Category Archives: Maker

This was part two of our Maker project, Constructing Creative Communication! In the last couple of weeks, I was focused on taking photos like Herzog. Herzog was born in Germany in 1930, but immigrated to Vancouver in 1953. His specialty was colour photos and street photography. Here you can see more of Fred Herzog’s photos here. 

The first goal was composing composition. To build on this skill, we learned how to adjust focus and exposure, consider the rule of thirds, backgrounds and foregrounds. The assignment for this goal was to hand in a photo from one of the activities that we did. The activities were photo walk, photograph something familiar, and create a personified picture. I chose to hand in one of the photos that I took on my photo walk. 

Our second goal was called adjusting angles. We learned how to use photo booth and the timer, experiment with basic camera angles, use preset filters in the camera and photos app, and play with lighting. I learned that there are 4 basic camera angles. The birds eye, worms eye, close up, and the long shot. The birds eye is from above at a subject below. The worms eye is below to above, the close up is, well, close up, and the long shot is from far away. We had to shoot self portraits, make a portrait, and create a silhouette portrait. Our assignment was to choose a photo of us when we were younger, then use our skills to take that same photo now! 

Goal number three was manufacturing mood. We moved on to advanced camera angles (eye level, high level, extreme close up, extreme long shot, medium shot, and canted perspective), we tried panorama, we used scale and contrast, and we learned to apply filters on some apps that we have, Pixelmator photo, and Snapseed. Our assignment was to make a photo of a word that we chose out of a hat. My word was dignified and this was my photo. 

Skill four was creating collages. We learned how to use basic keynote with photos, yes advanced keynote with photos, and create storyboards with our images. First, we had to pictorialize our name, then we had to create a personalized collage. Also, we built an about me page here.

Skill 5 was molding movement. We made a Gif! I made two. The first one was a one that I made for fun, and the second one was the one that I handed in. They were supposed to be about a mood, and I chose annoyance for the second one.

This was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed taking photos, and I enjoyed both parts of this project. Now, the big question. “How might I use technology to create and communicate?” Well, being in Herzog and Carr has affected how I think about things. Before when I was taking a photo, I might want the target in the middle, but now I know that its more effective for them or it to be in a third. 

In this Maker project, we have split into two groups, Herzog and Carr. For the first half I was in Carr. In Carr we focused on drawing. Emily Carr was a famous artist from 1871 to 1945. She was most well known for her landscape artworks. In these couple of weeks we will be learning how to incorporate pressure, doodling, shading, perspective, and using colour into our drawings.

The first goal was using pressure. In this goal we started to learn what different brushes in the tool bar do, we learned how to use various pen and brush styles and sizes, we learned how to change the pressure from our Apple Pencil to make lines thicker, thinner, darker, or lighter, and we learned how to create patterns from lines. The app that we used was Sketches Pro, and you can check that out here. After we had learned all of those things, we had to make our name using the things that we learned. This is what I did.

The second goal was doodling. This was mostly using 2D shapes to show what we have learned. We made an emoji to practice our shapes, and then we got right into it. Our assignment for doodling was sketchnoting something. It could be our life, a video, or anything else. We needed to use lines and arrows, containers, organization, and text in our sketchnotes. For my sketchnote I did a Mark Rober video.

Our third goal was shading. This time, instead of drawing 2D, we learned how to draw 3D shapes. One of the most important things in shading is understanding light and shadow, and we learned how to do that too. For this activity, we had to create a value scale, which is something which has the darkest colour at the left, and the lightest (white) at the right. Here is my value scale.

Then, we built a robot out of 3D shapes! We learned that it is very important to break objects down into shapes, if you want to draw them. For example, this guitar could be broken down into these 3D shapes.

Guitar:

Robot:

Perspective was our fourth goal. To build this skill, we were to find the horizon line, find the vanishing point, understand linear perspective, add depth through perspective, and use the smudge tool to add depth. We used layers to help us create a landscape photo. I chose the Sydney Opera house.

Just like that, we were onto our last skill! We were learning how to use colours to show emotion. We also got to Zoom with Chloe Devine! We had to create a logo of a random business that we knew or wanted to start.

Why are we learning this is a common question in PLP projects. We are learning this because this actually helps with one of our core competencies. The adult world connection is also a big part of all PLP projects. Some of us will have jobs where we must use either photography (Herzog) or drawing (Carr). But this project is more about understanding the skills that we develop. The driving question for Constructing Creative Communication which I’ll answer in the final blog post for this project is “How might I use technology to create and communicate?”

For this project, we made a keynote guided tour, which we made into a movie, and it included my team member contract, my artist’s statement, my big life journal, three best works, and lego. On the start slide, I also included my Memoji

laptop.

For my team member contract, I said mostly what I said in a page in my blog. I included the WordPack image, which shows what I bring to the team, and what my team has. For example, I bring understanding and ideas to the team. Whichever team I’m on has different strengths too.

For my big life journal three best works, I included my BLJ interest brain, my BLJ interest map, and my interviews. My interest brain includes what I like, not what I’m good at. For example, I included drawing, but I’m not the best at drawing yet. We also did an interest map, and it shows what possible careers that I could go into with one of the things that I’m interested in. I chose build, and I got engineer, architect and stuff like that. I interviewed my mom and my aunt, and these are the questions I asked them: What are my two greatest strengths, if I had my own show, what would it be about, what do you see me doing ten years from now, what sport do you see me doing most of when I’m older, what instrument do you see me starting, and do you see me living here or somewhere else. Mom: all around kid and going with the flow, whatever I’m curious about, in university, soccer, cello, somewhere else. My aunt said kind, thoughtful, science/music, whatever I want to do, soccer, guitar, here.

For my physical representation, I made a talking candy.

This is the artists statement that I came up with to go with my talking candy: Whenever we’re doing the team challenges, our team usually has problem with communication, but that’s because there are so many ideas going around, and that’s because everyone is talking at once. It shows me as a team member because I like getting everyone’s ideas. An example is if one person in your group is talking a lot and someone other than them has the best idea, but since the person is talking, they can’t get their ideas out there, your group ends up going with the person who was talking a lot’s ideas.

I have a Lego character creator. It represents how many ideas I bring to the team. Each body part can go with each other to make a new character. My favourite thing to do when creating a new character is to spin it, stop it, then grab a piece of the one that I’m closest to with my eyes closed.

The driving question for this project was “how do I build and strengthen the PLP learning team?” My answer to that was I build the PLP learning team by bringing equality, as I explained with my artists statement. Because our team talked over each other a lot, I thought it would be could to make something that helps that.