For my “One More” activity, I decided to make another vlog. I filmed this about two weeks ago, but the editing process for me usually takes a lot of time. This is the longest video I have made so far on my channel,  and is dedicated to starting the new year right. Looking back at my old vlogs, its cool to see myself improve and build a relationship with the camera. When I first started this channel, I was always nervous talking to the camera which was frustrating. I used to film multiple videos, and only one would be chosen to post. It was exhausting! Now I know how to be more comfortable with the camera, and I try my best to be myself. One thing I do need to improve is to keep eye contact with my audience. The beginning clip I have of this video is the clips I had to edit out where I sat silently or just couldn’t maintain eye contact. I like to make fun of my mistakes and try to use it as an advantage for all my videos. I hope that one day I will be able to make eye contact constantly! In the meantime feel free to subscribe 🙂

I had a lot of fun doing this! I sketched some details out with a permanent marker and let the spray paint do the rest. I loved the way paint flowed onto the surface, and this is much different from the things I’ve worked on in the past. This was an interesting assignment, and I hope to continue to work outside of my comfort zone after this class!

When I draw anything, its mostly people. For a long time Ive stayed away from getting too messy when it came to art because some things can irritate my hands. However I had a lot of fun with this. It was interesting to not be so hyper-critical to what the end product should look like. Instead, I was just focusing on the discovery of new paint and ideas to add to the piece. I have seen a lot of abstract paintings that explore color. My main goal was to mix as much colors with what I had. I’m satisfied with this and might look further into this. I like painting a lot and I think I should do it more often.

Almost everything is finger painted. The scratched portion on the top was done with the plastic knife I was using to mix paints. I know we were supposed to stick to just our fingers, but I thought it would be a good last touch.

 

1.) If I can be honest, the A-B-C format was rather confusing. Maybe it’s because I have a low I.Q. and my mind runs in a normal “Week 1,2,3” format? But I was a little lost the first month of class. (I don’t actually know what my own IQ is.)

2.) This sounds very annoying but I hate getting messy. Anything irritates my hands, so I just felt very reluctant to do anything experimental. I don’t think the sketching in the garden assignment was messy, though!

3.) The Life Design activities were right up my ally! I like thinking about my future, and opening up conversations with people who will give me new ideas! So I loved these assignments!

-The E-Portfolio is a super helpful tool for my professional career

-I am a vlogger, so I appreciated the vlogging assignment

-Because I am a vlogger, I have a very nice camera– so I like taking pictures of myself and others.

4.) Student choice gave us the opportunity to show what we like to do, so I liked that. I am currently still working on my “One More” activity vlog! These are things I like to do to express the way I see art, and I appreciate a professor who is interested in that.

5.) At the beginning I thought that interviewing SOA artists would be a drag. That sounds terrible of me, but I am bad at making conversations with people I don’t know. However, this was great and I loved it too! I didn’t realize the talent that was in my school, and everyone I met inspired me to do more.

6.)  I didn’t know how to use your separate site at the beginning of the semester. Like I said before, maybe I am just dumb. Now I think its much more detailed than beach board, which is nice.

7.) wordpress is cool. I haven’t used this before but it’s nice.

8.) I am not familiar with Wix. I tried to use it in high school, and thought it was kinda complicated. So for my E-Portfolio I used Weebly instead.

9.) Guest speakers are always cool because they provide interesting information that you might not have known before you met them!

10.) I don’t really talk to anybody in this class. My classmates are nice people, but as a sophomore I’ve noticed that a lot of CSULB kids don’t like to make conversation.

11.)  I feel like most classes just prepare us solely for an exam. I liked that this class focused on our own personal interests, and helped me become more open-minded. It inspired me to apply to different programs; and I honestly believe this class is one of the reasons why I am finally declaring my major! This stuff can’t be measured from an exam, so I liked that a lot.

12.) I appreciated your investment in our lives as people. You are a super understanding professor and I can’t thank you enough for how nice you have been to us! I hope you get more students with the same positive experience as I have.

Growing up I always liked to draw. Starting in preschool, I thought it was odd that kids would just scribble. So I tried my little 4-year-old best to draw figures that best represented people. I later got very close to my cousin, who showed me all her favorite anime shows and manga. I was a little anime freak throughout most of my childhood. My teachers would normally give me the freedom to draw during class, and I had the hugest passion to draw.

When I was 11 years old I changed schools. Moving to a new school was tough because my teachers had different rules. If I was caught drawing in class, my drawings were always tossed away. I would be told that if I went to take them out of the trash, I would get detention. And I got detention… a lot. I look back now, and wish I was given the ability to stand up for myself against these big scary adults.

