Maddie's Magnificent Movies!- Bouncing Ball Animation

Up and down it goes....

The Process

Over the past few days we have created our bouncing ball animations in Photoshop. I did not know you could animate in Photoshop, so it was a new experience for me. We had to create a ball, use gradients to make it appear 3-dimensional, and use squash and stretch and layers to make it bounce. Then we made them into animation frames and created a GIF out of it.

What I Learned

First of all, I learned how to use Photoshop. I have never used Photoshop before, so it was fun learning to use it. I also learned the principle of "squash and stretch", which is used often in animation for falling objects: objects are stretched before hitting the ground to show speed, and squashed when hitting the ground to show impact. 

What I Would Do Next Time

Next time, I'd probably do everything in the same way, and from now on I'm probably going to animate in Photoshop for my web animations on YouTube, as it's less infuriating than Flash. I had a lot of fun with this project and can't wait to see what else we do in Animation!

Social Media and College

Yesterday, we received a grim reminder: never post regrettable things on a social media account that has your name attached to it. These days, more and more colleges are looking up their students on the internet, and will see any embarrassing or offensive blog posts that you post online. This is most common in smaller colleges that don't have as many people applying.

This was not news to me, as I had heard this before. I have never revealed my full name online, and while I have stated my real name is Madeline/Maddie, let's be real: there are a ton of women and girls named Madeline in the world, and even more people are named Maddie due to it also being short for Madison. Most of the time online, I refer to myself as Mercury or Merc, and while I have shown my face, you can't exactly Google a face. However, I did realize that this was a big deal. There are people that get denied from colleges, fired from work, etc. because of social media, and while all that's on my Twitter is memes about Nintendo and, let's face it, no one is going to check my Wattpad, it's still something that keeps me in line and causes me to think twice before posting.

Maddie's Amazing Art!- Handwriting

Would you smooch these ghosts?

This week we learned about handwriting and typography. We were supposed to make a postcard with our name on it.  The name logo was supposed to be Halloween-themed, so I made mine black with a full moon in the background and ghosts floating above my name. I then used the rectangle tool to create my name. My one pet peeve was the "D"s. D is a very curved letter, so trying to make a D out of rectangular shapes was very hard. And to make matters worse, I have two D's in my name. Lucky me, ha ha ha! While it was hard to make the letters exactly how I wanted them, I am very pleased with the finished product.

That's a lot of Maddie Lodge.

The next thing we did was another sketchbook design, but this time involving our name. First, we were supposed to sign our name and notice any characteristics. For me, my signature is always very large, has big loops, and almost never is the dot on an "i" a dot (instead it's a star, a heart, a planet, a flower, etc.). Then we had to write 10 adjectives that describe us. I chose quirky, enthusiastic, goofy, punny (loves puns), clever, artistic, talented, dramatic, gamer, and, of course, weird. I then had to do my name in 3 fonts that describe these personality traits. I chose Press Start, Star Jedi, and Funstuff. Press Start is by far one of my favorite fonts, designed after old-school video game text. As a gamer, I find myself using Press Start a lot as a font for headings and such on my personal computer back at home. Star Jedi is based on the Star Wars logo, and I have been a fan of Star Wars for many years. It's also very large, symbolizing my exuberant, goofy, and sometimes even obnoxious personality. And Funstuff is a very quirky and artistic font, and I love how it is designed. Then I was supposed to design my name in a special way, retaining the quirks that are "me". So I wrote very large with lots of big loops, which is something I tend to do. Also, because I love Nintendo, I snuck my fandom into my signature- the dot on the "i" in "Madeline" is Kirby on a Warp Star, the dot on the "i" in "Marie" is a Super Mario mushroom, and the "o" in "Lodge" is a Pokéball! And of course, since there was a lot of space left, I finished it off with a self-portrait.

Presentation

Over the past few days I learned about presentation. We learned several presentation tips, including  speaking loudly but not yelling, speaking slowly and clearly, smiling and making eye contact, being succinct, being engaging, and not pacing. 

Then we watched presentations by Bill Gates, Bjorn Lomberg, and Jamie Oliver. Bill had amazing eye contact, Bjorn had great facial expressions, and Jamie had fantastic posture. All of these were great presentations and I gave them very good scores.

Finally, we presented our sketchbook blog posts to the class. Most people were nervous, but since I enjoy performing in plays, I was not scared at all. I had a very loud voice and was excited about my work. I spoke fast but had a good attitude, and my teacher gave me a 9. I was very glad to do that presentation and it taught me quite a bit.

Maddie's Amazing Art!- The Sketchbook

This week we were asked to use our sketchbooks for the first time. We were supposed to illustrate what graphic design means to us. Now, to me, graphic design is about creativity, artistic expression, and creating something recognizable. And what's more recognizable than the world's most famous feline herself, Hello Kitty?

