as "miniatures."

Here are my resources for my research:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt-shift_photography
http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/tilt-shift-photography-80-beautiful-examples-tutorials-ultimate-guide/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt-shift_lens
http://www.visualphotoguide.com/tilt-shift-photoshop-tutorial-how-to-make-fake-miniature-scenes/

365 in progress

I did post my first picture here on this blog but I've been continuing my 365 with a tumlbr account I've created. So if you would like to follow my 365, you can do so at sharayahdawn.tumblr.com. I've also got my pictures up on my flickr account here.

365 // 001

So here is my first photograph in my 365. I was stressing out a little thinking about what my first picture was going to be. As I was eating my breakfast and drinking tea I realized that I need to relax and just have fun with this. So I relaxed, just sat there and drank my tea and decided that my first picture should be a self-portrait. As I said once in class, I hate having my picture taken. I really want to get over this because I really don't have an pictures of myself and important points in my life. And I would like to document those better. So, I'm starting this 365 with a photo of a moment of my life where I was stress-free and pretty relaxed :)

Remember that cool project that time?

After last week's class I was feeling more motivated to attempt to make something for myself again. I wasn't sure what but I knew that I wanted to try something. And I thought that I shouldn't just make something just to make something. So when Beth gave us this assignment and told us to create something memorable, I kind of got a little nervous. After everything I had talked about in my previous blog and in class, I was a little nervous that I wouldn't be able to create something memorable to me or to the class.

This week, was a bit more stressful than I wanted it to be with schoolwork and getting scheduled 5 days at work. When I get stressed, I try my hardest to make time to go running. When I go running, I get a solid 30 minutes or so where I don't have to think about anything that's stressing me out with school or work or anything else in my life. I get to just focus on running and let my mind take it's own course. That's my wellspring of creativity. The best ideas that I have for projects for school or for myself have usually always come to me when I've made that time for myself to go running. This week when I was running, I had an idea that led me to this project that I'm going to be creating for this assignment.

What I've really missed most is taking pictures. I took a photography class earlier this year and I loved it so much. I learned so much about my camera and about photography in general and had so much fun. But this semester has made it near impossible for me to find the time to go out and take a few hours to take pictures like I want to. So while I was running, I had an idea for a picture I'd like to take and I thought about how I'd like to do that for this project and how it would relate to my wellspring being running and all. And yes, it would be a good picture and it would be memorable to me. But it would a one time thing and I would get an assignment out of the way. It would also get one creative burst out of my system and then what?

I have a friend who started doing a 365 project 148 days ago and she has been sticking to it. Like me, photography is a hobby for her, although she takes it a bit more seriously. She does self-portraits and even though she doesn't always feel up to it, she still manages to get a really beautiful photograph taken every day. When she started doing this, I was really inspired and wanted to do something like this, but was very intimated by the idea of trying to take a creative photograph every day for a year. Not to mention with my schedule how in the world would I have the time to do something like that?

Then this assignment came along. My friend updated her facebook page with her latest pictures around the time I was still coming up with my idea for this project and then all of a sudden this idea and courage finally hit me. Why not just go ahead and finally start my own 365 project? Every time I see her pictures, I'm always wanting to do exactly what she's doing. So why not do it? This assignment is just the motivation and kick in the ass I need to do it. A 365 project isn't the most original idea but the photographs will be. They will be my own and they will be what I need to help me find my creative spark again. If it's one small creative spark a day, that's all I need.


I'm excited and scared to be starting this project. I'm excited to see what photographs I'll be taking and all the new things I'm going to be learning about my camera and myself as a photographer and a creator. I'm scared that I won't be able to finish this project and that I will lose my passion for photography throughout the making of this project.  But I won't know unless I try.

So with that said, I bet you are wondering where is my first picture. Well, I figured it would be best if I actually started my 365 on April 18, 2011. I will take my first picture then and post it in another blog entry. :)

Class Response 4/11

In class we answered the question "Why am I here?" and I was really impressed with what people presented. It's very clear to see that a lot of people in class have a lot of talent. A lot of people seemed to have an idea of why they were here. Some had it relate to school and their skills (like me) and other had it relate to their own lives. I thought that Lauren's was great because she clearly knows why she is here. I thought that Brittany's drawing was great and I loved how she wrote out how she meant something to the people in her lives.

When I talked about my project it was good feeling to know that I wasn't the only one that has gone through these feelings like you have no inspiration or motivation to create. It was also really nice to have some people in the class to give me some advice on how to find my passion for what it is that I love to do.

Why am I here?

