Blog Feed

When a person is growing, there are numerous events that they will go through. Some will bring happy memories that they will love, whilst some will bring sad, terrible, painful memories. Even though these painful memories will be hated because of the pain that is associated with them, they are truly needed. A life lived with only happiness will not reap the same result as that lived with constant pain. This is because, one cannot successfully become stronger without experiencing some form of pain.

Leknes, Siri, and Brock Bastian. "The Benefits of Pain." SpringerLink. Springer Netherlands, 01 Feb. 2014. Web. 13 May 2017.

Taylor, Steve. "Can Suffering Make Us Stronger?" Psychology Today. Sussex Publishers, 04 Nov. 2011. Web. 13 May 2017.

"The iron crotch exercise (铁裆功)." Braineggs. N.p., 10 Apr. 2016. Web. 13 May 2017.

Creating this stamp, I wanted to think of a symbol that, obviously, symbolizes me. I thought, what would be a better symbol than myself? So I wanted to highlight key features of myself that makes me, myself.

Previously, we were given the assignment to come up with three symbols. The symbols were supposed to match the adjective that you chose to describe yourself. I had few adjectives, but the ones that stood about to me were Affectionate, Generous, and Reliable. For affectionate, it was a figure with open arms. For generous, I drew a figure of open hands reaching out. For reliable, I simply drew a flexing arm in a fist. I didn’t feel as though any of the symbols really got out what I wanted to depict. So I decided to create myself.

In my design, the negative and positive space both are used to highlight my features. I cut out the positive space which is my hair, and other facial features.  To contrast, I left negative space to highlight the features.

Understanding positive and negative space was a really slow process for me personally. I had an idea, but I would always get confused when I would try it out on my design. I used inspiration from others, realizing that they were simply cutting out the spaces that they colored in to highlight the spaces they weren’t cutting.

(NOTE): I finished my stamp before it was assigned to glue the cut out in our art books on May 8th 2017

This stamp symbolizes me as I play a lot of games at home. The stamp I made uses the Destiny symbol which is the game I play the most of at home on the PS4. Inside the symbol I wrote my name on the ends then the word Gamer in the middle-bottom which is the word I chose when I brainstormed ideas. Some words that I listed down on my brainstorm are intelligent, tall, strongish, and quick. The brainstorm was to help us figure out what we students wanted to do for starting designs. After the starter designs I chose my gamer design to be my final design as it was more symbolic to my personal self and not my school self. Negative and positive space is important especially when making stamps as positive or negative space will be covered in ink to make the image that whatever other space makes. It’s also important to make sure you know what space is which of the image as if you use the wrong space the stamp won’t look right when you use it. I used negative and positive space by cutting out the letters I used to make my name, and word chosen from my brainstorm as part of the background. I kept the inside part for my letters O, D, and tried to with A as part of the actual image. To truly understand negative space you have to look at the image itself then do the same with the background as you don’t know what the actual image was supposed to be if it's confusing. Trying to put the inside letters was a problem as it was hard to get it to stay on its own and I had to use the cutting knife to keep it in place. A mental problem was just the nervousness of not ruining the cut as I was cutting it. Well what I learned about positive and negative space along the way is a tricky thing to answer. If you mean by this week then no, as a whole through the entire quarter up to now I learned a lot of negative and positive space from how you can use it to make 2 images into one frame. Also how you could just use the background to give pictures details without all the lines and colors.

There are many reasons why I chose the symbol that I chose. One being because it symbolizes royalty. It is a crown for a king, but also a crown for a queen. Most words that I used in my brainstorming described what a king and a queen is. Royalty, smart, nice, proper, intelligent, etc.

The assignments given throughout this unit helped me to better understand what negative and positive is. I had problems with the difference between the two, and the pictures just looked completely confusing when I was first introduced to negative and positive space.  When we actually cut out images and put them into positive and negative space, I understood it completely.

Positive and negative space to me means erasing all detail and identifying the picture when it is outlined(negative) or colored in solid(positive). When viewing positive and negative space, you are supposed to look at the subject from different perspectives. Take the vase and the two faces for example. Some people see a vase, and others see two faces. It’s all in your perspective.

         In this assignment, I created negative and positive space. I expressed myself through this design. I had the letter C for the first letter of my name. Inside there's an outline of the Dominican and Salvadorian flag. My parents come from El Salvador and the Dominican republic. They are a huge part of me. I love my parents. They're apart of how I became the person I am. The first step I had to take was to think of 10 adjectives to describe myself. The most important one to me was my hispanic culture, my name, and family. I decided to combine these things into a symbol. Also when I visited the Dominican Republic, the palm trees were beautiful. When I think of these places, the palm trees are the first things that come to mind.