Semester Take Away

There are many things that stood out to me this semester that have really helped to improve my skills for creativity, along with social skills, and my goals for life after college regarding what I may want to do. I feel that my mind was very opened to the idea that I can really create anything I want when I put effort into it. Before I would always just wait for someone to tell me to create something, or expect to get an assignment to give me inspiration. Now I create for myself, and create in certain ways that I never would have before. I have learned that I have a lot more creative passion that I ever realized before. I have also become much more open to having new experiences and meeting new people just through all that I have done in this class. It has helped me realize a lot about trying new things and not being afraid to take chances and get the most I can out of any situation. This includes being willing to just talk to others and experience all that I can through my own creativity and others' life experiences that they can share. I have also certainly made a change in my life involving what I want to do after college. I was able to explore my creativity a lot more in this class, and have been able to better define the type of work I want to someday pursue in my future careers. This has been a very influential semester for me. I don't think I could get any kind of experience like the one I had through any other course, and it has really helped to develop more of my college education and abilities.

Class Take Away 16

In this final class I was able to experience seeing all of the great ways people were able to transform their books, along with discussing a lot of different things about seeing sideways and what has happened throughout the semester. I really appreciate all the opportunities I've had to discuss these things with my altared book, and how I was able to express myself freely through the assignment. I was really impressed with the ways some people completely deconstructed their books and were able to create something completely new out of them. For my project, I really enjoyed the work I put into it, and all that I was able to communicate to others with it.

Altared book of the self

I believe that combining technology and the human body in the way she did in the video was not a bad thing at all. She was exploring new ways to alter the appearance and functions of the body to give a new point of view or even a new presence overall for the person being altered. This way of thinking and creating is certainly a unique field of work, but definitely pushes many boundaries of what is accepted by society, and even what is typically expected of normal human bodies. I believe combining a media arts and science project with my own body would definitely push my limits in many different methods and give me some kind of new perspective on how I approach new media. I started with a textbook that I have had for many years and have always dreaded, my “Scholastic Children’s Dictionary”. This book had always been the most cumbersome issue for me to worry about for many of my grade school years. For some reason in many of my classes during this time I had frequent assignments that involved looking up definitions in my dictionary for certain vocabulary words of each week. I was always hesitant to do these assignments because I hated having to flip back and forth pointlessly for hours just to find little words to write down for homework. I always wanted to just use the internet to look up definitions, as that would have taken a lot less time, but back then I still had dial-up internet, and my parents would not let me use it just for homework that had other ways of being completed. Ever since that time of my life I have always seen this book and just remembered the exasperating times that it always brought about.

This course has taught me many great things about being a digital artist and a creative thinker. I feel that through all I have done to the book I have represented myself well. I cut out pictures and word groups relating to the assignments we had in class over this past semester. I took one picture, of a bear catching a fish, and put it on the cover of the book. This picture represents the media round robin project, in which I created my own design and sweatshirt. This project stood out to me, as it related much to what I might actually want to do as a career someday, and therefore I felt that I needed to put it on the cover of the book to stand out. On the back cover I placed the rest of the images that I found to be relating to the other assignments in the class. I also cut out a hole in many of the pages of the book In order to plant a small leafy plant in the square-shaped area. This was a very important aspect of the project to me, as it allowed me to show the new life and creative ambitions I have gained ever since I started focusing on my future career goals. This plant growing out of what once was my least favorite object is a symbol to me that something good can always come out of anything bad that happens in life, and that I need to make it through certain struggles in order to reach the outcome that I am hoping for someday.

Identity of self in the digital world is what we want everyone to see from us. Based on the media and celebrities being shown as everything needing to be perfect, we always tend to overthink our image online that everyone sees in order for us to be content with ourselves. I feel that people need to step away from this mentality and approach life with a much more meaningful thought process. Much of what we do today will affect the rest of our lives every day after that. You never know what will happen next or what could be good or bad in the future that we’ll have to deal with.

This book has changed me in the sense that I now have a better understanding of who I am and what I want to be. I am very grateful to have taken part in this activity, and am very certain I have shown what I feel and am willing to create in order to represent much of my life thus far.

Class Take Away 14

For this final class addressing the fear assignment, I was very touched by the presentations I saw that remained. All had a lot of thought put into them and definitely addressed the issue very personally. I felt like I was able to get a lot out of the project simply through watching the presentations as well as experiencing the fear on my own. I also enjoyed how we looked into the way cliches are addressed and what we can do as creative people to overcome them and be original. Much of what we do as artists is an expression of ourselves that we need to get out. I feel like I definitely learned more about who I am and what I have to offer though this class.

