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Last Journal Entry 9-10

Harmony Blanchies

ENC 3375

"Things I've Learned/ Things to Steal"

           If I would’ve done these journal postings earlier, I could talk all about the things I want to do for my final but, I have already created the majority of my final so this will be definitive in terms of things I have already done. For my final, I was inspired by the comic my group presented on, Dropsie Avenue. As you know, Will Eisner uses very detailed splash pages in this comic. Being that I am not an artist and absolutely cannot draw as detailed as him, I did enjoy the idea of splash pages and the use of panels being broken up based on the differing events going on in the page. For my final, I tried to attempt splash pages (although very, very basic compared to Eisner’s). Basically, this comic just inspired me to try out the use of a lack of panels and basic structure.

           When you were presenting past final projects in class for inspiration, I really liked the idea of incorporating my drawings with a digital touch. Although not finished yet, I am wanting to create all of my text panels and text digitally. I think that this will add to the overall effect of my comic because I am doing more of an informational/brochure/handout kind of thing about my job and as you know, when you receive an informational packet at work, it is usually 99.99% of the time typed out, for professional reasons.

           As for color, I am used to using colored pencils when coloring my comics. I am a fan of color because I feel like it helps the message get across and can be a good indicator when it comes to characters being used repeatedly. For example, I always color my hair when I draw myself so you know it’s me throughout my work. After realizing that I could use color digitally, I want to try and work with that as well. I hope that my final product will come out as I envision it to be!

"My Evolving Process"

As the semester is coming to an end and the final portfolio deadline is slowly approaching, I am realizing I have a lot more strengths and weakness that I can clearly notice, than when I first started. At the beginning of the semester and the beginning of these reflection journals, I stated that I was confident in my artwork yet wanted to learn more in terms of things to steal. During this time, we began reading our class assignments in which the comics shown were sometimes intense and intimidating, and some were basic. When beginning my final project, I originally had an idea to do my comic on a short story I created, with the main character being a transgender boy to girl. This idea sounded great until I started to sit down and attempt to draw the character I had written. I simply couldn’t do it. I even came in to your office hours, attempting to get advice on how to begin this process of creating my character and your advice to me was to try and draw out characters in the different styles we have read. When I got home that night, I drank some sangria (doodling is a lot of fun when buzzed), and tried to find my character. I drew a full page of faces, attempting to maintain the same image that I had in mind, over and over again. I used different hair styles, head shapes, body forms. I even attempted to draw my character in the Pyongynag style. I tried the tutorials where you have to draw the top part of the head first and draw a “T” on the face to create perfect symmetry. None of them came out “acceptable” enough for my own taste. In the past, I was quite confident in my drawing styles and comics in the past so this came as a surprise and confusion for me. I then began doodling people I knew and myself in comic form. I immediately realized it came a lot easier for me and wanted to change my final idea to a comic pertaining myself and familiar faces.

Above is when I was attempting to draw my original character still and transitioning into drawing people I knew and myself.

Below is when I “came to” and got my idea for my final project.

Moral of the story is as a comic creator, I have realized that I have a weakness when it comes to creating the image in my mind previous to drawing it. I could draw Donald Trump fine, because he has very distinguishable characteristics that I have seen all over the internet. I can draw my boyfriend and I can draw my best friend because they are very familiar to my mind. Despite my lack of ability to draw my original idea, I realized that sometimes there are downfalls but if you find what you’re good at, you can excel in your own way. My characters I felt confident were not drawn with perfect symmetry or perfect body shapes; they were drawn in a way that I felt was a rhetorical stylistic choice based on how I perceive these people and things.

Now that the final is coming up, I feel as if my final project is confident in drawing style and I am attempting to branch out with my use of mediums and “stolen” ideas to create something that is still to my style, but pushing my boundaries in what I can create. I am planning on using digital means of final touches as well as incorporating my past love with mixed media art for an overall product.