Last week when we were asked to answer "Why am I here?" At first, this question frustrated me. I think I started to think of my life in the grand scheme of things and I don't think a week is long enough for me to really answer the question of why I am here. I don't think I could really fully answer that question to be quite honest. This question also frustrated me because I'm so busy with other projects for school, I'm stressed about my personal money situation since work hasn't been going quite as well as I'd like it to, I can't work the hours I need to at work because of school and interning, and then I'm also stressed about my living situation coming up this summer. My life is so full of this trivial crap and stress that to take the time to sit and think about "Why am I here?" just aggravated me. I could be using this time to do other things.

And because of all this stress that this one question caused me on this particular day, it brought up all my negative feelings that I feel about school. Again. And it makes me wonder a lot as to why I came to school in the first place. Why am I here? I came here straight out of high school because my parents expected it out of me. My friends expected it out of me. My teachers did, as did the rest of my family. And yes, I guess I expected it out myself too... just because I knew I'd do well. But I look at my projects and my schoolwork and I have no passion and no drive. At all. I have one year left and I feel like I'm going to be leaving this school having learned nothing to be quite honest.

I look at my mom who went to college for 2 semesters out of high school and quit because of her job that she had and because she got married. She then had kids and life took over. She's now 45 years old and she has more passion and more drive to go to school than I do. She went back to school last year and she studied so hard, took her school so incredibly serious and she only had time to take 2 classes at a time with her 2 jobs. And I felt horrible that I had a job that I worked 20 hours a week and was taking 12 credit hours... basically had the time that she didn't have and my heart wasn't in it. I just went through the motions, did what I had to do just to get the grades I needed. She had to quit school because with her jobs school just became too much. I know that she would love more than anything to go back and finish getting her degree in nursing.

Again, I wonder why the hell am I here in school when I'm here just because I'm supposed to be here. Yes, I have a talent and skill that I know I can make a decent living with and having a degree will help me make that living. But I look at those who would love, absolutely LOVE, to have this opportunity to go school and get their degree... have an absolute thirst for knowledge, and I don't have that passion. At least not at this school. I find that there are times that I've lost my passion for design. I haven't made anything for myself in years. I was more ambitious when I was 17 years old and didn't have these tools in front me that I do now.

I hate to say it, but from this class it's really been solidified in my head that I'm not an artist. Which is okay, because I never once claimed to be an artist. I like to design, it's something I've always liked to do. But my passion for it... my passion for creating something for myself is gone. I really don't know how to get that back. I miss it. That's why I didn't "create" something for this assignment. Because I don't know "what" to create for myself anymore. Maybe if that passion was back, maybe my passion for my education would finally arrive because I don't think it ever came.

Fear Reaction

I was really impressed with a lot of the projects presented by the class. The one that really "scared" me in the traditional sense was when the tarantula was brought into class. I have always had a fear of spiders and that is something that will never go away.

When Erica (I believe it was?) showed the video of the cock roaches, I got really nauseous. Bugs just make my skin crawl and that video just made me uncomfortable. It felt dark and dingy. I felt dirty after watching the video.

Some people talked about their fears about relating to their lives and not succeeding or not living up to an expectation they set for themselves or that someone set for them. I think that's something that we all face at some point in our lives. For this assignment, I was definitely one of those students who didn't want to face on of the intangible fears. Maybe it just felt a little too personal for me and maybe it just felt a little too scary facing some of those fears. Sure, like a lot of kids in this class I'm scared to death I'm going to fail when I graduate and that I won't live up to this dream I had in my head of what I was going to be like in this career. And then I have this fear that I'm really not as creative as I think I am, that my ideas are not as great as they really sound and that someone can do better than me. Sure they are fears, and they come and go. But it's not something I feel comfortable getting in front of a group of people and talking about. So for those that did, I thought that was a pretty brave thing to do.

Trypophobia

Trypophobia is the fear of holes and asymmetrical clusters of small holes, often with things inside. It causes a creepy, itching, crawling feeling.

The reaction I got the class was curiosity. Most of the class had never heard of this phobia and had some questions about it. No one else in class really had this same kind of phobia, but some could relate to the feeling of anxiety that I described when I would look at these images. What I came to realize from this experiment was that the longer I looked at these images, it didn't affect me as much as they did initially.

If I had more time to prepare, I would have brought some of the objects from above into class to pass around to see if any of the class had any reaction to the objects they were holding.

What fear is and Possible reaction to project

There are a number of things that make me fearful. I'm afraid of bugs (spider in particular), sharp objects, and reckless driving.  As a young child, I could not deal with change very well. I did not like moving a lot as a child and if we were to go for drives to different towns I would cry because we were somewhere unfamiliar. To this day, when I'm experiencing a big change in my life, I go through major anxiety and sometimes depression.
 

For me, fear is this feeling of anxiety. Recently I had to get over a fear of confrontation. It felt good to finally be able to stand up for myself and say what I really needed to say for myself. But initially, I had to get over my fear of losing a friendship, get over my fear that I may say something that I may regret or that I may not mean. But in the end, it all worked out and I felt like I gained more respect from my friend and more respect for myself out of the whole ordeal. 

