Featured News Story

Featured News Story

 

Process

        For this video, my group decided to interview Brady Slavens, a senior at ONW who was voted the best high school baseball player in Kansas. Our process started off by comparing ideas on what we could do a news story on. We then Tried to film the interview as well as b-roll, however we ran into many problems with the cameras. We eventually got enough footage and the interview. Then we edited the videos individually. 

Group Work

Along the way, I mostly helped with camera work and interview questions. I did not have much success with cameras due to many of the cameras we used being broken, but otherwise I learned all about how to make a news story and good ways to edit one. Previously I did not know how to edit a news story too well, but I feel I have improved a lot. I think my group was very successful in collaborating.  

Approach 

I took a much different approach on editing this time around. As previously mentioned, I did not fully understand how to edit these types of videos before now. Next time I would Like to get more clean b-roll, because much of the b-roll I had was shaky and unusable. I will definitely use this editing experience and improve the recording of b-roll for my next project. Though we had many troubles through this whole process, we got it done, and that's what counts.    

Graphic Design Performance Review

Performance Review

Behance: https://www.behance.net/alexkevans6076

Projects

        My favorite projects this semester included a raccoon and autumn icons. Each took me about 4 days to complete individually. While making the raccoon, I struggled with the mouth and lighter spots on the head, but I eventually figured out how to work with it. On the leaves, I especially struggled with the big red leaf. I still am not happy with the final product, but it looks decent. Along the way I learned all about Illustrator, which I previously did not know how to use very well. The direct selection tool was one of my favorite things to learn about. I was told I need to make some designs more smooth on some of the autumn leaves. After working on the Raccoon, I edited some of the original parts and glamorized his eyes, as well as making him a stereotypical British figure later on. 

Time in Class

        I spent my time in class working hard on projects. When finished with a project, I would work ahead if possible, or practice working with different tools in illustrator. When research was needed for the project, I made sure to get as much information as possible on the topic, even though it was eventually shortened to one or two sentences. Outside of class, I worked on a few graphics at home, such as a cartoon version of myself and a logo for our school Science Olympiad team.   

Strengths and Improvements

        I believe one of my greatest strengths is enjoying making graphics. I can commit a lot of time to making them since I enjoy making them so much. I have also become quite skilled in Illustrator and Photoshop. I could improve on communicating with other people, as my social skills are not very good. 

Summary

I enjoyed working with Illustrator this semester. At first I thought I would not like it because I had never used it before, but it turned out to be a great experience. I would like to have done more projects where you can design whatever you want. This semester has gotten me interested in graphic design, because at first I was not too sure if I would enjoy the class. Next semester I plan to work even harder and improve my designing skills even more. I really enjoy graphic design and hope it continues to be a great class. 
 

News Report Project

News Report Project

        For this assignment, my group and I reported on the Olathe Northwest Dance team. We talked to Maleah Boyd, a student on the dance team, and she answered our questions over the dance team experience. We started by listing ideas of what we could report on. After a lot of thinking, we finally decided that we should interview someone from the dance team. Originally, we planned to interview Maleah and the dance teacher. We spent a while typing out interview questions, however we never got a response from the dance teacher on the interview so we could never interview her. We then spent a few days trying to record the interview. This proved to be a lot more difficult then we thought due to locations around a school being loud.
        I helped with making the interview questions and helped operate the camera. I learned a lot about the interview process, as I had never interviewed someone before for a video. My group made sure to communicate when we were gone and what footage we needed to record. Someone always took leadership when needed, and the whole process went a lot better then everyone initially thought.
        Next time, I would like to get better B-roll and do a better voice over. Though I would keep the editing similar. I thought I edited my piece fairly well. Next time I will also know the best places to record an interview where it is as quiet as possible. I thought this project went pretty well.

Watercolor Transfer Printing Process Project

Watercolor Transfer Printing Process Project

Steps

        First, we printed out our projects we wanted to transfer. We made sure to horizontally flip each picture so they would look right when they were transferred. In order to make the transfer print look right, we made sure to have some white space around the picture when we cut it out. 

        Second, we used water colors to paint a cold press watercolor piece of paper. This painting should look abstract, as it will allow the final print to stand out.

