REFLECTIVE JOURNAL
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YUFEI SHAN 896738 EDUC10049 Creative Projects- Digital Technologies
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“The creative adult is the child who survived.� - Ursula Leguin
and career selection. This is not only a journal for a subject, but it is also a journal of my new life.
This journal records my growth process throughout the semester. It not only contains the process development of my creative project, but also the improvement of my creativity. I have to say that there was a hard period for me to actually work out how to develop my creative project. So for this journal, I want to mainly focus on telling how did I making my project. This journal contains two part. Part one explains the planning, aim and process of my creative project. Part two mainly focus on my personal experience in this subject. Also, I really want to say that CPDT really change my way of explaining what is creativity, and also it greatly excavated my potential on creativity, which even infulence my decision on future study plan
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PART 01: Creative Project- “Turn Pain to Beauty” Project Inspiration and Planning For my creative project, I chose “creativity and artistry” as my main theme since I first time read through the assignment brief. , because I am a design student who always want to become a creative person. I have decided to make something for Frida Kahlo as Frida Kahlo is my favorite painter since I
“Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?”-Frida Kahlo was in middle school. I was greatly touched by her journey and her courage. Because of her, I have successfully got through the darkest time in my life, and I started to learn painting which as a consequence, I chose architecture as my major. So for the aim of my project, instead of telling everyone the Frida kahlo as a painter. I want to get away from her amazing paintings and to show everyone her personal life as Frida herself, as a courageous woman. So I have named my project- “Turn Pain Into Beauty”.
The theme decision for my project was generated quite easily. But the types of media to produce the project was the hardest step in the whole process. Initially I was decided to use iMovie to produce a short video based on a movie ”Frida (2002)” which was directed by Julie Taymor. But then I found that the movie contains so many personal opinions from the director.
So I was super struggled what is the right thing to do for my project. At the same time, I read a reading-”thinking creatively” by Stephen Scoffham. The whole reading was about what is creativity and I was really shocked by how broad the creativity could be. I was greatly inspired by the sentence ‘The sources of creativity are not always conscious or rational. The intuitive, spiritual and emotional also feed creativity- fed themselves by the beddrock of
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Comics by Will Eisner
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Hence, I gave up the idea of producing a short video based on others movie. I want to produce something based on my own creativity and my own opinions and explaination. So that I can show the story in my personal way. As a result, I have decided to make a series of comics. Based on my investigation, comics are no longer for children but for adults. The main
“To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it.” -- Kurt Vonnegut reason is people’s lives are getting busy, it’s harder and harder for us to find a time to sit down to enjoy a whole book or a long film. People are getting attracted by short digital articles or short videos on phones. Hence, I found the comic is a good media for modern life, it could be really attrative and straight away. So instead of read it seriously like work by word, people can just quickly look at them, and they can get an overall idea of what it is talking about.
So next step is to choose the software that would be use for my comics. As I am an architecture student, the first software that came into my mind is photoshop. But as we studied illustrator during the semeter, I found AI might be a better tool for me to draw the comic drawings. So for next part, I am going to explain the process of making the comic.
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PART 01: Creative Project- “Turn Pain to Beauty” Project developing process
01: “HI, I’M FRIDA AND THIS IS MY FAMILY !”
I have divided my comics into several pages, some of them may contain several scenes, but like the first page which only contains one scene. I made this variation to highlight this page as a beginning of the comic.
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Two scenes have been selected
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from the movie “Frida (2002)” as the base of my comic.
By using pen tool
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in Adobe Illustrator, the outline of the image was traced.
Color was added by
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using life paint. The idea of color was getting from Frida’s painting style.
Adding background
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by the inspiration from her dressing style. Fianlly, I want to create
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a sense of old time printed comics. So I add texture to my comic by using photoshop ‘multiply’ command.
02: “LIFE BEGINS TOMORROW”
The second scene is about an accident that changed Frida’s life forever. at the age of 18, Frida Kahlo was riding in a bus that collided with a trolley car. As a result of the accident she suffered several injuries: a broken spinal column, a broken collarbone ribs and pelvis, eleven fractures in her right leg, a crushed and dislocated right foot, and a dislocated shoulder. Also, an iron handrail pierced her abdomen and her uterus. So we can see lots of pain from her paintings. Frida is a strong woman, she stood up for her life, she fighted for her life.
Three sources have been chose
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from the movie, Frida’s journal and Frida’s painting.
Drew the base
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scene which inspired by Frida’s journal.
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As what I did for the first scene, I use AI pen tool to trace the outline and use life paint to add color.
