Here are November project ideas:

1. Create a vehicle that uses only parts from a different object.
      Example: A bike made from chair parts
2. Paint an image of a family pet dressed as something else.
      Example: Your parakeet dressed as an angel
3. In honor of winter, draw or manipulate snow into places where you usually would not see snow.
      Example: On a teddy bear in your bedroom
4. Make an eye manip and add aan element of winter into it.
      Example: A grey blue eye with frosty lashes and flecks of snow in it
5. Re-create something you have made in the past.
      Example: Drawing of an old face you drew

--------More coming soon---------

Ideas and Projects!

     Hey everyone! I know I have not been blogging over the past week, and I have generally moved away from the topic of Graphic Design. So I come to you today with a brand new page about ideas.

     Ideas are the key to a successful and meaningful image, whether they come from you or someone else. Often I find myself at a choice of making a picture or watching television. My choice is usually television because I have no ideas for graphic design. This is terrible because as a student I want to become better at Photoshop and without practicing, that won't happen. So I have created a brand new page for my blog with all sorts of ideas and projects. I hope you enjoy some of the ideas because they are very fun to think up. Check out the new page and I would love to hear feedback and see some of the images you have created from them.

Self Discipline and Success

     Is self discipline a direct link to being successful? I say yes it is, and since I am the author of this blog, I am giving my opinion on the idea. To classify someone as a successful person is to classify an animal as "happy." Success can be seen as, having a great job, having more than enough money, loving life, or having polite kids. There are more than enough ways to classify someone as successful. Because of this, it would be very difficult to directly place anyone into one category of success and that self direction would lead to some sort of it. Thankfully, with the wise brains of us humans, we can come up with opinions! Aah, yes, opinions are always a way to classify something that may not be completely correct. So why not believe the opinionated theory that self direction leads to success.

     Learning lessons at a young age is completely different than learning something at an older age, whether it be a few months older, or several years older. Once humans can comprehend what is wanted, they react to it, but before that certain age there is no guarantee that someone will understand what is desired. Anyways, what I am trying to say is that if someone has a low amount of self discipline, there is a chance that that persons control will change as they age. I for one, would not have known if doing something was absolutely terrible when I was four. Now that I understand more, I can retain myself from doing what I shouldn't. I do have a fair amount of self discipline and I plan to be successful in life, at least my idea of successful.

     The idea that self discipline is connected to success is completely understandable. The base of this theory, in my eyes is that if you have the self discipline to aim for success and wait for it, you will be successful.

     In terms of graphic design, self discipline is something you absolutely need. As a graphic designer, you have the ability to be flexible and work on your own time, when you want. If you are anything like me, you probably put off projects and get lazy toward the end of a project. The sad truth is that, the end of a painting or photo-manipulation is just as important as the beginning. If you let yourself slack off, than you better bite the bullet and get on top of your projects! Success is waiting at the end of self discipline, why would you ever want to hold back success?

Children are our Future

     Today I am talking about an incredible kid with an inspiring amount of knowledge. She is a teacher, writer, poet, and blogger. Yep, all of those things, and when I say writer, i mean serious writer, book writer. Her name is Adora Svitak and she stands for listening to the children of the world, and letting yourself believe in kids ideas and behavior. Adora gave a presentation at TED to an audience of brilliant people, she did this to get her strong ideas out into the world and have people re-think how they do or do not understand children. Adora is an inspiration to people like me and hopefully like you. Her speech certainly brought up some strong opinions and ideas in my eyes.

     As my opinion goes on how to listen to children and let them guide adults, I am all for it. I have always been short and have always known that I was treated with a little less respect from adults. For example, when going to a restaurant the waiter always brought my family to a table and gave my sister and parents normal menus while handing me a children's menu. Of course I hated this, it happened to me till I was fourteen! I wasn't even supposed to order of the children's menu. But the true reason it bothered me so much was that the waiter assumed that I was too young to order off of a normal menu. Adults have always seen me as a child who is too young to speak for herself. But the thing is, even if I look young, I have the right to be respected. For all I know, I am smarter than a few adults and just as well, I know lots of kids are smarter than me. The point is, if the human race really wants to move foreword, we better listen to those who will change the world.

     I was just thinking about the word "elder." Everyone thinks of an elder as someone who is older than you, someone who you look up to, and someone who makes the decisions. This meaning to the world elder is taught in roughly every children's movie and book. Even my favorite movies like "Happy Feet" describe elders as the ones who really matter and control the rest of us. The thing is, what happens when the elders die? what happens when adults posses such power that they make kids intimidated to look into their eyes? Actually, that already is going on. Public speaking is number one in people's fears, and for many kids, this is because they are worried that their"elders" will reject or laugh at what they say. In fact many times kids public speaking fears is useless due to the fact that what kids say probably will not make an impact. But what kids say is absolutely just as important as what adults say. When people say "respect your elders" the quick response should be, "respect your children."

     So next time a kid comes up to you, listen to what they say because I for one have become discouraged enough to not share my ideas or opinions aloud anymore because they are surely not going to make  a difference if no one listens. The kid beside you may have the most brilliant idea but to know their idea you have to take care and listen to them.

     If you are a kid, never ever let your age affect your amount of impact on the world.