        We then used a brush to paint mod podge on the front of our picture, which we then carefully placed, face down, on top of the water color painting. We then used a squeegee to carefully press out some of the creases. 

        after the mod podge had some time to settle, we used water to remove the paper from our original original image. A lot of work is required to fully remove the paper, and you have to be very careful or the image may rip. After all of the paper is removed, you should see your image on the water coloring, with the water coloring showing through your picture. A clear layer is then applied to make the image look better. 

Personal Experience

        Throughout the whole project I was skeptical that my transfer print would look any good. I did not enjoy taking off the original paper, as that required physical effort, which I don't often use. Though my final transfer print looked a lot better then I thought it would. I had trouble not tearing some of the edges. Overall I did enjoy the project.  

           

Printing Processes

Printing Processes

Relief Printing

Ink is applied to the surface, but not on any sunken areas on a plate or block. You may also chip away parts of the block/plate that you would like to be white instead of black.

Steps to making a Wood Cut Relief Painting:
• Tone/stain Wood block
• Transfer image to wood
• Choose white line or black line
• Depending on what you chose, carve out the spots or lines you want to be white

Intaglio Printing

Scratching or moving metal on a plate. Many different tools may be used to create different textures on the plate. 

Steps to making an Intaglio Printing:
• Carve your design into a plate
• Paint ink over the entirety of the plate
• Use lengths of Scrim to twist on the ink and make a thin texture
• Clear area off around the subject of the drawing
• Soak special printing paper in water for a small amount of time
• The image can now be printed on the paper.

Lithography Printing

A printing process that resolves around grease and water resisting each other. Drawn with grease on a stone.

Steps to making a Lithography Printing:

• Grain down your stone

• Draw on the stone using any greasy material, such as a lithographic crayon

• Chemically treat the stone with Gum Arabic, Rosin, and Talc

• Wash out the stone and drawing

• The stone is now ready to be printed




I would be interested in making an Intaglio print, because it sounds like an exciting profess plus I think the outcome of the design looks nice. I believe these printing processes have influenced designers to design prints based on how the printing processes produce the images.

e-Com Panorama Narrative

Panorama Narrative

        I have designed a Panorama including 9 different pictures of various lighting spots that my Mom designs. Many of these shots were taken at night or close to it. The lights always illuminate the streets or parks they are placed by. Especially during the night time. 
        Many of these pictures were taken during a cold period, mostly because night time was approaching. I remember going and admiring many of these light projects, that or sleeping in the car waiting to leave.
        These scenes have usually been calm and quiet, as well as being cold. I remember this shot of the bridge had a variant during December. there was snow on the ground and colorful lights everywhere making it even more beautiful. 
        I think I put the pictures together well in this Panorama. There are some things I would like to fix, but the way I executed them was the best I could think of. Overall I am proud of this project. It does a good job showing off my theme of lighting. Putting the pictures together really brought back memories, mostly of sleeping and not knowing what was going on at the time, but still memories. This panorama expresses how the future is looking pretty bright. 

e-com Procedures VIdeo Project

Procedures Project

        For this assignment, my group decided to make a video on what to do during a fire drill. The process throughout this project started with the planning. We created a storyboard putting together all of the ideas we had each come up with. We then scouted locations for recording on one day. The next few class periods we recorded the different scenes. Eventually we got to editing, where we spent a few days working until we shared our final products with the class. 
         I was one of the 4 actors in the production. I acted as a student, which wasn't too hard considering I'm a student anyways. Along the way I learned a lot about camera shots and how to use them. I also learned about some effects with Premier Pro, since I was experimenting with many different effects. I also learned a lot about collaboration and how to work as a team, which is something extremely valuable when working on projects as, well... a team. 
        Next time I would like to not have to speed up the shots as much. We had too many shots for the 30 second mark so I had to speed them up so they would fit. Something I would do the same is the shots I took. I felt like they told the story well, they just needed to not be so long. 

e-Com Photoshop POP Art

Photoshop POP Art

When I started this project, I messed with many different filters to try to make the image look good. I eventually decided on the cutout filter, making the image look more cartoon-like. I thought this made the image look better, however it messed with a lot of the shadows and made the image of my subject look scarier then it as meant to be. The background was the hardest part for me, because I had no idea for a while what to do, and eventually just made some custom shapes and threw them together.  
For the colors, I decided to use the colors the target originally had, just not as detailed. I thought the colors worked well together, though the skin tone was a bit brighter in the final product then I hoped for it to be. This was one issue I had with the cut out filter, which messed up some of the coloring in the image. 
I was inspired by Andy Warhol's art style. However the cut out filter made the subject look less like an Andy Warhol POP art subject. My original image colors were inspired by his colors, with the pinkish skin and brightly colored hair, but I later changed that. 
While editing the original photo, I used many tools, the most used being the brush tool. I first used the black and white filter after cutting out the background. I then just used the pen tool on a separate overlay layer to draw over the original image, bringing different colors back to the image.

