Seeing the Projection Projects on Campus

I walked around campus after it was dark on the night the students at SMCM presented their projection projects. I saw projections on the wall outside Montgomery Hall, on the Bell Tower, on the trees next to the Bell Tower, three in different locations on the Campus Center walls, and one on the wall outside the Library.

The first one I saw was a compilation of frames that gradually turned into an artistic-looking lion's head. I talked to the artist and he told me that he had made the music that went along with the movements of the video himself. He also had drawn each frame. The hardest part was making the music. It wasn't all the way dark outside when I went to see this one, so it wasn't as clear as I would have liked to have see it, but the project itself was pretty cool.

The projection on the Bell Tower was urban-looking and made me think of moving graffiti. The music fit it well. The shape of the bell tower also added an interesting effect. The projection next to the Bell Tower on the trees was one of my favorites. I wouldn't have really understood it if I hadn't asked the artist about it. It was basically a mess or color spilled across the tree trunks and the leaves at the top of them, but it looked like it was just a colorful image. Upon asking the artist about it, I learned that her projection was one where the colors changed very slowly over time. So I left to go see other projections and when I came back it was completely different! I liked it a lot. It was a simple yet creative idea. I also think that her projection location was the best of all of them.

I went towards the library next to see what looked like a cartoon lizard crawling across one of the brick pillars on the wall. I liked this one because it used the space creatively. I remember working on my own projects in the Mac Lab and seeing this projection as a work-in-progress about a week ago, and it was good to be able to see the finished project. The artist of this one said that the hardest part was creating each movement of the lizard as an individual frame.

The three projections on the wall of the Campus Center were all very different from each other. The first one I saw was an animated child swinging on a tire swing. My favorite thing about this one was the music that was playing with it ("Kids" by MGMT). The projection above the fountain at the Campus Center was different form all of the others in that it was a straight video, no animation. This one was a series of interviews of St. Mary's students about their own illnesses and the challenges that have come with them. This is the one that I watched for the longest, and I was startled by some of the things I heard from people I know who go here and their challenges with illnesses. THe last one I looked at was on another part of the wall of the Campus Center, and was a projection of the classic Napoleon Dynamite dance from the movie "Napoleon Dynamite". What was interesting about it was how each frame overlapped the previous ones as Napoleon danced. It was interesting to see. I also liked the brick background for all of the projections on the Campus Center walls and the Library wall.

Artist Post 5: Derek Prospero (Web Designer)

Derek Prospero is a web designer and is also skilled in multitudes of other artistic fields. He is a "multi-disciplined artist, write, photographer, and creative director" (Prospero's Web Site). I searched pretty thoroughly and was a little bit surprised when I could not find a photo pf him anywhere online. He has a Facebook page and his photo isn't even on there. Keeping your picture off the internet these days can be a difficult task though, so that in itself is a little bit of an accomplishment. However, in browsing the images in the"photography" section of his site, I found something pretty close:

Photography: "Sunset Snapshot"

 Prospero's Web Site- the link above- is very well-done. He does a lot of work with the programs I have recently been exploring and creates design tutorials. He is a member of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals, which has awarded him with the "prestigious" Guru Award three times. Aside from his web site, which in itself shows all of his work, here are a few that I picked out, out of interest, all taken directly from his web site.

A piece of Mixed Media: "Blink"

Commercial Design: "Gypsy"

Computer Wallpapers: "Graffiti Skyline"

His web site in interactive, thorough, well-laid out, diverse, and artistically presented. When you move the mouse over things, they change, light up, or become colored images from previously being in black and white. The web site he made for himself is portfolio-style, as it is essentially an advertisement for himself. It was fun just to explore around the site.

The diversity of the kinds of digital media art Prospero does is amazing to me. He covers so many areas and seems to be very successful at all of them. As far as creating his web site, it is very well-done; it is sleek and modern, and is also accessible while being complex at the same time. The quality of his artwork and web design is great. As far as critiquing his work and his web site design, I don't have anything I would tell him to improve it; It think it is great and It is good for me to see it because it is helping me to form ideas for the web site I am creating.