I think the reaction I'm going to get is confusion or at least some fascination. I know that if anything, I may be the only person uncomfortable with my experiment since this is a phobia of mine.

Stuffed Animal

So for this assignment I was thrown the Pink Panther... which I was not very excited about. He didn't really inspire me to do much of anything. For the past two weeks every time I walked by my bookshelf that he sat on I just thought to myself that he's one pathetic looking stuffed animal. Not very cute. Pink was never a color I found to be fun or inspiring. I finally picked him up after two weeks and just stared at him. The angle at which I was holding him reminded me of my dog, Dexter. He just had this pathetic look in his eyes that for a moment.. he actually seemed kind of cute. I didn't really have a moment of pure inspiration or a burst of creativity but I just thought of my dog and how the two just seemed similar to me. So pathetic and mopey that they seemed cute. The contrast being that the pink panther is well.. pink and not cuddly and the my dog is black and is actually quite cuddly. Not the most creative on this assignment but I didn't feel very inspired.

My Creative Process

Since I’m a New Media student, whenever I start a project I usually start by looking at my requirements and what the project ultimately needs to be. Since it’s school projects need to be done within a certain time frame, it’s hard to really have a moment of “inspiration.” To keep things fresh, I try to do something new on every project I work on so that even if it’s just another website or just another banner, I learned at least one new thing. I’ve never really broken down this process before and what each step really is for me, so this should be somewhat eye opening.

Inspiration
I define inspiration as something that usually sparks an idea in my head or gives me a flash of the final product I’m going to make. Whenever I’m working on something for school, time is usually a concern so I don’t usually get a spark of inspiration. I usually think of what it is I need to create and from there I create my own inspiration to help me get going on my project. But when it comes to making something for myself, which lately hasn’t been very often, I usually get inspired by the work of others or sometimes the patterns on fabrics, papers, books etc.

Idea
I define idea as something that is the result of my inspiration or analyzing the product. It’s kind of like the “big picture” of what it is I’d like to create. I’d almost say that idea and inspiration is the same thing. Inspiration is the spark that leads to idea.

Concept
I define concept as the game plan on how I am going to create this product. I may create a wireframe, a couple rough drafts or comps… just create a some drawings on paper to get the most out of the idea. Basically, this is all the pre-planning before I actually start working on the product.

Trial & Refine
I define trial as my first attempt at creating the product. Most of the time, the first attempt is not successful and so I will try again having learned from my errors, which would be refining. These steps may repeat a few times until I have a successful product.

Product
I define product as something that has reached all the goals that I have set forth and has come as close to my idea as possible. I’ve never created anything that has been exactly my idea. I usually come pretty darn close or I may create something better than what I had originally thought up.

Here is what I created:

I found my inspiration from my roots. When I first started using Photoshop, I used to do a lot of collages like the picture above. That was how I would learn about the different filters and figure things out on my own in Photoshop. I haven't made one of these in a very, very long time and thought that maybe I should make one again for the fun of it... the target audience being me. All the images I used are pictures I've taken myself. I used three pictures and one gradient map set to overlay. It was fun and refreshing to make something for myself and not have a specific target audience in mind.

Here are the pictures I used:

Field Trip!

So this week, we went on a field trip to a part of the IT building that I have never been to before. I finally got to see this big 3D room that everyone has talked about. It was pretty awesome to see and know that that is something our school has to offer. I have no plans to ever get into 3D just because that is something I really don't have an interest in (and it kind of makes me sick). He then showed some of the "web interested" people this 3D tool that could one day replace the mouse. That was very interesting to use and I would be interested in how it works. He then took us to another room that had a huge screen which can be used for editing projects with a high resolution. I can see that being very helpful for any photograph projects I could have in the future. I still don't know what I'm going to do for my Capstone next year but knowing I have tools like this available to me might be able to help me get some ideas going.

Breaking Rules

So for this assignment, we are to take a rule from our field of study and break it. Simple enough I suppose.

 The rule I decided to break was a design rule: Don't mix too many fonts. Whenever I'm designing something, I always want to make it as perfect as possible and I cannot for the life of me decide on one or two fonts easily. I will go through many, many font choices before I reluctantly choose one and always wonder if that was the best choice possible. So for this assignment, I'm going to make a simple graphic and go nuts picking fonts. And hey... it could look cool, right?

For this graphic, I decided to just pick lyrics from a favorite song (It's Beginning To Get To Me - Snow Patrol). I picked random fonts for some words while others kind of I started to pick out on my own. The poster itself isn't bad looking. I actually like it from "love" on down, which I started to pick out the fonts more carefully at that point seeing as the words kind of needed certain fonts to get it's point across. At the top, I wasn't as careful in picking out the fonts. In fact, I just picked random fonts. In the real world, you shouldn't do this. That's why there is a rule. Because I can't back up my decision in I picked the fonts for the top half of the poster. There is no reason why I did that. But the bottom half I could say that towards the end I picked those fonts because it seemed heaviest and brought more emphasis to the words. This poster is quite chaotic really. It could have made more of an impact if the fonts were limited and carefully picked out.

