Digital Stewardship Slides: Digital Drawing, Sketching & Painting

Final Reflection: Selfie

I learned a lot from this class and I realized I've changed my perspective on technology in relation to art making and art classroom, in comparison to how I felt before this class.

I was able to engage in the process for most of the assignments and it was fun to experiment with different mediums. Some mediums might be harder for beginners as basic experience or fundamental skills were needed.  However, I made the most out of each project through connecting the new medium with my personal interest. I've coped with my insecurities towards unexpected outcome, and I adapted different challenges through consistent learning during the semester.

I'm pleased with the outcome from most projects though there was definitely regret; I wish I had more time for the assignments on videography and digital painting, because I thought I could have refined the final outcome more for both assignments. There were also finals that did not meet my expectation but I accepted it as I believed it was the process and the experimentation counted the most. It was also very exciting that we shared our experience with new mediums weekly and shared our outcomes in the class. Discussing the process with peers really inspired and motivated me to create better work, and it was imperative to share and learn from each other in the class.

A lot more new vocabularies were learned through each weeks' presentation and readings. I'd only been to art schools before tc, so it is my first time learning in an academic program with lots of lectures, readings and papers. My vocabulary was quite limited but it's been updated frequently with new topics introduced in our class each week. I did not know what circuit was; I'd often heard about 3D printing but never knew how it actually worked; Scanography was a total mystery to me; I also had no idea how audiology could be used as an art medium. Through different readings from this class, I broaden my horizon and gained confidence in articulating my point of view on art education and new mediums. These two subjects are often being mis-interpreted and unjustified.

More importantly, I see lots of possibilities for art making and art teaching. Mediums like digital painting, digital photography, stop motion animation all could be easily implemented into the art classroom with an informative lesson plan. Technology has become a necessary skill for everyone living in this digital era. As an art education student, I need to remind myself that I should never stop learning, in order to keep up with this world and provide needed knowledge for children's needs.

Throughout the semester, I believe I've progressed and grew a lot as a student and an artist. I became a lot more invested for each week's assignment and understood not to complete an assignment just so I could get by. The process is what matters. Moreover, I learned to face the challenges, accept the imperfection in my work and persevere through the process.

Lastly, I learned to plan things ahead and become more detail oriented. Good time management really helped me to focus on each assignment, so that I could deal with each new challenges with less fear and anxiety. Focusing on details prevented me from producing sloppy work, and it also enhanced my learning experience to the fullest.

I come from an educational system where children’s creativity and originality was suppressed, so it was challenging for me to get out of my comfort zone. I'm very thankful for professor's feedback during midterm, which reminded me to set my learning goal and work towards it. I wanted to experiment and explore as much as I could in this class, and I believe I achieved it. This class renewed my perspective on technology-infused materials for art making and art classrooms, and it provided me the basic experience and resource needed in technological mediums for my future art teaching. Technology provides an easy and fast access to information for both teachers and students. It not only enriches the creative content in art making, but also provides a variety of options to create, process and finalize our artistic vision. More importantly, new technology connects children to the happenings in this digital world, to help them stay current and updated. Digital-infused materials are a great tool to build up the bridge between children and their stories, alone with traditional materials like paint, clay, collage or pastel, they all promote children's learning experience to discover and explore about themselves in response to the outside world. Learning about new technology as a new form of art medium helps students to understand the distinctive voice of digital-infused materials which calls for different processes and actions. It calls forth a variety of insights, feelings and understandings in relation to the digital era we live in.

Final Project: Swiped

Above the the final project I created based on the dice I received: collage, video editing and storytelling. The video is about a short story of a person whose daily life is totally dictated by "swiping". I was inspired by a short video by by artist Steve Cutts I watched on instagram. 

I started with making a rough sketch of each scene on my sketch book and thought about all the details. The story was planned out thoroughly with the sequence of each scenario in order to keep the process as effective as possible. I spent lots of time collecting different resources online for my collage before putting things together. Then I imported all the images in Photoshop, and played around with compositions, image sizes and combinations to ensure the outcome would be ideal. Approximately 26 pages of collages was printed for this project after careful calculation on each frame.

 

One of the major difficulties at the beginning was that I couldn't find a right tool to place my phone. I bought a new mini tripod with flexible legs and hoped it'd help to hold my phone in position but it failed to balance due to the weight of my Iphone. I also tried to stick the tripod in a vase and thought it might be able to hold up the phone but it did not work out either. Eventually I decided to place the tripod in between books, which was actually a very effective solution. The books were heavy enough to keep the tripod in place. Additionally, I could adjust the height of my camera simply by adding or taking away books. I did not take many photos during shooting as I had to use the phone as the camera for my animation.

The process was fun but also exhausting. I spent the whole night standing while making the stop motion animation. Because of the major element "swiping" that's used in this story, I put in lots of effort to make sure the speed and the movement look like actual "swiping." I used an app called I Can Animate Lite to take the video. It's an app I knew from Dr. Burton's class. What I did not realize was that the free version of this app only allowed 240 frames each project. Eventually I had to make 3 projects in order to complete my story. I had this idea in the middle of my process, that maybe I could break my story into 3 episodes. But the fact that my video was only going to be 1 minute long turned down my thoughts. 

The shooting was completed with 620 frames, approximately 52 seconds. I imported 3 videos into iMovie and connected them into one story. Music, sound and some speed changes were added.