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WORKSHOP #3 - Expressions and Gestures

For the expressions I felt in necessary to add some body behavior (although very rough) to portray the full image of what the emotion is. For example, for the “sad” drawing, I drew hands on the characters lap, showing the hands almost touching. This is supposed to represent the character either twiddling it’s thumbs or holding its own hands. For “annoyed” I just drew two lines to show the arms thrown up, imaging a character that is so fed up that they abruptly throw their arms up in frustration - almost as a “now what?!” type of situation.

For gestures, I tried to draw how my characters hands will be/already are (since I already started my final project). I chose very basic hands because 1) I am terrible at drawing hands (aren’t we all), and I know if I didn’t do a basic hand throughout, I would stress myself out trying to perfect them. 2) Due to the fact that the hands are not an essential part of the overall image/message of the comic. It wouldn’t matter if they were super detailed or little nubs because they’re not too important in the grand scheme of things. Anyway, I drew the hands of my character (which is primarily me as a character) doing things that my character will be/might be actually doing in the comic. 

ENC 3375

Harmony Blanchies

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My thumbnail sketches of my idea.

I have changed my idea to more of an informative/manual for job responsibilities at my work. Here is my first rough sketch of my comic.

Harmony Blanchies

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Notes and feedback from classes - sorry for the late upload, my phone was messed up. 

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Journal Entry 8 - "Possibilities For Final Project"

For my final project, I am hoping to expand on my Adaptation project in which I adapted a poem by Rupi Kaur from her book, “Milk and Honey.” Here, I did a collage factor of a comic. I tried to push the boundaries and stay unique and close to what I enjoy doing. Considering I wouldn’t say I am the “best” at drawing, I wanted to implement my creativity in a way that I think I am better at creating, which is collaging. Considering I pretty much finished this when I did my adaptation (because I created 7 pages and only turned in 3), I might implement my creating process to something different to try to create a character that I can hopefully use for a short story/poem I wrote a few months ago about a transgender boy to girl transition. This is a “children’s book” I wrote that I hope to one day get published or at least recognized and I think implementing my ideas of how I want the audience to perceive the main character would be a good start for my personal project I want to create at some point in the future. 

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Discovery task 10 - adapting a 5 min comic to Delaney Rinder’s script (based on Dropsie Avenue)

It’s slightly hard to read her script so here are the first 3 panels she wrote:

“panel 1:lots of people walking up stairs into apartment complex carrying lamps/couches. people moving in with people in apartments looking at the window, clearly irritated.

panel 2: 2 neighbors (women) looking frustrated/ gossiping out their windows

panel 3: woman looking at apt. owner in office.

 woman #1: ‘Mr. Cash....’      owner:  ‘so discuss...’”

My drawings for this comic are admittedly horrible, due to the fact I did this in 5 minutes and in pen before sketching in pencil first.

The first panel I show people holding a couch and a lamp walking up some stairs. You can see some women staring down from the windows above. The second one shows two women in the windows talking back and forth. The last panel shows the woman in her office, talking to the owner.

I think this was relatively easy to adapt and if allowed more time, I would attempt to make this more clear, interesting, and aesthetically pleasing.

Harmony Blanchies

ENC 3375

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Journal entrys 4-7

"Possibilities For The Adaptation Project"

When we were given the option to present options for our adaptation project, I gave a poem by Rupi Kaur, “Milk and Honey” as an option. It was picked for the list, so I proceeded to choose this. I didn’t really explore any other options because I already had ideas on how I wanted to present this. I chose this poem because it’s an excerpt from one of my favorite books and I felt as if the words in it had very powerful imagery that would be simple to adapt. My idea for this project would be to adapt this poem into a visual representation that reflects my targeted audience. My audience I chose was the same audience that the poet’s audience seemed to be, which would be “Tumblr girls” so to speak. When I first heard of this book, I saw it becoming very popular amongst this demographic and felt I needed to know what the hype was about. A lot of the poems are directed at girls, from their teenage years to their twenties, who can relate to her topics of heartbreak, love, loss, and overcoming obstacles. My vision was to create a collage of images to represent these emotions.

"My Evolving Process"

(1) Write a reflection on your Adaptation Project (once it's finished).