Class take away 13

For this class I was surprised at how many fears I had in common with many of my fellow classmates that shared their fears with me on this day. I thought it was interesting how some incorporated different elements of their lives that I could relate to into their fears, and how they had never shared some of these aspects about themselves with me before. I had an interesting time discussing my topic, however I don't think I was able to stress enough what I wanted to about why I chose the fear that I did. I expected most people to choose a more emotional or life-related fear, whereas I chose my fear of heights, because it has affected me very much in the past, but in ways that I have never really been able to share with others. I understand why I got the reaction that I did, but was just surprised at how much what I could say about it affected what people really thought of my fear.

Fear Factor

A fear I would like to examine is my fear of heights. I don’t know exactly I have developed this fear, but it always springs into my mind and is uncontrollable once I am in a situation when I am in a high place and think about all that could go wrong. I consider this more of a worry than a fear according to the articles listed. I get more thoughts about what may actually happen than what is more likely to happen. I have noticed this fear in my life whenever I have been in a situation where I am up high or more specifically in a place where I feel something could go wrong while I am up high. Even though I have this fear, it doesn’t keep me from doing too many things at the moment. I still am able to face it in some situations, and it mainly only bothers me when I’m on some kind of machinery or pedestal that is prone to some kind of unlikely error. Fear is used in life to keep oneself from potential harm. In most cases, something has affected someone in the past in order to make their fears stand out and give them a reason to avoid certain things or respond differently through fears. Some of my other fears, such as fearing rejection or other social fears can cause my creativity to go on a different path, but usually I am able to control this and do things my own unique way. My fear takes the form of different thoughts in my mind that make me unable to be happy and comfortable in certain situations. The thoughts are only brief in most cases though, and can be uncomfortable usually only for a few moments. Making a creative project helped to represent this fear and help me understand it better. I engraved a metal tin with an image of a person standing on a mountain ledge looking over. When you open the tin you can see another image on the bottom of it with the same ledge and scenery, but the person is missing. This can represent my fear tangibly through many ways. I chose the metal container as opposed to simply painting the piece, because the metal is colder to touch, and has rough bumps on the surface. The whole object itself is able to represent this fear better than a simple picture could. When you open the tin and see the person is missing, it represents the worry that is present inside my mind. The first image doesn’t show any kind of real danger, but when you open the tin you can see what could either be the reality, or what my mind makes me worry it may experience.

Bliss Assignment

5 Obstacles:

Finding which fear I am willing to openly talk about, thinking about times in which this fear has really affected me, finding a way to incorporate this fear into something tangible, being able to successfully establish an understanding of what my fears are, and being able to determine what type of fear it is.

3 What ifs

What if I go out and try to experience my fears firsthand to see what would be my greatest fears?

What if I make a list of all things that scare me and determine which is a fear I want to talk about?

What if I talk about a fear that I am comfortable with sharing?

The bliss exercise was very useful for me to be able to start understanding my fear assignment. I found that in my case, I cannot simply go and do something and get bliss out of it. Simply shopping just for the sake of it or going out and getting food, or even making a video where I do something fun is not enough for me to have a fully blissful time. Although it is an enjoyable period of time, I find much more comfort in bliss once I have accomplished something previously in the day. For the period of time that I considered my “Bliss assignment” I had just beforehand worked out and found out that I had been invited to join the honors college. This put my mind at ease and made it much more enjoyable to enjoy myself doing nothing of productivity for three hours. I found the overall experience to be enriching and comforting. I had no worries for that amount of time and was able to focus more on things I was interested in rather than what the world wanted me to do. I appreciated the experience I had with this very much, and found out many important qualities about myself that I have lost over the past few months.

Class Take Away 12

I really enjoy talking to people and being involved with other people as much as I can. Whether it be in ways big or small, I really like just being able to spend time with other people and see what their lives are like and what they are about. Sometimes I am unable to keep up with all of the events and lives of people that I connect with, and it can be difficult, but I try my best to keep as close I can with all of my different friends and acquaintances. I enjoy being a part of different experiences and events that can make differences in peoples' lives. I like doing things that people will remember and always look back to in their lives as something important and close to them. I feel that a lot of what I do has shifted towards this mentality over the past few years, as I have started to focus more on this than playing games or simply watching tv or doing things by myself. I usually try whenever I am doing anything to surround myself with people that care about me or understand me.