After having worked with creating web sites a little bit in DreamWeaver so far, I really can appreciate all of the work that went into the creation of Derek Prospero's web site.

"Get Lost" Photo Documentation

When I "got lost" I ended up exploring Daffodil Gulch, which is in full-bloom with all of its daffodils, and also following another path through the woods to the water that was elsewhere in Historic St. Mary's. Here are some of the pictures from the adventure:

Post on Paragraph from the Reading

"The Internet people whom I have collected over the years are as much a part of my identity as my 4th grade teacher and afk best friends. They may know things about me that people whom I interact with daily may never know, because those secrets felt safer enclosed behind the glass of the screen, the distance between. Some of them knew me before I used my real name online. In the beginning, it felt powerful to be able to hide behind an alt where I could be treated like an adult if I wanted to."

This is the paragraph from the reading I chose to write about. This strikes me because it amazes me how much people have come to depend on online relationships. People have used the internet as a means to hide from the real world and not have to deal with real world problems. If people have an identity on the web, it can be totally different from their identity in the real world. This is harmful because if people become dependent on these electronic relationships, they will lack the skills it takes to survive in the real world. They won't have a backbone to deal with face-to-face issues. They may give the world a false sense of who they are. If an employer is trying to hire someone they only know from online interaction, they can never know exactly who they are hiring unless the meet the potential employee in person. 

People also tend to say things on the internet that they wouldn't say in person. As the paragraph says, people feel like they are able to "hide behind" their secrets. This has led to problems as well. Cyber bullying is a perfect example of this, as it is essentially bullying someone else behind the safety of the computer screen and the "space" it puts between the bullier and the bullied. People can be more daring; they feel more comfortable throwing around insults online when they would never say those things to someone in person.

People use it as an escape as well. The internet can provide an alternate world or virtual reality where they can play online games, creating a character and being able to talk to other people from anywhere in the world. People with so many virtual relationships miss out on real ones, which have a different level of substance. 

Though there are many advantages to online connections, it causes people who struggle with social interaction to feel safe and content in hiding in that insecurity, and so they don't get a chance to develop their social skills. 

Self-Portrait

This is the self-portrait I made in Adobe Illustrator. In total this took me almost twenty hours to complete, but it was a pretty fun project! 

Redesigned Logo

In an effort to "redesign a logo", I thought about products I like that would work with recreating a logo. Being a born-and-raised Marylander, Old Bay is understandably one of the products that quickly came to mind. 

I decided to create a completely new product out of the classic Maryland seasoning. 

"Bae" is a slang term for "baby", which is often used to refer to one's significant other; so I figured I'd use that to make the product of Old Bay into Old Bae, and make it something that lent itself specifically toward women. 

The process in creating this image involved using Adobe Illustrator to draw a replica of the basic parts of the logo, adding my own type, and recreating the three images that are on the left side of the logo, and adding shadow and dimension to give it a more realistic appearance. 

Here is the result!

Original "Old Bay" logo

New "Old Bae" original logo

Artist Post 4: Danilo Gato

Danilo Gato is a vector artist who was born in Brazil and is currently still a student in art. He creates vector and does pencil drawings as well. The main focus of his artwork is celebrities and movie characters. He uses Adobe Illustrator to create his images, and below are some examples of his work:

Liv Tyler (web site)

Angelina Jolie (web site)

Batman (web site)

He creates his art on Adobe Illustrator by first bringing in a photograph of what he is going to create. He uses vectors to isolate sections of the image, and colors each one in separately. This is like what we learned to do in class, and it was neat to know that I used the same methods as a more advanced and experienced artist! Something that is common in his works is that the background is always left up to the imagination. He creates a simple graphic pattern to place behind the person in the foreground. 

I think that he is quite a talented vector artist. His style is realistic and strikingly accurate. I like how relatable his work is to the work we are currently doing in class. It gives a good representation of one of the many styles to use when it comes to making vector art. This is just personal opinion, but I think that his art might be more interesting if he gave his pieces a more detailed background that presented a sense of space or another form of interest. What he uses as a background, though it does leave something up to one's imagination, is almost too ambiguous. But overall, he is talented and does a great job with his celebrity and character portraits.