In the past, I created a lot of comics that were basic, one-dimensional, square panels, and hand drawn images that were colored with colored pencils. I decided that since I had time to create this project, I wanted to push the idea of a comic as a medium and create something that had more meaning and interest to myself. My process has changed because instead of hand drawings like I did prior, I created a collage of images, hand drawings, and objects to create pictures that accurately reflect the emotions portrayed in the poem. The brainstorming was less time, considering I kind of had an idea of what I wanted to do, and the overall process took around 6 hours (I stayed up until 4am one night over break making this). I am a very visual person. When I was picking out pictures I wanted to use, I was flipping through magazines and looking at all the pictures until I found one I really enjoyed and thought it would fit. I tended to pick a lot of women, children, and elderly because I personally think when you see one of these people displaying emotions, it becomes more “real.” I think my strategy is unlike what we have learned in class, but am very proud of what I created because its unique and I enjoyed making it.

I personally love being able to implement my creativity in my work but hate having to think for myself. So when a topic is broad, I get overwhelmed. I enjoyed being able to have to pick a topic and then chose the way I wanted to adapt it. I didn’t feel constrained or anything because the topic I chose was something I enjoyed and suggested. I feel like I would rather adapt work because it helps me have a loose guideline to what I want to do, rather than brainstorm and come up with ideas from scratch due to the fact that there is a starting point for me to launch off from.

(2) Read one of the following entries from Comic Tools, a blog dedicated to craft discussions and tutorials for comic creators, and then write a response. How do you compare? What have you learned? What will you implement? If it's a tutorial, try the activity suggested, and post your attempt (along with reflection). Here are some specific articles/ links:

"Erase Your Fucking Pencils (Links to an external site.)"

I agree with this so much. I am somewhat OCD and love to pencil things in before drawing them but I am huge on sketching lightly so I can erase the pencil as soon as I finish outlining the drawing with ink. I will continue to implement me in this in future drawings.  

(3) Here are some questions from the first round of journal postings, too. Feel free to revisit any of these ideas that you might not have touched upon:

What type of materials/tools are you using? Pen, pencil, paper?

I am still using the same drawing pad as I have in the past. Very basic, green pad, bought at Publix. I am still using a pencil to sketch and a pen to outline.

Are you using any digital materials or programs?

I have not used any digital materials but would like to learn photoshop sometime soon to see if its any easier/harder.

Are you penciling first, then inking? Are you just inking? Are you sketching or "thumbnailing" first, then drawing the finished product? Have you tried multiple different "drafting" / "outlining" methods? Which works best? What have been the results?

I always, always, always, pencil first then pen. I hate the way it looks if i do not do this first. I don’t trust my drawing abilities enough.

What comes first, the text or the art? 

The text, then the art. It gives me a better basis for what I should be trying to create.

How has your process changed (even if only slightly) with each new attempt?

Over the past few comics I would change little aspects such as types of viewpoints and panel sizes. One comic I made a full page, when all my others usually had 3-6 panels. My adaptation project was very different because I used collaging instead of hand drawing.

How does your comic creation process differ from your typical writing process?

I enjoy writing but I feel as if I have more to use when creating comics. I have to focus harder on how I want the audience to perceive the work yet I can create anything, because there’s not many restrictions to what a comic is.

How much time have you spent on each task? Do you think that you're an efficient artist, or does this feel like it's taking a long, long time? (Is efficiency even important?) Do you feel that comic-creation is actually a quicker way to communicate than standard text?

I still believe that written text is easier to communicate than comic form because I am still not too used to the medium. I enjoy making the comics but each task takes me a few hours to create. I don’t think I am an efficient artist but I feel like the time is worth it to have a piece I am satisfied with.

"Things I've Learned/ Things to Steal"

Here are some ideas for your posting(s) for this category.

(1) Take a picture of a single page of a comic that we've read, and write about it.

Write a posting in which you discuss the specific strategies you see on display in one of the comics that we’re reading and discussing. This should be super-easy. We're doing this with our reading discussions, after all. Feel free to talk about any aspect of the comics page, but make sure you're actually posting a picture.