Class take away 11

For this class I was very intrigued by the idea of the fear assignment. I didn't really think I had many fears until actually sitting down and thinking about it. Listening to what other people had to say was definitely influential as well. I felt very motivated to look more into my fears after this class. I was also very impressed by the idea of the bliss assignment. I like the idea of being able to do something completely for myself. I am actually having trouble finding what to spend the time doing. I'm thinking about spending the time to make a new video on my Youtube channel. I have just started making videos for my channel and I have been really excited and happy from doing that. I could definitely relate to everyone's disagreement with how so many people "flake" and don't commit to so many things these days. I have experienced a lot of people like that in the past few months and it's nothing but a pain.

Class Take Away 10

I greatly enjoyed this class because I was able to show off my work from the previous week and learn more about what other people got out of their experiences. I was really able to connect this time with the assignment and felt that I was very involved with the project. I enjoyed talking with the class about all that they had created and what Beth spoke about that enriched the understanding I had for the assignment. I hope to take on more assignments in the future in the way that I took on this one.

Media Round Robin

For this project I had trouble at first finding inspiration for what to create in a physical to digital and back to physical form. I eventually decided to use my coloring book and find a picture from it that I liked for this project.

Next I scanned the image into my computer and edited it in Photoshop to look like this. I wanted to give it an interesting look that took advantage of the water splashing effect and a different background.

Lastly I transferred the edited image back to a non-digital format by ironing it onto a shirt. I liked how the final product came out and I can wear it around even after this class is over!

This creation changed through my editing of the original picture in Photoshop, along with transferring it from paper onto a shirt. The final product is somewhat different from the original by what the actual material was, along with the background that the bear is on. This relates very closely to my field of study because I am looking at graphic design and many different forms of media. I learned new techniques for Photoshop editing and how to make a design on a shirt. 

Class take away 9

During this class session I got a really great understanding for the way that we can create new things and experiences from totally different perspectives I've never considered before. I really enjoyed looking into these new ideas through the project we were assigned and creating a whole new technique to use whenever I need some kind of creative intuition. I felt that the way I was able to access all of my different senses in one exercise was very unique and helpful in the creative process. I was able to make a new character from the flavor experience I had with an object. I have to say it was a very eye-opening experience and it helped me out a lot through showing me new perspectives on being creative.

The Flavor of ____ Sounds like ____

For this project I wanted to try something playful and interesting as a new flavor experience. I chose starfruit because I love the interesting shape and am baffled at how it grows in the shape it does. I also was able to obtain one fairly easily and knew there would be no difficult way to prepare it, so I purchased one and ate it right away. The flavor is similar to that of an apple and a white grape maybe fused together. But the actual sensation of flavor and the look of the fruit is impersonated through this short music track I made: https://soundcloud.com/samcanhasmusic/starfruit I felt a sort of sweetness but also mellow flavor. I can describe it best through variations of high and low solid notes with a slow tempo. It's just a very light and simple flavor with not too much sweetness or tang.

Class take away 8

In class today we discussed the importance of every individual in their creative life journey, and how we have taken our identities from the world in order to give back in some way. We watched a film that intrigued me and made me think about how creativity can be squandered through worldly materials like money and power. Fear of others and fear of failure can be a cause for the loss of creativity, and we need to work towards fighting against that fear and working hard to be creative without burning out. We talked about the cover ideas we have for our altered books and how we connected them to our lives. I enjoyed hearing all the unique ways that people in the class have gathered these ideas and are representing their creativity with this project. I felt motivated to try new things and continue creating for myself and for others.

You've Got this covered!

A lot of what I've done with my altered book has been a personal reflection and may not shine through as vividly as others without good description, but should definitely be well represented by the cover. I don't want anything from the pre-existing cover to show in the final product, because it does not at all offer a full representation of myself. Instead I want it to show how I have changed since I first used this book, and have several ideas for doing so. I thought for one idea I could spray paint over the cover of the book with a color more reflective of my life experince change, and maybe print some kind of symbol on it to show how I have changed. Another idea is to wrap the cover with the contour image or doodling page from previous assignments. And one last idea is to take pages out from this book or others and coat the book in them, while writing different words on the pages to change how they express my new feelings and outlooks on life. I have yet to decide on a final plan for this cover, but am working on incorporating at least one of these ideas, but maybe more, into my final product.

Class take away 7

In class today we talked about blind contour drawings and how we perceive many different aspects of life. We watched a short clip that focused on animating emotions through different movements and actions. Beth stated that her goal for this class is to get us in touch with ourselves. We discussed how we felt about our "who are you and why are you here" projects. I felt very inspired during this class to become a part of things like school and different experiences because I was very motivated when we said that our lives are changed simply by coming to class and structuring our future. We discussed that as college students we are always evolving and changing, and that we will not be the same at all on graduation day that when we were at the start of school. I felt very empowered by class today and it has brought up my spirits of creation to continue to create and communicate in my own unique way.