Talkin about inspiration!

     Alrighty guys, I know it has been a day or two since I last posted and perhaps that is too long for you to hold interest in my blog. So, here I am, pulling you back into the world of graphic birdie. Today's post is all about inspiration for what you are working on in graphic design. My forms of inspiration are a bit different from looking at a photo or listing of ideas. Hopefully you enjoy my ways of becoming inspired to draw something!

First method of inspiration: Music
     Turn on the radio! make sure you do not listen to music you have heard over and over again. Listen to the new sounds and voices and meanings, imagine the instruments playing and what the singer or band looks like. Never look the song up on YouTube before you finish your painting, it may influence what you imagine. You are welcome to draw the people who you think are singing but I suggest you look into the deeper meaning of the song and draw that! Maybe you are making a background, with this method of inspiration, you can smoothly or sharply create a background just by closing your eyes and following the patterns in the music. So, get out your radio and start working! Who knows, you might just find a new favorite band.

Second method of inspiration: Smell
  Yep this one is a funny one, but it works for me. Alright, in this form of inspiration, take out a strong smelling food or light a candle or go outside right after it rains! Smells are often connected to memories, especially for me! So in this process you may remember something sweet, sad, funny, or beautiful, it may be the smell of your mothers old perfume or the smell of your old best friends house. It may remind you of a trip you took once or it could remind you of an old car. You never know what smells will bring up in your memory which makes this form of  inspiration so much fun. Once you find a smell/memory, draw it or photo manipulate it or collage it, Make sure not to make it perfect, use some abstraction, this will bring in the image of a foggy or forgotten memory. Not all people remember by smells and if you do not, form a fun and creative fake memory. This is meant to be fun so if it is not working to bring any ideas up for you, try something else. Never let a form of inspiration tire you out or bore you, that defeats the purpose.

Third and final method of inspiration: People
     People are incredible in how they all have their own agendas and goals. For this form of inspiration, go to a public area like a park bench. Or go ride a bus (safe bus of course). While you are in a public area, look at the people around you. Imagine what they are thinking, where they are going, why they are so calm or anxious. Create stories in your mind about thee people as a whole or individually, then go home and create a piece of art from your stories. Never take things literally with this form of inspiration, just let the basic ideas from people around you, come into your head and inspire you. Also, be polite of the people you see and never interrupt them or tell them your theories. Imagine yourself as a ghost, pretend no one can see you and you are just looking into the world from outside. Enjoy this form because you can get some pretty crazy ideas from it. Try different ages of people, maybe go to a school or a nursing home sometime.

I hope my unique forms of inspiration help you out a bit. You can't lose anything by trying them! Be safe though, never go somewhere dangerous or smell something hazardous. Have fun and feel free to share your art with me from these forms of inspiration!

 

Creativity

     Ken Robinson. What does that name mean to you? Yes, I know tat it probably doesn't mean anything to you yet but once you finish reading this post, you will certainly know that that name, means a lot. To start, Ken is a man that holds great wisdom in the subject of creativity. I know that creativity does not really sound like something you can learn about and know of, I figure you have never considered creativity as a subject to be taught. This is probably because creativity is taught in so many forms, but not in too many schools. This leads me directly into the topic of creativity in schools and what Ken thinks about it.

     I learned about Ken in a TED speech and since I already love TED and their magnificent talks, I was quickly fascinated with Ken. Ken's main goal from his speech was to educate his audience of the importance of creativity in schools. He discussed how so many schools are teaching students to the average textbook, and in theory everyone would end up in the exact same place having the exact same career. Who would want that? I certainly would miss the entertainment of acting, music, art and dance, honestly who wouldn't. Thankfully some student and some schools step out of the box. The box containing textbooks and calculators and tests. I am one of those students and I am part of one of those schools.

     In the last paragraph I ended with  "I am part of one of those schools." Originally I had written, (as most students would) "I belong to one of those schools." Then I realized how possessive that sounded. That single sentence made it sound like the school owned me and controlled me and decide what I would and should learn. That would be terrible if I actually felt that way. I unlike other students have the resources to jump up and take part in my school, I have the chance to express myself in unique ways like graphic design and drawing and even blogging! Yes, you might have forgotten that I actually am blogging in a blogging class right now. How incredible is that? I love it so much, I love that I can be who I am and consider the hundreds of careers that I could go into. Many people and perhaps even you, forget about creativity in other schools and forget that some schools may not even care about creativity and learning beyond the book. So here it is, here is a an eyeopener for you to speak out about creativity, share your opinion and teach the world to change our system, teach schools to get a little creativity and take a leap into the unknown. Let the people learn what they want to learn. Of course keep the basics of math and science, ect. in education but influence others to be different. No one wants to end up in the exact same position as someone else.

     Those of you who are reading this blog for the pure purpose of learning graphic design and enjoying graphic design, question yourself of where you learned graphic design and how you were inspired to care about it. I for sure did not learn graphic design in a school, I learned it on my own in my spare time. There are so many people who do not even know what applications like photoshop or gimp or paint is for, but if creative subjects like graphic design were taught in school, the world would be a lot more colorful.

Tango and Chance

     Hey everyone! I am here posting for yet another unrelated graphics topic. