Class Feedback (EC)

3 Favorite Art Activities

1) Plaster Casting – This was one of my favorite art activities because I never did anything like it before and I really enjoy going to the beach. It was pretty cool making a mold of my own hand and it ended up being really good.

2) Finger Painting – This activity really gave me a sense of nostalgia because I used to finger paint was I was a little kid. It was really fun to just express myself and draw whatever I wanted to draw since it was suppose to be abstract.

3) Graffiti Writing – I enjoyed doing graffiti writing because it made me feel like I was a graffiti artist and it’s really fun to me to use spray paint.

3 Least Favorite Art Activities

1) ePortfolio – This was one of my least favorite because I didn’t think it was that fun to edit my website. I would rather have done something more hands on like the other activities.

2) Architecture – I didn’t enjoy this activity because I felt like I wasn’t really expressing myself because I was just making a change in the design of the wedge.

3) Environmental Portrait – This activity wasn’t a favorite of mine because it just involved me in a picture of what I have a passion for and I wished that it was more fun.

Personally, I enjoyed doing the art activities every week because it was pretty fun doing some of them and I felt like I was able to express myself in most of them. I felt like a kid again where I could just paint or draw like I used to without worrying about anything. Doing the artist conversations was really mind opening because I was able to hear some of the artists’ inspirations and ideas of why they decided to do what they were doing. I loved how each of the exhibit was unique and had their own meaning/story behind it all. I don’t think a regular lecture class would be better than the artist conversations because I don’t really pay attention during lecture classes because it’s often boring to hear someone talk for an hour. I think it’s more fun to look at art exhibitions and talk to artists to gain insight about their ideas.

I had to use WordPress for the first time and it ended up being really easy to use despite it being hard to set up when I first created my website. It’s fairly simply because adding a blog post is as simple as just clicking two buttons. I just find it a little difficult to edit my website to add tabs, but that isn’t much of an issue to display my blog posts. I can’t think of anywhere else to post the blogs posts except for possibly the Discussion Board of Beachboard but I feel like WordPress is more fun and you can design your website into however you want it to look like.

The Beacharts website was pretty unique since I never had any other teacher have their own website. It was fairly easy to navigate throughout since I was able to see what activities I had for each week and I really enjoyed the pull down menu as you dragged your mouse over the tab. I think this website should still be used for future classes as it’s unique and you don’t have to deal with the hassle of signing into Beachboard every time you want to visit the Art 110 syllabus or schedule. I was able to memorize the website easily so it was easier to connect to the website instead of Beachboard which may take a little longer to access.

I think the A-B-C 3 part format is pretty cool because I always wanted to try a 3 part semester just like how the UC’s do it. I liked how we were able to ease into the 2nd part which involved doing blog posts and taking it slow from the beginning. Most classes I have go straight into doing homework and assignments and I like how we were able to slowly get into everything. It’s not that complicated if you think of it and it’s more organized than just having everything jammed in one semester.

Overall, I really enjoyed this class and doing most of the art activities. I wish there would have been more hands on activities because I find that those are more fun then doing things on a computer because it may be more difficult to express yourself that way. I liked how the 3 blog posts were changed to 2 blog posts because it did take some time to write the 2 blog posts each week, so I feel like that amount was perfect for the 10 weeks. Throughout the 10 weeks, I also enjoyed how some of the weeks had us meeting up for only one session out of the 2, where we would only turn in 1 ID card and get to choose what day to come to. It gave me more free time to do my extracurricular activities or just relax during my gap.

Week C1 – Art & (my) Life

Pablo Picasso once said, “Every child is an artist, the problem is staying an artist when you grow up.” Before taking my art 110 class at CSULB, I never thought I was ever artistic and nor really cared for art. I typically thought that art was just a way to express themselves either by drawing or painting and one would find it at an art museum. What I failed to see was that everyone is an artist in their own way and that there are a wide range of ways to express oneself. When people start to grow up and go on in their lives, they may get too distracted and forget the fact that they are artists. Some people will continue to be artists for their rest of their lives as they are able to make a living by doing so, while others don’t have the leisure to do so. Taking an Art 110 Class at CSULB helped me be able to bring back the true artist inside me that was lost over the past few years of my life.