My sketchbook drawing.

Now, when I was first deciding what to draw, I looked up "logo" and looked through the results. The Hello Kitty logo was the first that caught my eye, and with my love of Japanese media such as Hello Kitty, I couldn't resist. So I recreated the Hello Kitty logo to the best of my ability, and decided if I did the Hello Kitty logo, I need to draw Hello Kitty herself. But then a thought came to mind- since graphic design is about creativity and artistic expression, why not make her an artist? 

So I sketched Kitty in a smock and beret, painting a picture. (The picture she is painting is a still life of three apples, because it's said Kitty weighs the same as 3 apples, and the apple is a symbol of the Hello Kitty franchise.) However, I was dissatisfied with the amount of empty space around Kitty, so I decided to draw other works of art that she had presumably made. The first thing I did was a parody of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, quite possibly the most famous painting in the world; however, instead of a woman, I drew a cat. (Hello Kitty probably has never seen an adult human in her life, since her world is populated by anthropomorphic animals, so I'd assume she'd use one of her own kind as the subject for her painting.) The rest of the artwork she has made are parodies of famous pieces of art starring her and her friends: a parody of Sandro Botticelli's The Birth Of Venus with Kitty as Venus and Tuxedo Sam, Chococat and Keroppi as the people surrounding her; a parody of the Greek Discus Thrower statue with Kitty as the discus thrower; a parody of Grant Wood's American Gothic with Kitty as the farmer's wife and Dear Daniel (her love interest) as the farmer; and a parody of Edvard Munch's The Scream starring Kitty as the person in the foreground with the shocked expression. I finished it off with a sign saying "Kitty's art studio: A place to get creative!"

I personally love this artwork and how well it drives home the message of creativity. That's what graphic design is about, after all. So go out there! Make your masterpiece! And don't be afraid to get creative!

My Favorite and Least Favorite Colors

My favorite color is green. In the famous words of Paige the Notebook from the popular Web series Don't Hug Me I'm Scared, green is not a creative color. But to me, the color green represents beauty, nature, and purity. It awakens childhood memories of playing in the woods under the canopy of emerald leaves, or trekking through the jungle during our vacations in Hawaii and Jamaica. It also reminds me of the earth element, which I associate myself with, and my favorite gemstones, emerald and peridot (the latter being my birthstone). Many foods are also green, and my favorite green foods are pears, white grapes, sugar snap peas, and watermelon. I also have green eyes, so that may be why I like the color green so much. Who knows?

My least favorite color is brown. Brown is a color that always struck me as dull. Maybe it's because plants usually turn brown when they die. Maybe it's because when the leaves turn brown, that means winter is coming, and that's a bad thing because I cannot stand the cold. Maybe it's because rotten things are usually brown, maybe it's because my mother's house is full of dull colors and I just got bored of them, maybe it's because brown is the color of dirt and filth, or maybe it's because brown is such a dull color compared to other colors. That's not to say I don't like brown. Brown can look good in certain situations, and being someone with brown hair I am obligated to say so. Still, of all the colors, brown is my least favorite.

Maddie's Amazing Art!- Adobe Illustrator

What I created for the shape project.

This week we learned about shapes, colors, and how to use Adobe Illustrator. The first thing we did in Illustrator was create shapes. First, we were taught about color theory. We learned that, for example, green makes us think of freshness and is used for a lot of cleaning products as a result. Red, on the other hand, is eye-catching and gets people's attention. For my shape project, I went with a yellow-green color scheme, giving it a bright and sunny look reminiscent of citrus fruits. I overlapped my shapes together in a zigzag, linear fashion. And, in the end, it did end up looking very appealing.

This graphic design I created is the cat's meow!

After that, we were encouraged to be creative and make a picture with Illustrator using the shape-creating and shaper tools. I decided to make a cat, as cats are my second-favorite animals (second only to snakes) and my favorite thing to draw. I was debating with myself over what color to make the cat, but I finally decided on a black cat. Instead of going for a realistic approach (which I often do when drawing cats), I decided to do a more simplified and cute design reminiscent of the Japanese kawaii art style. I used a half-circle for the body, triangles for the nose and ears, paintbrush lines for the eyes, regular lines for the whiskers, ellipses for the legs, and several combined shapes for the tail. After that, I created a background for the cat, involving a green rectangle for the grass, a dark blue rectangle for the sky, a white circle with a smaller blue circle on top for the moon, and multiple stars using the star tool. I am rather proud of my cat, as it looks appealing and very adorable. I am very glad that we got to learn how to use Adobe Illustrator, because so far I am loving it.