Photoshop Challenge 1

Photoshop Challenge 1

        When I first started this project I was given a picture of a man and some landscapes. I had no idea what to do with them for a long time. However I tried multiple different things. I tried making him look like a Smurf, making the background inside him, instead of him in the background, and lastly, I tried making him look like Thanos snapping his fingers. I then tried making him look like a cartoon character, which is what I ended up going with. 
        I worked with many different ways of creating the picture. I ended up throwing a lot of adjustments on it, such as hue saturation layers and oil painting adjustments. I added masks and blending mode to help remove the original background of the man and make the colors look right. 
        The end result did not look exactly like I hoped. I was hoping for a much more cartoony look, but it did not as cartoony as I hoped, instead it looks more like a painting. However I had fun editing it either way. 

e-Com Basic Photoshop Tutorials

 Basic Photoshop Tutorials

This set of photoshop tutorials taught me all about cropping and fixing up spots in Photoshop, as well as removing items from pictures. I learned a lot about the clone stamp tool, healing brush tool, patch tool, and the content aware fill feature. I had never used these tools before now, but now I see how useful they all are. I even used the to edit some photos that my Grandmother had asked me to edit. I learned the most about the clone stamp tool. it is probably one of the best tools in Photoshop. I use it quite a lot in personal photoshop projects, and was definitely worth learning how to use.

        
I found the tutorials to be fairly easy, the hardest being the last one where I edited the pictures of a girl together and made them look nice. The other pictures were not too hard to edit, though some were much harder then others. 
In the future, I could use what I learned to edit people's photos for them, just like I am doing for my Grandmother. I could also use it for future school projects and designs. For instance if I needed to design a logo for a team or edit a picture of a team, I could do that.  

Self Portrait Artist Statement

Self Portrait Artist Statement

   
        In my self portrait, I chose to represent myself by filming my dogs. I wanted to show others that I enjoy playing with my dogs, and the fun my dogs have with me and the rest of my family. But more importantly, I wanted to use good camera skills to show that I am good behind a camera. I did not end up doing exactly what I wanted however. I wanted to show this because I think I am a good video recorder/editor, and I wanted others to see that for future projects. When we viewed examples of portraits in class, the one that inspired me the most was by Drew Swiecicki. Drew's video inspired me because he used a creative camera angle. He did something I would have liked to do and thought of a creative way to record what he was doing. 
        Some of the elements of my self portrait include good lighting and a fair attempt at keeping the subjects in frame. I made sure to keep the camera away from sun rays so it didn't mess up the camera. Making a good video requires you to keep subjects in frame. It is also helpful to keep the subject centered or in a position that flows well with whats happening on screen. I used a higher camera view on my dog running so I could easily record her running far away and coming back. 
        In my self portrait, I included the images of both of my dogs so more story can be told, like when my other dog runs in to attack my other dog playing with the frisbee. I also included the main shot of my first dog to inform people watching that she may run in frame at some point. These connected with what I wanted to show about myself because it shows I was attempting to use good camera angles and plot.
        Ultimately, what I hope viewers gain by looking at my work is the idea that I am able to work with a camera, and work with the environment around me, in general show people that I can do something. I think I was mildly successful in achieving this because I messed up my camera view, but I also kept my targets in screen. A challenge I faced in creating my self portrait was the weather. I overcame this challenge by selecting a set time when the lighting was just good enough and it wasn't too miserable outside to do anything while also achieving good lighting. 
        My favorite aspect of my self portrait is that my dog actually played in the dreary weather instead of trying to go inside, unlike my other dog was trying to do. I also thought I did a good job keeping the subject in frame. Next time I create a self portrait, I will use a better camera view because people seem to have a problem with the one I used.  Overall, what I learned from the process of creating my self portrait is that i need to use better camera views and not move the camera around so much.