Social Media was booming around this time,  and I had the ability to see what artists were making world-wide. I soon started to get inspiration from other artists; with this I realized that I could actually make art into an entire career. There was a problem with this mentality, though. I was no longer care-free about the things I was creating. I started to become more critical with my sketches. Before, my sketchbooks would be filled page-to-page with drawings… whereas at that point I was beginning to rip pages out of my sketchbooks. This started to carry on with me in high school.

When I reached my freshman year of high school, drawing became less of a space for expression, and more of a place of frustration. Every time I would draw, I’d be upset because it didn’t turn out exactly as I wanted it to be. I still joined incredible programs, though. I wanted to become an animator. I studied animation for a month in Japan, 6 months at Cal Arts through their Community Arts Partnership program, and a month at the California State Summer School of the Arts. These were all great, beautiful things. However the pressure of comparison and a career kept building on. I didn’t understand why at the time, but I didn’t apply to Cal Arts for Character Animation. It was almost like I threw away all the years of practice, and all the education I strived for in various programs. This may sound cocky, but I knew I would get in Cal Arts. I’m not saying that as if I think I am the best artist in the world, but because I was already super engaged on the campus. I was fairly experienced, I spent an enormous much time there through CAP and CSSSA, and knew most of the faculty there. Pretty much all the kids who did CAP and CSSSA with me were admitted to Cal Arts. I didn’t have “connections” to get myself into any of these things. I just showed my face enough and built my own reputation with the people involved.  But because I set this future for myself so properly, it terrified me.

I realized I didn’t want to turn art into a career. A quote I heard recently was “don’t study in your bed. If you do that, it’ll be harder for you to sleep. This is because your mind starts to associate your bed with work. It is meant to be a place of rest, so keep it that way.”

A lot of people started to think I threw art away. Questions I got often were “You worked so hard to become an artist your whole life. Why are you leaving it behind?” If I can be honest, that broke my heart a little bit. I used to have big dreams of being a graphic novelist, a disney storyboarder, and a Cartoon Network TV producer. I stopped drawing for a very long time.

It took a lot of time to figure out my major and what I want to do. I have told everybody concerned about me that art was never something that I could toss away. What I wasn’t very outspoken about throughout my life is that I loved to write. I would read and write all the time, and I’d get great feedback from my English teachers and professors. Writing isn’t any less of art as drawing is. I still have big dreams of being a producer, and even animation. So I decided to become a Communications major. I know whoever is reading this is thinking “what does that have to do with anything?!” It’s simple, actually. I live in L.A., which is booming with various schools and programs for screenwriting. I have already joined the National Association for Latino/a Independent Producers. I hope to obtain an internship soon from this. I want to be a Communications major because you can have any major to get into anything! All you have to provide is your education and experience. Communications will allow me to learn and build a better brand for myself. Internships will allow me to network and give me hands-on training for what I want to do. I also like that being a Comm major will not limit me to just one thing. I have so many interests and things I want to do in my life. To just become a film or art major, for me specifically, wouldn’t work.

Art was something I went to when I needed to express myself. I realized that trying to mold it into a career made me less happy to actually create. I hope one day to make art pieces into a side business. However, I don’t want to push that right now.

This class made me remember how much I loved to sketch. I was able to see a lot of artists at CSULB who inspire me. I bought a new sketchbook and have been drawing a lot more recently! I hope to get into it as much as I did when I was younger. So, thank you for re-building that spark in me. I’ll always take art with me wherever I go— in whatever form it takes.

 

3 Possible Me’s-

Overall I think the one I want to pursue the most is my first option. I want to work in film because I have the most resources for that, achieving that would be fulfilling for my life, and I genuinely want to make a global impact on the way we see film. I think I’m very good at make up, and I can see myself working at a MAC counter to make a stable income. However, I don’t see that making much of the impact I desire for. The last option- famous fashion mogul, is honestly just a life I’ve thought of if I was born into money and fame. Although it would be a comfortable life full of fun things to do, I don’t see that as very fulfilling. I want to achieve something meaningful, so I hope all works well with my first option.

Cristina’s Vlogging Channel

Above is a link to one of the many vlogs I’ve posted. I started this channel because I love youtube and I wanted to be a creator. At first I thought it was gonna be difficult for me to start this channel because there are moments that I can be really stiff. But I’ve realized that this awkwardness I have can be a tool for my videos. I think its funny to laugh at how many times I’ve tried to do a good intro (the ending of the video has bloopers).

1.) I was going for the presence of a happy Long Beach student. I’m trying to a bit more optimistic of my place here in CSULB, and I think this photo is a nice way to symbolize the hopefulness each student has. I want to show I am a hardworking person who is excited to be here.

2.) I actually really like this photo. I think the lighting is nice, and the pose is very dynamic. I think that I should’ve at least shown my feet though.

3.) I think I should have taken more pictures of me actually doing something rather than just standing around at school. I think this will suffice in the meantime.