Who are you and why are you here?

I am Samuel Bielawski. I am a college student that loves music, art, media, being social, and creating new things. I have spent much of my life living in the same house and going to school every day except during the summers. I am a person that believes much in my passions and dreams, and I spend much of my time working on setting up myself for success in these ventures. I am human and I make mistakes sometimes. I am caring and trustworthy amongst all of my friends and family. I am an artist, a designer, and a barista.

I believe I am here to be challenged with the set of skills and coordinating passion that drives my desire to become whatever I want to be. Through the drawing exercise I was able to create what I thought could be art in a certain way that one would look at it. I believe I am here to take this class and have experiences like it to discover what I will create for the world and leave behind many years from now.

Bible Dipping

For this exercise I wanted to "reuse" supplies I found lying around the house to make a cool decorative piece transformed from something else. I started with an empty jar that I found in my recycling bin that I washed and took all the labels off of. I then sprayed and varnished it with "santa snow" that I found in my garage to give it a frosted glass look that fades up from the bottom of the jar. I thought this was interesting as I composed my ideas for what to do next with the jar. I thought that it would be interesting to make a candle holder at this point and to put a silhouette around the jar to make cool shadows from the pictures I was to cut out. I used leftover scrap booking paper I found in my closet to make the animals and objects image that wraps around the jar. I used gravel I found in a bag in my garage to fill the bottom of the jar to have something for the candle to sit on. Lastly, I tied around the top of the jar with a string that I found in a drawer in my kitchen. I like the interesting look that this creation resulted in, and the fact that all I used to make it was things that had other purposes to begin with.

Class Take away 5

For this class I really felt inspired by the ideas discussed by the rest of the class. I feel like my mind is being opened much more freely while I take this class. I'm not afraid to try more unique ideas and take risks creatively because of what has happened in this class so far. I liked to see how all the students that presented were able to "Break the rules" in whichever way they chose. It certainly made me feel more comfortable with what I was able to make, because as long as whatever people did make, it just needed to make sense to them in a way they could explain to everyone else. For next week's project I'm having trouble deciding what to do for something that is "reused" but I am certain I will come up with something great, because I love to reuse things all the time.

Rules were made...

I made a video with absolutely no plot and no meaning. Rules for most short films are to have a plot, varying camera angles, and a solid clean look. This video uses one constant shot of me sitting in my room while I study. One surprising thing about the footage is that it actually consists of over an hour of footage all shortened into two minutes by speeding it up. The background sound was just something I found and thought didn't really go along with it at all, so I had it play while the entire film goes on. I added a hue change to it because it makes the footage look less good quality and certainly changes the mood of it. Other effects and overlays are placed throughout just to add to the nonsense of this video. I made it while studying for a test and chose the title "correlation" by opening a dictionary and picking out the first word I saw.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdvWmpFdYY4&feature=youtu.be

Class take away 4

Class was very interesting this week and was a very good time fore me to get my ideas together. I greatly enjoyed hearing about all of the new ideas that I got from seeing what other people had to say about their books. I also was intrigued by my own idea, and how I could have changed it. Right now I am just trying to find out how to incorporate my ideas and everything I want to from this class into the book. I have had trouble remembering to keep up with the deadlines for several of my class take aways thus far, and hope that I can keep myself from doing that again next time.