I chose this picture from the comic, “The Photographer” because it is a perfect representation of showing vs telling and implements a lot of color usage to show it is night time. The full page has no words describing what is going on until the very last panel. You can tell that the character is attempting to hide. He seems anxious. When the coast is clear, he runs and attempts to find no one there. He then proceeds to say “those bastards,” as if they have tricked him. This is a good representation of showing instead of telling and the closure out minds create when figuring out this action going on, by ourselves.

All of these panels are also shown with dark grey coloration, making it obvious that it is night time, or dusk. The illustrator even creates a dark shadow on the characters face to keep this consistent.

Harmony Blanchies

ENC 3375

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Map to my heart -  a generic and basic guide

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This Sunday my two best friends celebrated their birthdays and we went to East End Market in Winter Park. I'm from Winter Park yet had never been to East End. It's safe to say I will definitely be back! I think my drawings turned out pretty good as a representation of what it was. Inside of East End is multiple vendors including a coffee shop and succulent/plant shop (shown in pictures). The middle picture was based on the outside environment which was a really relaxing and adorable hangout area full of plants. I am realizing that I am horrible at depicting depth perception in these pictures - which may add to the drawing being slightly off with the overall mood of what the place gives off but other than that, I like the way I portrayed the aspect to aspect view of this multi purpose establishment. Harmony Blanchies

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Discovery Task #7 Professor Holic speaking with some students about the FRAT life Harmony Blanchies

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ENC 3375 - Discovery Task 6

A year in 9 panels: 2016

I personally wasn’t intimidated by the 9 panel comic but more so figuring out what in my life was significant enough to post in here for my year in review.

So as follows, here are my panels and description in chronological order:

1) In May of 2016 I moved away from living at home and moved in with roommates to my first home. This was a monumental moment for me because I was forced to embrace independence head on. 

2) My boyfriend saved a kitty from the streets and after not being able to keep him at his apartment, I took him under my wing. His name is Tony.

3) I received my AA degree from Valencia and transferred to UCF in Fall.

4) I was hired as a host at Chili’s.

5) I met a lot of new people in 2016 that I am proud to say are my new best friends.

6) I was hired at Lazy Moon.

7) My boyfriend and I celebrated our one year anniversary.

8) I experienced Bonnaroo Music Festival and had a time I will never ever forget. 

9) I was able to vote in the Presidential election for the first time.

 Harmony Blanchies

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Journal Entry 3 - Possibilities for Final Project

After realizing there’s more to comics than just basic panels with words and action figures doing extravagant things, I have been thinking I may want to incorporate my love for writing into something useful with the art and ideas this class has given me.

I have a few ideas I want to think on before acting upon for the final project.

As a writer, I feel as if my most heavily used medium is poetry. Poetry comes to me naturally and I tend to write any time I feel empowered or have any sort of emotion. Honestly, a lot of my poems are sad but I tend to find beauty in expression when I feel this sort of way. One of my goals in life is to compile (and try and publish) some of my favorite poems in a book form. Originally, I had the idea of just creating it point blank, with my handwriting for the pages, and only some creative flair but I recently read a book called, “Milk and Honey,” by Rupi Kaur, which changed my outlook on this. In her poetry book, she splits her poetry into 3 sections of emotions and throughout the whole book there’s beautiful line drawings that amplify her poetry. This was an inspiration for me to attempt to better my drawing and so one idea I have is to incorporate my knowledge I obtain from this course into creating a book of my poems with comic rhetoric involved.

 My second idea is somewhat the same idea. I recently wrote a poem-like children’s book that is quite fitting for the time that I want to try and get published. I already had the idea in mind that I wanted to have my boyfriend create drawings for this book but since I have to do a final project for this class, I may take this as an opportunity to create something (or at least get the ball rolling) on this separate project I wanted to create anyway. Since we have discussed that comics are simply defined as a compilation of words and pictures and that technically speaking, one could call a children’s book a comic, I feel as if this is very fitting.

Harmony Blanchies

ENC 3375

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Journal Entry 2 - Things I’ve Learned/Things to Steal

I want you to write one posting in which you discuss the various strategies you admire, or want to borrow, from the comics that we’re reading and discussing.

