Bridget DiPalermo

Self symbol GIF reflection 

1) My self symbol concept is trying to capture one of my biggest fears which is the ocean. I arrived to this idea for my concept when making thumbnail sketches, I drew things I liked and things that represent me. Yet, none of these ideas were creative enough but then I came to the Idea of drawing things that I am scared of. I had multiple different ideas but I thought that animated the ocean was an interesting concept. I purposely did not make the GIF scary, I used a dolphin instead of a shark. I did this because the concept is hidden, yet I know the significance of what the ocean means to me and how this GIF has a deeper meaning. 

2) My animated GIF has evolved from its original thumbnail sketch/post-it note idea is by adding a lot more color to my idea. Adding color changed my concept a lot, I had only pictured it in black and white but once I had to create the ocean my idea had changed a lot. Other than the color aspect of this GIF the actual animation is not what I fully expected and creating the dolphin was harder than I expected it to be. 

Portrait Transformation Reflection Prompts:

1) My concept behind the portrait transformation is to add two realities into one picture. I changed my idea from the I originally emailed Ms.Lee. I liked the idea of having the background picture being my own original photo and adding cartoon images on top of it to have a strong contrast between real life and a make believe drawn life. It is pleasing to the eye because it makes you question what is real and what is not real. It is the juxtaposition of real and not real.

2) Reality vs. idea

3) Considering this is my first time using photoshop I would say that I am happy with my results. It took me awhile to understand the sophistication of photoshop so actually having done a real project on it I am proud of my work and I am proud of my concept.

4)

5) For my project I needed to use layer masks so I could create a cartoon background. I took many pictures that I needed to put behind myself. The only way I could add these images to blend into the background was using a layer mask. What I did was I found images of the cartoon version of each realistic thing in my background. I created a layer mask of my background layer. I then cropped the cartoon image and made that image a new layer on top of my layer mask background. Then I placed the images where I wanted in my background and continued doing this until I felt like my project was complete. 

Alex at a disco!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Reflection:

The process was semi helpful for me, in the beginning of the assignment I struggled a lot with figuring out the concept of the project. I was not sure if my letter had to correspond with the design that went around it or if I had to draw an idea that started with my letter. Since I had this confusion, the thumbnail sketches were not very helpful for me. Eventually I started to think of the type of shape the letter V is, instead of thinking about ideas that begin with V. The letter V is very angular it looks like an opening so I brainstormed objects that replicate the angle of V. I came down to two ideas, the intersection on a highway and a pair of open scissors.
Then I created quick sketches of these ideas:

Then I took these two ideas and asked my peers for advice about with one visually represented my letter best. Overall many voted the scissors so I went along and finalized that idea.

This was my final project, the most challenging part of this project was allowing this picture look like the letter I was assigned. After getting feedback on my design many people though that my assigned letter was X. I tried very hard to go over the opening of the scissors with dark black marker to make the V part of the picture stand out. I personally am satisfied with my project because I worked very hard on it, I do wish I could change how other people looked at it and made it look more like a V. One thing I would have down differently Is lowered the scissors so that the opening caught the eye more and made my letter more apparent. 

Hello, my name is Bridget Dipalermo!!!! I'm 16 years young! I really enjoy eating avocados, talking about my love for cats and playing soccer! I also am now very into the show Parks and Recreation, rocks my world!

Over the summer, Sarah and I went to see One Direction in concert!! it was a very fun night, a tad overwhelming but extremely exciting. Oh, yes I died my hair pink, it was really spontaneous and a side effect of being very excited to go to this concert.

I want to begin my apologizing for the quality of this picture, my mom can do many things but she cannot really take pictures. Anyways, I went surfing for a few weeks, it was very difficult but worth it because I felt like I belonged in the "surfer dude" community.

Lastly, I went to my grandparents country house. it is located in Albany, and practically every morning I would watch the sunrise over this lake, with my tea in my hand,  it was very relaxing and very beautiful.