50 what ifs

What if I…

1.      Fill the book with words that I think are positive

2.      Use the pages to create something new

3.      Use the book as fuel for a fire that I use to melt candle wax and create an artistic candle piece

4.      Make the pages into a canvas and paint something

5.      Read the book to other people and ask them if they think it is as bad as I do

6.      Make a paper mache sculpture

7.      Take the book around with me and write my thoughts on the pages

8.      Make doodles on the pages of the book

9.      Give people pages from the book

10.   Turn the book into something artistic

11.   Throw the book off a building

12.   Give the book to someone and write down their thoughts

13.   Take a nap and shred the pages and put them In my pillowcase

14.   Pour water on the book and cut it up

15.   Use the pages as a napkin

16.   Take a picture of the book

17.   Fold the pages into origami

18.   Cut out a hole in the pages and put something inside

19.   Get the pages wet and put them in the soil of a plant

20.   Turn the book into a case for something

21.   Make a hole in the book and turn it into a planter

22.   Replace adjectives in the book with new ones

23.   Duct tape the entire book

24.   Take out the pages and put them backwards

25.   Write to swap the genders of all the characters

26.   Paint the book

27.   Demolish it with sharpie

28.   Burn it and put the ashes in a sculpture

29.   Put the pages on a cup and drink from it

30.   Melt crayons on it

31.   Make it into a poster

32.   Let it soak in alcohol and melt

33.   Throw it into a lake

34.   Rip each individual page out

35.   Shoot the book and fill in the holes

36.   Put up the pages like posters around town

37.   Scatter the book pages on the ground in a comfortable place

38.   Use the pages to make a picture frame

39.   Make a video of doing something transformative with the book

40.   Run the book over with my car

41.   Leave the book in my car and punch it whenever I get angry

42.   Hit it with a bat until it is nothing more

43.   Put firecrackers in it and watch it explode

44.   Bake it into a cake and see if I can make people eat it

45.   Fold the pages into flowers

46.   Spray paint a stencil on a laid out sheet of pages from the book

47.   Have people sign the book

48.   Make a documentary on how the book is burned

49.   Make a Photoshop image using the book

50.   Make the pages into a map by drawing a map on top and framing it or printing it on

Class take away 3

Something that resonated from class today most was getting to know someone so suddenly. Even though I had no intent to make a connection with someone today, It really made me happy that I did. Although I didn't see everything to be the same between my partner and I, talking to him made me realize that I have a lot in common with many people in my major, and that I should take advantage of getting to know more people like me through it. I also thought really hard about which page to give to my partner. I didn't want to give a page with a boring picture or one that wouldn't be fun coloring, but I also didn't want to give up a picture of any of my favorite animals. I really enjoyed hearing about Beth’s painting style and how she is able to express herself in the way she does through all different art forms. I love expressing myself creatively in many different ways too, and hope that I can show that more and more through the projects we receive in the future.

Doodles

I had trouble thinking about the different topics while doodling. I was mainly focusing on trying to incorporate different thoughts in my mind into my doodles. I was thinking about things that make me happy and interested. I love cats so I drew a lot of them around my page, along with several other animals. I feel like this somewhat connects to serendipity through the fact that it was helping me feel better drawing animals that I like. A lot of other things I drew had to do with what was happening the day I drew this. I was having a very boring day and was just drawing anything that came to my mind. The word “Blah” drawn in the middle page is a good description of how I felt while sitting in my house all day doing nothing. I included mountains because I had really wanted to go on a hike or experience something with nature. Some of the aspects of my doodles like the penguin with the palm tree coming out of its mouth I think have to do with synchronicity because aspects like that just flow together and look interesting.

Class take away 2

For Monday's class I felt very impressed by all the creations my fellow students created with their eggs. I feel that what people made was much more than I thought it was going to be. I expected this assignment to be more of a visual and digital project, but ended up realizing that other students didn't need that kind of approach on the project in order to let their ideas show. I was also intrigued by what others had to do artistically in their coloring books, and how thy all seemed to have entertaining and positive views of their world to share.

The Egg and Eye

For my egg I wanted to give him personality, and I thought a unique way to give him personality that he could express more openly with the rest of the world would be by giving him a twitter account. He can be followed through @ExcellentEgg and has already gained several followers. I figured making an actual social phenomenon through an object that started off as nothing relevant was a very creative approach to this project. On Eggbert's profile you can find a profile picture, a lovely cover photo of the farm he grew up on, and all the interesting tweets he has to share on a daily basis.

Color Your World

For this assignment I had lots of difficulty deciding what exactly I could do to color a page of an animal coloring book in order to express what I want in life. I decided to use an image of a lion because I love cats, I greatly admire the courageous symbolism that a lion signifies, and I felt that this animal represents me best. I colored his mane purple to represent how important my friends are to me, because suggested to color it purple, and I thought I could use that as a symbol for the importance of friendship in the world I want to live in. I drew in a bowl of orange chicken from panda express because I love that food so much and my world would not be perfect without it. I drew a credit card with the lion because I would like to have an unlimited supply of money and financial stability in my perfect world. Lastly I drew in an image of the main gates to Lollapalooza behind the lion because I would love to someday be able to be a part of huge music festivals like this and tour the world.

Class Take Away 1

I really enjoyed this first day of class. I felt that the first thing we did, getting in a circle with all of our desks and talking to each other was a great way to open up our minds to being less judgmental towards each others' ideas, and more focused thinking creatively. Something that stays with me from this class more than anything is what Beth has shared with us and taught us already, and how my mind and creative passion has already opened up to making new and amazing things at my own pace, and in any way I want. The egg assignment has definitely intrigued me. I feel that while everything about the class and assignments were being discussed, the whole time I was feeling dozens of different ideas and creative feelings run through my head. Just the feeling of creative freedom is something that I have already come to love about this class.