I originally planned on taking this course just because I needed to fulfill my Ge Requirement to take an art, but there was more to it than I thought. Taking this class opened up my eyes to whole other world that I always disregarded, since art to me before was just paintings and drawings. By going to the SOA galleries every week at school, I was able to gain insight from different artists who displayed their exhibit. Some of the exhibits spoke to me more than others but they all were able to inspire me to do better and express myself in my own way. I was able to take in all of their stories and try to apply some of their thinking and ideas into my own life. I actually even reconsidered whether if I wanted to stay in the same path that I plan on going in or just change majors and take a different route. None of the exhibits were exactly the same since each artist had their own inspiration and own ideas to express themselves. I learned that no matter how different each exhibit or art piece was, all of them had their own meaning and story behind it. Each piece isn’t there just to be displayed because of how cool it is but rather because there is a true significance behind it. All the pieces work together as part of a puzzle to create an overall mood, theme, or story that the artist wants to display to their artist.

Throughout the semester, I participated in some art activities myself that helped me express myself in many different ways that I never knew existed. For one thing, I have never even seen or heard or plaster casting in my life and it turned out to actually be a really fun experience that I would like to try again. It was really cool to see that people are able to express themselves by creating molds of their own body part. Although there was a different art activity every week, most of them really brought out the child inside of me and reminded me of a kid when I used to draw and paint. The finger painting activity that I did really got to me since I remember always finger painting at home and not caring about any single thing except for what I was painting in the moment. These activities helped remind me of a time when I was stress free which is really rare these days since I have to deal with life and growing up.

The activity I did last week about Design Thinking being applied to my life really helped me think about what I am doing my life for my career. I am currently a Pre-Kinesiology major planning on becoming a Physical Therapist in the future. From this course, I can say that I learned a few things that I can apply to my life to become a Physical Therapist. By walking around in the exhibits, I learned that I had to pay attention to every small detail since it would help me understand the entire art piece. Physical Therapists must pay attention to every small detail of an injury  to help treat the injury. I shouldn’t be careless when I look at things and try to see every little part of anything to understand the whole picture. By Doing the UI/UX and ePortfolio art activities, I learned that I should try to change my website to lean more towards athletes or anyone working around Physical Therapists because it would help me in the future if I want to pursue a career in that area.

Overall, taking this course ended up being more to me than just a simple GE Course because it really taught me a couple of things that I can apply to my life. For one thing, I learned that there is more to art than simply just drawings or paintings. Every art activity I did each week was all unique in their own ways and helped me express myself in ways that I never really thought of. I learned what I should do to help me be more successful with my career in the future. All of the artists I talked to were all very inspiring to me and all of their ideas will be remembered and possibly be applied to my life as well. I am glad I took this class because it really helped me restore the artist the was lost inside me and helped me gain a better understanding of art.

Week B10 – Art Experience – Design Thinking

Currently I am a Pre-Kinesiology major and am planning on declaring by this upcoming Fall. For my career in the future, I plan on becoming a Physical Therapist. I have always wanted to do this since High School ever since I took a Sports Medicine ROP Class at my High School. I chose this because I love sports since I played basketball ever since I was 7 and I love helping people.

5 Year Plan:

1) Volunteer at local clinics and gain a lot of experience.

2) Graduate with my Bachelor’s in Kinesiology with an option in Exercise Science at CSULB.

3) Get into a Physical Therapy Program in Southern California

4) Maintain good grades and gain experience in the PT Program

5) Study to pass the National Physical Therapy Examination to be qualified to become a Physical Therapist.