I put in lots of effort for this project and I definitely enjoyed the process, the only regret was that I wish I had more time. The idea I tried to convey would be much more convincing with some more refined details in between the story. Another thing is that because I used the free version of this app, so final videos I created got this app logo appeared on the bottom right that can't be removed, kind of bothered me but I can't do much about it.

Assignment Week #12 pt.2

In this reading Digital Fabrication and Making in Education, Blikstein reviews the history of engineering education, and discusses the educational benefits of digital fabrication and how it could be used as a unique tool for progressive educators.
I think digital fabrication is extremely important for teaching practice as it builds up a bridge to connect the happenings in this world to today's classroom teaching. Digital technology is no longer represented by those "large, expensive, awkward machines", instead, technology has put a huge impact on every aspect of people's daily life with its easy accessibility. Most importantly, digital fabrication provides ultimate "possibilities" in the classroom, where children are able to explore and experiment with different methods to create, re-create, and present their work. As technology develops and evolves itself, children follow the pattern of this ongoing progression, and receive updates on this world as they learn and experience through digital fabrication.

In my opinion, "digital technology" is a very abstract term. It is a word for a concept with the branch of knowledge that deals with the use of technical means. Technology is constantly evolving which could triggers insecurities in people, as one thing we used to know so well yesterday could turn into a new challenge today, which raise questions about wether it is worth it for educators to invest their time in something so unpredictable. Same insecurities could apply to art teaching, where the use of new technology often requires additional learning and processing, yet the outcome could not fulfill our expectation. The unpredictability and possibilities of new technology excite people yet puts educators under challenges. This reading only reminds me of how important it is for educators to be fearless towards new challenges in our career. As teachers, we should never stop learning, and always make sure we're available to provide the knowledges and skills needed to help children adapt to this digital era. Technology shouldn't be intimidating, and it should be for everyone in the classroom.

Twenty Things to Do With a Computer was a very interesting read. I was extremely surprised that the article was published in 1971. The reading brings up several key words in relation to the connection between children and computer:"conversation" and "questions and answers." which summarize the use of technology for people even on today. The reading also discusses the "intellectual timidity" among educators towards computer. It mirrors with my thoughts on educators' insecurities towards new technology, because they could be afraid for "any purpose that fails to look very much like something that has been taught in schools." I think such the timidity and insecurity amount teachers are not only from technology but also from the school and the socio culture around us. Our society is very much outcome-driven which often limited the opportunities for experiment and learning. Within the limitation and expectation given from school principles, it's not surprising to see some teachers limit the mediums used in their classrooms in order to fulfill the "goals."

Assignment Week #12 pt.1

I teamed up with Danielle to complete this project inspired by the time machine Tardis from British TV show Doctor Who. 

We first started to make the circuit with the simplest circuit template on a piece of green paper.  The process was fairly easy and we only had a little problem connecting the LED light at the beginning as we recomposed the foil tape too many times.  Next, we made our Tardis drawing and stars with oil pastel referencing from a couple pictures we found online. The background was then painted with gouache paint. To my surprise, these two mediums worked well together as oil pastel is water-resistant which helped to bring out the focus on Tardis. Therefore, the contrast of texture between these two different mediums created a popping out effect in the painting. As the finished painting started to dry up, we placed the painting on top of the circuit and cut out a hole on the top of Tardis where LED light would show through.  We then cut off the corner of the painting so the corner of the green paper with circuit showed. We glued down the battery on the green paper where the positive end of the conductor tape connected, then we folded up the corner with glued battery to connect the positive end and negative end of circuit. A circle was marked and cut out on our painting where battery would touch the negative end of the conductor tape. In the end we filmed it when the circuit connected and Danielle edited the video with a Tardis noise. 

Assignment week #11 pt.2

For our final project, I got three topics: story-telling, collage and video editing.

I happened to see a video by artist Steve Cutts on Instagram a couple weeks ago. He created a video shows a world where technology dominates everybody's daily life, that no one cares about the happenings around them anymore. What I found the most interesting is that at the beginning of this video, a girl doesn't like her date and she just swipes left onto a roll of other guys, like how we often do on our phone, till she sees the one she likes. I think there's lots of implications in this scenario, and a whole new story based on this girl and her date could be developed.

I want to create a short stop motion animation with collage to articulate a new story base off this scene. The script I came up with is: a girl wakes up with a blank face and body, she goes onto her phone and starts to pick her look for the date she's about to go to that night. So she starts her "swiping" on the phone to choose from different options for her face, makeup, her body type, the clothes and accessories. I want to incorporate some funny elements into that process and emphasis how "swiping" dominates her life on every single aspect. Then the ending of this story will echo with the date night scene from my inspiration video in a different perspective.

Assignment Week #11 pt.1

Below is a group of aliens I created on Tinkercad. I basically used this 3D design tool as a 3D photoshop and designed several illustrated creatures with it. I discovered different shape options in the category of "characters" and "shape generators", and that's where I started to get into it. The first creature I designed was the "poop" shaped bunny-chicken in the middle. I simply mixed and matched different options of shapes and eventually made a body with three rings. The tool was fairly easy to use though I had a little trouble aligning some shapes at the beginning. The chicken foot on the shape category inspired me to create an actual character.  I added more details and features after to complete the first design. From there I just kept going and explore with various shape combinations. One character eventually turned into a group of characters. In the end, I decided to make an UFO and add a little narrative to complete the story.

I also imported the file to Photoshop and wanted to see what it'd look like, but Photoshop can't really read the file well.