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Use image trace to blur the photo with the drawings.
Add more elements to improve visual effect.
03: “MY LOVE”
The third scene is about Frida and Diego Rivera, Diego is one of the most important person in her life. He was not only Frida’s lover, but also Frida’s teacher and inspirations. This man gave her brave, but also pain.
For this scene, two Frida’s own
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paintings have been selected.
Pretty much as
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what I did before, but the outline has been slightly reshaped.
I have used image trace
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in illustrator to trace the painting. In order to get a vector image and blur with others better.
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Adding background and texture to the images to form the same style.
Apply darker colors to the work and form a broken scene.
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“Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.” -- Mary Lou Cook
“To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it.” -- Kurt Vonnegut
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Initially, I heard this subject from my last semester’s breadth subject- printing collage and social engagement. As a design student, making cool stuff is an essential skill to be survived in design faculty. But I was so struggled with it and I was always under a high pressure atmosphere throughout the design life. I told to the subject coordinator from printing collage that I was so uncofident with my creativity and she suggested CPDT for me. I read through the subject introduction and I thought this subject would not be difficult for me, because it was mainly about digital software that I was already familiar with. But once I started my CPDT journey, I found the hardest thing was to choose what to do. Waht I use to do for my design subject is to design something based on a very specific given topic.But it seems like there’salmost no limitation and rules for CPDT assignments and I suddenly found being a creative person wasn’t a hard thing, everyone can be creative. In addition, I really enjoy the Padlets tasks, because I have seen so many different ideas and even with the same music video, different students could have compeletly different opinions which is really interesting. I found creativity or digital affordances or collaboration those cool wordswere not hard topics which were far away from us, there are actually in our daily life and right in front of us. Most importantly, I found during the shor presentation, I could see how each students’ personal background and major have influences their interests and I was also suprised by how talented a science students could be on art stuff. Also, during software teaching tutorial, I found I have learnt so many new skills. What I used to know about Adobe Illustrator was only about adding color and I didn’t know the difference between photoshop and illustrator. But now I know the best thing for AI is it’s vector property. Because of this subject, I started to use AI for my architectural assignments. And the last thing to mention is because I have some software background so this subject were not super hard for me, but during last class I have seen many works from students who are major in science or commerce and their works are all really amazing. I was quite impressed by their hardworking, because I know how hard it is to learn these digital skills in such a short time. All in all, thanks for giving me this chance to actually become a creative person. And most importantly, to know how creative the world is.
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Throughout the semester, the most important thing I learn is what is creativity. What people always know about creativity are art and music. But actually there’s no limitation to say which thing can be creative. Creativity is hided behind every academic discipline.(thinking creatively, 2003) Creativity help to think of different ways to do things or to achieve a better result. In addition, combine digital techniques and creativity helping us to get a better result. I posted a music video from David Bowie for my Padlets assignments, because I am a big fan of his song. But I never thought the word ‘creativity’ could be related to him. But because of this assignment, I searched lots of information behind his works. I found none of the song in this world could live without creativity and how deep the creativity could be. The music video for David bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ is quite simple, before taking this subject I thought it wasn’t a good music video to fit this famous song. But now I knew what the music video is trying to say, it is not only about a song or about a person, it is about the whole society. Creativity doesn’t need to be super cool, it can also be pure and simple, there’s always meaning for different audience behind. In conclusion, the CPDT journey to me just like the name I have given for this journal. Because of creativity, I lost my confidence to be a design student, but after this journey, I turn pain to beauty.
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Reference: 1. Knobel, M., & Lankshear, C. (2008). Remix: The art and craft of endless hybridization. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 52(1), 22-33. 2. Frida Kahlo im Kunstmuseum Gehrke-Remund Baden-Baden. (2019). The accident that changed Frida’s life forever: “Life begins tomorrow”. [online] Available at: https://www.fridakahlostory.com/frida-blog/the-accident-that-changed-fridas-life-forever-life-begins-tomorrow [Accessed 2 Nov. 2019]. 3. The ‘digital natives’ debate: A critical review of the evidence. (2007). 4. Digital Remix: The Art and Craft of Endless Hybridization. (2007). 5. ‘Creative Youth’: learning, culture and digital technologies. (2001). Retrieved from: 6. Goodreads.com. (2019). Frida Kahlo Quotes (Author of The Diary of Frida Kahlo). [online] Available at: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/52760.Frida_Kahlo [Accessed 2 Nov. 2019]. 7. Thinking Creatively. (2003).
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