Final Reflection

Posted on June 14, 2012 by Colton B

TAG: TAG was a very interesting program but I think it needs more motivation to get better. What I mean is, XP and Minutes are great and all, but as far as I can tell there isn’t really any motivation right now to log your XP and minutes on your XP scoresheets. I thought I remembered you saying something about certain privileges being unlocked once you reach a certain amount of XP but I don’t believe it was ever implemented like it should have been. I think that maybe if you did not allow people under a certain amount of XP to participate in AMP Fridays or something similar, then people would be encouraged to log their XP.

AMP: I honestly believe I abused the privilege of AMP because I often spent my time that could have been spent working on productive work on messing around in Cinema and Photoshop seeing what would happen if I applied a random effect or transformation and never doing anything useful with that. I think it is definitely a good idea to make Fridays AMP days instead of allowing full time AMP although I also believe that it would probably be a good idea to wait until a couple weeks into the school year to start so that kids actually have a general idea of how to use the programs instead of pulling a me and randomly putting shapes on an Illustrator document until they make something that looks cool but makes no sense.

Now in response to what Skocko said about trying to teach morality and dedication: I believe that encouraging us to continue our work and improve on it does help us improve our skills and keep us dedicated to the quality of our work. Requiring us to pay attention when you are talking to the class also teaches us to respect people and listen to their ideas.

Honor Code (Week 32)

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Colton B

The honor code is really important. If you don’t follow the honor code in class you can’t get a good grade. So umm I don’t really know what to say about the honor code or how it’s going to affect my year. I just know I need to keep working on my art.

An Open Book (Week 23)

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Colton B

I have been experimenting with AMP a lot recently and I came across a list of tutorials Skocko posted last week. One of the ones that really stood out to me was this step-by-step tutorial on how to make a magic book in Illustrator. I really liked how the final result was supposed to turn out so I figured I would give it a try. The tutorial seemed ridiculously long the first time I looked at it because it was over 50 steps and it has taken me two days to even get past step 20 but good art takes time and effort. A good idea is only the first step. It’s like a book: You can get the first page written out and then stop and it’s ok to be proud of that, or you can sit down with a computer and type out the whole story from beginning to end. Which would you rather be known for? A few dozen good ideas that weren’t really written well or one great idea? The Mac Lab is a blank book- we’re giving you the pages, now it’s up to you to sit down and make your story something you can be proud to say you made.

Finals (AMP)

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Colton B

AMP has been an educational experience for me. Most students complain about how their teachers talk too much, however I quickly learned that without a teacher watching over my shoulder, it was hard to stay focused enough to actually make anything good. My plans for if AMP is extended will be to follow some of the Tip of the Days and attempt to expand my knowledge of Photoshop and Illustrator enough that I can actually make something I would be proud of.

Original picture from Mac Lab Student Stock – Credit to Vincent A

Ingenuity (Week 16)

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Colton B

I was experimenting in Garageband the other day when I noticed the Piano Roll displayed music notes as straight lines. This gave me an idea to try making shapes out of the music notes. Of course that turned out terrible until I took a break to rethink the idea. What if I used words instead of shapes? After a bit of playing around, I came up with this. And further experimentation led me to make the picture gracing this post.

Creative Freedom Plans

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Colton B

I don’t really have plans for creative freedom. I plan to improve my skills with Photoshop and Ilustrator.

Teachable Moments / Messing With Tilde

Posted on November 4, 2011 by Colton B

When I saw this video posted by Skocko about Illustrator drawing multiple objects when you hold down the tilde key (it looks like this), I didn’t think it could possibly have any real usefulness. However, being a fun-loving student, I decided to mess around with it and see what i could make. I came up with a pretty cool shape that looked like an hourglass. Of course messing around was too much fun to stop there, and after trying a few different gradients, I came across the vignette gradient. I thought it looked amazing and Skocko seemed to like it so I decided to put it in Photoshop and crop it. Of course with the huge number of rectangles, it took almost 5 minutes for Photoshop to crop it, but it was worth the time it took.

My Journey So Far (Week 9)

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Colton B

I have learned a lot in the mac lab so far. I started off doing work like this and worked up to this before I finally got to something I liked. Of course Scocko didn’t quite like that so I messed with it a bit and got this. From there I added some colors and ran it through Photoshop to get this.

Pro Plans

Posted on September 20, 2011 by Colton B

My pro plans for what I would like to do in the Mac Lab after completing the required work are that I would like to work on 3D modeling and animation or 2D art in Photoshop and Illustrator. If I can, I would like to try my hand at audio editing as well although that will probably not be in class because I am only really considering that since a few of my friends want to start a band.

-Colton

TAG-Storming