Ratings: 

Confidence: 7

Resources: 8

Impact: 8

Satisfaction: 9

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If my current plan to become a Physical Therapist were to disappear tomorrow, I think I would try to become a Physical Education Teacher since I already have the lower division classes needed to become one. I would love to do something where I would be able to work with kids since I think kids are awesome and I want to make an impact on their lives.

Five Year Plan:

1) Change my major from an Option in Exercise Science to an Option in Physical Education

2) Get my Bachelor’s Degree in Kinesiology with an option in Physical Education

3) Get a state-issued license to teach P.E. Licensure

4) Try to work at schools for P.E. Teacher Substitutes to gain experience

5) Become a P.E. Teacher for any grade level at any school.

Ratings:

Confidence: 6

Resources: 5

Impact: 8

Satisfaction: 9

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If I was financially secure and no one would ever laugh at what I did, I would like to be a professional poker player, since I would have the money to be one and I could possibly make more money than what I would have in the moment. I love gambling so I definitely would enjoy to play in the big leagues and make big money.

Five Year Plan:

1) Practice playing poker with my friends to get more experience

2) Play in local tournaments to get used to the competitive poker scene

3) Make more money to enter larger tournaments

4) Make enough to buy my own apartment and pay off my parent’s debts

5) Travel the world and play poker everywhere

Ratings:

Confidence: 7

Resources: 8

Impact: 7

Satisfaction: 9

With my first two careers, I would have to gain a lot of experience in order to become more successful and make more money. To be a physical therapist, I am going to need a lot of volunteer hours and I should try to look into internships because it would help me in the end to start my own clinic. I plan on volunteering at a local clinic this summer because I am going to need a good amount of hours to apply to Physical Therapy Programs. To be a physical education teacher, I am going to need experience by being a substitute teacher for different schools and possibly volunteering somewhere where I would work with kids. Being a professional poker player would just require me to have a lot of practice and learning tips on how to win as I play more and more games. I would just need to make good money first if I want to play professional poker and I am going to need to learn how to stop playing or take a break when I lose some money.

 

 

Protected: Week B10 – Artist Conversation – Yoni Keynan

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Week B9 – Art Experience – ePortfolio

Before WordPress, I never knew anything about making a website or ever even considered making a website because I always thought that it would be difficult to create one. I had to make a website for my art class to blog about some of the art activities that I had to experience and some of the artist conversations I had with artists who exhibited their work at CSULB. To be honest, I didn’t think that much about my website before and just made a website for having one to post my blog posts. I basically just did the bare minimum and didn’t really make any changes to it and kept the default theme and settings. Here are some pictures below of what my website looked like:

 

The layout was fairly basic and the title of my home page was just titled “Toan’s Blog” which barely even explained anything since it was so simple. The background was all white and as you scrolled down, you would be able to see all the blog posts that I wrote. My website was pretty much bland and boring.

What I wanted to do with my site was to change the theme of it to make it seem more appealing to my audience. As of right now, the only audience that I have is for my Art Class at CSULB and possibly any younger viewer who is interested in art and wants to try doing new art activities. Since I talk about my experiences with my art activities, I can possibly try to encourage and possibly inspire someone to try something new based on my personal experiences and thoughts. I have already done several different art experiences and my blogs can hopefully intrigue people to attempt the same art activity that I have done. In the future after I get closer to my career, I would plan on changing up my audience to lean towards athletes or people in Physical Therapy since I am trying to become a Physical Therapist. I don’t know if I will get rid of my art blogs or not, so I will probably just decide later on in the future.

As of right now, I want to just focus on my Art Class, so I changed the name to be “Toan’s Art Portfolio” since I think it sounds way better than “Toan’s Blog” and it makes a lot more sense. The only thing I’m going to be posting on my website is Art related items so I should just stick with Art. I added two separate pages titled “Art Experiences” and “Art Conversations”, where I will try to organize and place my blog posts in them to make everything smoother.