 From what we have learned in class and from the readings, there is a lot to steal from. I never truly read comics at all before entering this class and learning about how there is a variety of different mediums involved in them is intriguing. That being said, I would like to try and experiment with some with comics I create later on as well as art forms I partake in later on in life.

           For one, I really enjoy the mix of art form and actual photographs such as in The Photographer. More specifically, I enjoy the usage of black and white photo strips, as if they’re from a movie reel. I think adding this aspect of a comic makes the readers, such as myself who are unfamiliar with comics, easier to pay attention to and brings in a more realistic approach. I especially love the full page of photo comics displayed on page 120 of The Photographer. There’s no words, just 48 pictures showing a boy getting an operation from differing perspectives. When following along with the eye, it’s almost as if you’re watching a short film.

           Going along with stylistic choices and keeping the reader interested, I enjoy the way Scott McCloud in his book, Understanding Comics utilizes his text into multiple panels. Pages 106-114 are a great representation of how one can use their creativity to get the message across.  He uses himself as both a narrator and an “actor” to show what he is trying to say. He really pushes the idea of narrative being separate into one reader one writer. This aspect is more interactive and makes the reader feel as if they are being directly involved in the art.

Harmony Blanchies

ENC 3375

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In 2012, our current President was quite upset over the drama of Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattison's relationship. So upset that he tweeted ELEVEN times about how Robert shouldn't get back together with Kristen. I decided to adapt one of these tweets and make it as if he's preaching this tweet to an audience. I personally had a lot of fun with this one and was impressed on how easy it was to draw Mr. Trump. Oh, and sorry that his head was too big to fit in the panel....(😉) I enjoyed adding the extra details like "Team Edward" on his tie and "MTGA" on his hat to stand for "Make Twilight Great Again." I tried to make this as "real life" as possible, and feel as if I did a pretty good job doing so. Harmony Blanchies ENC 3375 Discovery Task 5

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Discovery Task #4 - Photo Comic

The emotion or state of being that I (or my cat, Oxford) attempted to portray is anxiousness and excitement. 

In the first 3 sequential images, Oxford shows with his eyes and stance that he was excited to see me and wanted attention. My cat is very expressive with his emotions and extremely talkative. In the second 3 images, it shows him sitting on the toilet while I was getting ready (something he does every morning), awaiting to be groomed himself. It shows him almost asking to be brushed and the pure excitement and content he feels when he got what he wanted (second picture).

When approaching this project, at first I did not know what sort of state of being to chose and how I could incorporate it. When going through my photos on my phone, I came across the first photo in the first panel, which sparked my idea for this.

I feel as if I had more time to do this project (not that you didn’t assign enough time but I had to work all weekend), I would try and be more creative with creating a “feeling” with the pictures shown by use of color, etc. to set an overall mood, making it easier to perceive.

I feel as if this is easy to see what is going on but a lack of narration and explanation on what’s going on just makes this seem more as cute photos of Oxy rather than a “comic.”

Harmony Blanchies

1/31/17

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Journal Entry 1 - My Evolving Process

I want you to write one posting in which you discuss your current (and evolving) process as a comic creator. Throughout the semester, you'll write at least two more of such postings, allowing you to compare and contrast your experiences as a creator. Some questions which could help you get started:

What type of materials/tools are you using? Pen, pencil, paper?

For the comic’s I have created so far, I have used a generic sketch pad called “Draw, heavy weigh drawing paper.” When drawing the comics, I use an old school, yellow, #2 pencil for sketching and then when content, outline the pencil with an R2 Inc Rollerball .07mm pen. Honestly, I just found the pen at the dollar store but it works pretty well (for now). My third process after erasing all of the pencil marks from the page is to color. So far, I’ve just used colored pencils but for this last comic I created (wordless comic), I really wanted to do water color for coloring. I want to expand my material usage for further comics and get creative on how to color them in the future.

Are you using any digital materials or programs?