List of fonts, if you want them:
folks bold - We
the king and queen font - need
minion pro - to
[ank]* - feel
century gothic - breathless
didot - with
LT Oksana - love
Neutra display - &
the maple origins - not
arial - collapse
base 05 - under
cacavia01- its
ChunkFive - weight

Class Day 3

Class felt more of a continuation of our class from last week. We discussed a bit more of breaking rules and if that's something we can benefit from. Nothing really stuck out from this class that really gave me something to think about. Beth then gave us an assignment of breaking a rule in our field of study, which actually sounds kind of fun. I think I'll have some fun with this assginment.

"Look at myself in the mirror"

For this week's assignment, we were to walk around IUPUI's campus and see something that we think that no one else saw. We then told Beth, she wrote everything that we saw onto a list, and then we had to pick something from the list that was not our own and recreate it.

For this assignment I chose "Look at myself in the mirror." There are many reasons why I chose this. For technical reasons, I'm borrowing my boyfriend's tripod and have been wanting to try it out. Also, I just finished a photography class and have had some ideas I've been wanting to try out. This picture wasn't really one of them, but when I saw this on the list and I thought of this pretty quickly.

Looking in the mirror isn't one of my favorite things to do. In fact, taking pictures of myself is something I really hate doing. I wouldn't say that I hate how I look, I just find it uncomfortable to look at myself in the mirror. I can look in the mirror to do my make-up or to fix my hair. But I can't just stand there and look at myself. Sometimes, I wish I could make my vision go out of focus, to hide all the details, when I find it difficult to avoid a mirror. That is where this image comes from.



Looking into mirror and having my picture taken is something I'm trying to work on. Maybe I just need to learn to love what I see.

Class Day 2

Today in class we talked about rules. I have to admit, I really didn't get into this discussion. The idea of no rules seems kind of silly to me. Just because there are rules doesn't mean you have to follow them. Most rules exist for a reason and I suppose you'll just deal with the consequences of not following them. But to have no rules in place just seems ridiculous to me -- in the real world or in some creative space. Personally, I hate having some creative freedom where I could do anything I wanted. I have no direction or purpose to what I'm creating. I think that having rules, or at least guidelines, might help in the creative process -- creating something within limitations that is so close to breaking the rules. Maybe rules can lead to being more creative. But that's just my opinion.

The Egg and Eye

For this assignment, I had a hard time coming up with something creative and original. I didn't really want to color my egg or treat it like a person for the day or anything. I was looking at my bookshelf last week and saw my "Hello, Cupcake!" book and I realized I had not made cupcakes in a while. And with the egg Beth gave me, I had just enough to make a batch.

But to make these cupcakes go with the theme of this week's assignment, I decided to make my cupcakes little mini chickens. There wasn't a design in my "Hello, Cupcake!" book, so this one was completely on my own. After running to the store to get me a frosting bag and some piping materials, I was back at home making some very yummy cupcakes.

Class Day 1

I really had no idea what to really expect going into this class today. I had a friend take this course over the summer and she said it was definitely different compared to any other class she's taken at IUPUI. So with that I went in with an open mind. I was more of an observer today, as I usually am in new situations around new people.

I like that the discussions we had in class today kept going and didn't really stall after one or two comments. This is probably the second class I've been in where we had the discussion of what is art. Because of the nature of this class, being that we are starting to look at things from a different perspective, it was refreshing to hear a different take on what is art. By the end of this class, I came to the conclusion that art isn't something that has to be "thought provoking" or visually appealing which was my basic understanding of the idea of art. Art is a way of communicating one's idea to an audience and it can be communicated in any form.

By the end of class, we got our first assignment: to take an egg and do whatever we want with it. Which I suppose may sound relatively easy, but for me this is one of the more difficult assignments I've been given. I've always liked getting assignments with boundaries and knowing what I can and can't do for a project. Open-ended assignments is definitely something I have struggled with because I never know which direction I should go in and I always hate the idea that I might do something "wrong." Although, in this class there is no "right" or "wrong," so I shouldn't worry and I just need to open my mind and accept this creative challenge. I can't wait to see what I come up with!  

Class Expectations

 Like many other students in the class, I'm a New Media major with an interest in web design and graphic design. When I signed up for this class, I was told that it would help with the creative thinking process. I find it hard to be creative all the time seeing as I approach each project the same way. From this class, I'm hoping to learn how to approach projects from a different creative point of view and to learn how to get out of a creative funk.