Protected: Wk B9 – Artist Conversation – Lisa Ikerd-Carradine

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Week B8 – Art Experience – Zines

For this week, I decided to do a zine since I wanted to try something new because I never heard of a zine prior to this week. I was suprised when I looked it up because I found out that it was just short for a magazine. I got two sheets of blank printer paper at first and then put two staples in the papers to make a binding, since I wasn’t able to find a needle and thread to make the binding. I wanted to come up with an overall theme that for my zine, and I ended up doing a hero theme and my zine was called “The Hero Within”.

The following page when you flip through the zine was where I drew buildings with a Batman symbol shining in the sky. This would help represent the need for a Hero, which in this case would be Batman just like in the comics and in the movie series. This picture would help set the scene of a city needing a hero to come out to help save the day as usual. The next page after that would be a picture of a cat being stuck in a tree and a firefighter having to climb a ladder to help get the cat down the tree. In this picture, the hero would be the firefighter.

The next page would be of “I ♡ YOU MOM” because parents are typically people’s heroes since they raised you and helped shape you into the man or woman that people end up becoming. In this case, I wanted to put mom since my mom is my own hero because she has made so much sacrifices for me. She is the most selfless person in the world, so I wanted to use her for the center page of my zine. The following page after that would be just some quotes of who heroes actually are. Anyone can be a hero in the world and they don’t need to have any superpowers or have a special cape to be considered a hero. All you have to do is just think of others whenever you do something and always want to help out to make the world a better place for all.

The last two pages of my zine would be a picture of the Avengers Emblem. I wanted to use this emblem because most people know who the Avengers are based on the Marvel Films since there are over a dozen of their films out there. The Avengers consists of a team of superheroes who are able to save the world from crime, which is why they are heroes. The last page of my zine was a picture of the buildings which connects to the first page. The person in the picture is Batman because I wanted to make the first page and the last page connect together to be one giant scene even though there are pages in between them when you flip through the zine.

Overall, I had a great time making my zine since I was able to use my own ideas and drawings. I thought that having a Heroes theme would be really good because I was able to add a page just for my mom since she is my own hero. I would like to do more in the future as the project is simple and doesn’t require a lot of extra materials since you only need paper, a pencil, something to make a binding, and colors if you want. In the future, I would like to try using a needle and thread to make the binding work more smoothly. I would also like to incorporate some color in the future to make my zine stand out more. I didn’t use that much color in my zine because I felt like it didn’t need much color and it ended up looking really great.

 

Protected: Week B8 – Artist Conversation – Katarina Stiller

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Week B7 – Art Experience – Automatic Drawing

For this week I decided to work with my friend to make our drawing. We got our 22-30″ sheet of paper from the art store from CSULB since it was convenient. The drawing tool that we used to draw our pictures were Oil-Based Markers from Daiso since they didn’t have the Oil-Based Crayons at the store that we visited.

We did our drawing on the ground under low light since it was mentioned that the whole process and outcome would be better if we worked in a dark room. Since we didn’t have a drawing board, we decided to use our legs and knees as a surface and it seemed to work pretty well since we didn’t mess up during the drawing. We both had to put our hands on the marker to make our picture. It took a couple of tries at first since there was difficulty to not laugh why drawing on the poster together. Once we collected ourselves to focus on not laughing, we were able to freely draw on the poster and express ourselves.

The picture ended up to look abstract as there were no definite shapes or lines on the poster since we just went with the flow. We didn’t really prepare with what we were going to draw on the poster since we freely drew ever line one after the other going in any direction that our hands were moving towards. The process felt like a Ouija board since we both put our hands on the marker and it moved in different directions without any of us saying where to move the marker towards. Overall, it was a fun experience to do since I have never done anything like it and I think our picture ended up being pretty cool and interesting. I would definitely do this again if I have the chance and it’s making me consider whether I want to try the Ouija board in the future since it’s a similar concept.

Protected: Week B7 – Artist Conversation – Lena Wolek

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