I am not currently using any digital materials or programs. My boyfriend knows how to use Photoshop really well and I definitely want him to teach me how to draw digitally sometime soon because I feel as if that really helps give life unto one’s drawings and you have an (almost) endless color scheme to work with.

Are you penciling first, then inking? Are you just inking? Are you sketching or "thumbnailing" first, then drawing the finished product? Have you tried multiple different "drafting" / "outlining" methods? Which works best? What have been the results?

As mentioned prior, due to me being an OCD perfectionist, I have to pencil first. I actually forgot to mention that when creating the panels, I use a ruler as well in my materials. I enjoy penciling first because it helps me see it without screwing it up but it sucks being able to see my mess up marks when coloring with the colored pencils.

What comes first, the text or the art? 

Considering we have only done one comic with text so far, I would have to say the text comes first. I brainstorm prior to give myself a brief idea of what I want for text throughout the comic and then proceed to draw first, then add the text in while drawing.

 How has your process changed (even if only slightly) with each new attempt?

My process really hasn’t changed much. This past comic was wordless so I made a rough draft of panel boxes that just have words of what I wanted to be shown in each panel such as,  “eyes closed, wake up, coffee brewing,” etc. Even when it’s wordless, I’ll still make the “text” first. It’s easier for me to have an idea of what I want the full picture to be before just drawing on a whim and creating as I go.

 How does your comic creation process differ from your typical writing process?

It’s definitely incorporating a different thinking aspect to my writing process. Although I (somewhat) am following the same routine of organization with my thoughts prior to an assignment, I am finding that sometimes there’s more in the pictures than in the writing itself and it’s in my power to manipulate what I would say through writing into drawing. It’s quite fun and challenging!

 How much time have you spent on each task? Do you think that you're an efficient artist, or does this feel like it's taking a long, long time? (Is efficiency even important?) Do you feel that comic-creation is actually a quicker way to communicate than standard text?

Honestly, I have been spending around 1-4 hours creating these comics. Although it seems as if my drawings are basic, I spend a lot of my time brainstorming the initial idea and drawing with pencil. As mentioned, I am a perfectionist and I love things to be very “clean” and organized so to speak so I spend a lot of time drawing things until in my eyes they see them as the best they’re going to be. One thing I am learning throughout the course is that although I am very structured to my ways, I’ve learned comics have rarely any limitation and sometimes my perception of “perfectionism” is what holds me back in giving my full creative attention into creating. I’m excited to learn more and push my limitations due to this. I feel like this is taking a while but I enjoy having time to use my brain creatively for a few hours every assignment. For the last question, I wouldn’t say it’s “quicker” but it’s almost just as effective. I enjoy being able to write and express myself knowing there’s infinite ways to say things and words to portray them but the use of pictures can say a thousand words. I feel as if for me, due to my lack of great drawing skills, I still enjoy the art of writing more than comic creation but I do like pushing my limitations and seeing what I will and am capable of in the future. I think that adding drawings to text lifts the image up more and causes it to be more enjoyable to read. There is definitely beauty in the balance they bring together.

Harmony Blanchies

ENC 3375

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Discovery task 3 - Wordless Comic - aspect to aspect - ENC 3375 For this comic, I followed a sequence of events in which I partake in every morning before leaving the house. As you can see I wake up, make coffee, get ready, feed my cats, do one more look in the mirror and then proceed to head out the door. Personally, I really enjoyed making this comic with the aspect to aspect transition consistent throughout. Using this transition helped me focus on little details and use creativity to express how I wanted things to be portrayed (such as the cat food pouring out into the bowls). I also really enjoyed being able to color this one, knowing I wanted to do pastel colors. Something I think I could work on is better spacing with my boxes to have a better understanding of which direction my boxes are going, so it's easier for the reader to follow. I was trying to be creative by using emphasis by the sizing of my panel boxes (correlating to the emphasis in my daily routine, aka I NEED my coffee), but I did not leave enough space between lines causing it to be a bit confusing to follow (hence why I numbered them). I am very content with how my drawings turned out and ultimately how much I am enjoying being able to draw and think outside the box as a homework assignment. I'm starting to enjoy this whole comics thing! Harmony Blanchies