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After reading the article, the picture that  most captured my attention was the one of the girl in the car on the way to Chicago. The way the light hits her hand and the position of her fingers were all very intriguing. My initial thought for this photo was that it was going to be very difficult the recreate. I’m not very talented in the drawing department but I was going to try my hardest! After sketching, one can see that I was drawn to her hand placement. In the photo, she looks very relaxed and at ease, here it kind of looks like a claw. I think both representations make this photo “art”. Art is such a subjective topic and the most simple line drawings or photos can be the ones that create the most emotion.

Turning my Literacy Narrative into a comic was much more frustrating than expected.  I was not sure if each panel went with the flow of my written essay. Are they in the correct order? Do they actually illustrate what I am trying to get at?  The feedback I got on the draft of my graphic literacy narrative was very helpful. Firstly, I was pleasantly surprised that my peers were able to follow the shift between present and past that I worked to portray.  They understood what I was getting at, but recommended aligning the panels to make the constant shifts more visually appealing and easy for the eye. Since I was so unsure if the storyline was coming across in my visual panels, I added text boxes to some points to describe the situation.  My peers recommended cutting down some words and making these short sentences instead of the long blurbs I included. Understandably, seeing large chunks of words on a page initially intimidates the viewer. At other times, I used speech bubbles and thought bubbles to illustrate conversations and internal realization as this was a prose essay.  My peers thought I could make these neater so they will be read seamlessly within the story. Since these are used so often, this feedback definitely makes sense. I could also change up the frame from panel to panel. Too many might be straight scenes between stick figures instead of giving the eye a refreshing image that helps the reader dive into the story.  

 

 

The first thing that drew me to this image was just how funky it is. Flipping into a pool is definitely something that I would do, and I really liked how the image is mid-action. I initially just saw the boy flipping in the foreground, but as I spent time sketching it, I started to notice the finer details in the background, like the sun-loungers, and all of the bricks in the building. I think that it is extraordinary that this image was taken with cheap equipment on the fly. I have seen this type of shot attempted multiple times using proper equipment, and with it being staged, but it never came out as good as this.

Pdf Link: New Book 5

The first thing that drew me to the image was the contrast between light and dark caused by the fire. As I started to draw my sketch, I realized how difficult it is to capture proper shadowing. Along with that came the realization of how light and darkness give apparent focus to different aspects of an image. My eye seemed more disposed to  light, so for me the most striking part was the fire. Afterwards I focused on the dark edges that border the smoke or the people who block out light. The way in which the smoke drifts out across the image creates a medium in between light and dark that is very compelling. The reason I think this image is considered art is for the intentional use of a poor filter in order to accentuate light, dark, and haze of smoke. The elements are natural but altered.

 

 

 

I chose this image as I was drawn to it due to it’s “realness.” The girl reminded me of myself, with my friends, taking pictures of fireworks on New Year’s Eve, Fourth of July, and many other holidays and events. I spent about 7 of my ten minutes trying to figure out how to draw those small specks of fireworks exploding in the sky. I only had a pencil so as I started to do the shading, it started to look weird. I started to draw and erase, draw and erase. Until finally, I was just too unhappy with it that I erased the whole thing and just drew the hexagonal shapes I saw in the the image. I then quickly rushed through drawing out the people but it really didn’t turn out that well.  The blurriness of the image gives it movement that needs a very skilled hand to portray when drawing. The photo is beautifully composed and it seems as you are truly in the scene.

Image credit: “Adolescents photographing the fireworks on Fifth Street” in “Imperfect Portrait of Adolescence” by Eren Orbey. Photography by Colin Combs in The New Yorker.

When initially starting to turn my narrative into a comic, I found it useful to have the standardly written narrative.  It enabled em to better plan how I wanted to make my panels, and it allowed me to further extrapolate my drawings that would accompany them.  While writing, I also incorporated many styles from McCloud, Spiegelman, and Sacco.  This, I deduced, would allow me to possibly select one in the end and apply that to my final draft.  However, after the positive feedback I received for my comic, I may decide to keep the comic interesting with these multiple styles.  Also, the comments I received appreciated my use of the “books”, and at the end the pencil, as people.  I thought it was an interesting take.  Additionally, the comments noted that I adequately used camera angles to show movement and different subjects.  Perhaps what I am most proud of is how each comment adequately noted the theme and mood of my comic.

 

During class when we passed around the rough drafts of our Literacy Narrative’s I both received a lot of helpful feedback and absorbed aspects of other people’s comics that I might want to incorporate into my own.  From the responses I got, it seemed to me that most people were able to understand the basic story and themes I was going for (which is pretty impressive because the sketch is admittedly pretty rough). A few things that people pointed out to me that I might want to change were the dialogue, which as of right now is lacking, perspective changes and most importantly, panel structure. I got a lot of criticism for having a cluttered and complicated panel structure. I understand the criticism and had a similar reaction myself when I looked back at what I had sketched after a day or two without looking at it. I think it would be a good idea to break up what I have now into smaller panels. This would make the story more organized and the visuals more manageable. From seeing other people’s comics I realized that it’s a good idea to follow their suggestions, so that will be the main thing I try to incorporate into my comic as well as the other suggestions made.

This class we passed around our first draft comics and received feedback on them. To say the least, it was an incredibly helpful process, since the feedback was taken seriously and has given me a new sense of direction with my comic. I was very glad that the feedback reflected the tone I intended to depict: lighthearted and comic.Something I noticed was that a student took the idea of my comic to be that the reading competition was wha t pushed me to read, when in reality was something tat pushed me away from reading (probably should make that more clear in my comic). Another very interesting suggestion was that I should introduce more angles and types of frame into my comic to make it more interesting; I had nought really thought of varying angles that much because of my poor drawing abilities, but since so much emphasis was given in this domain, I’ll try my best to introduce some variance into my comic’s angle of depiction.

Read my entire Tracing Maus project by following these links:

Landing Page

First annotation (Goodbye Richieu)

Second annotation (Auschwitz Map)

Idea 1 (Shading)

Idea 2 (The Clarity of Mice)

Idea 3 (Page Layout)

Image credit: “Thought bubble” by Ian Burt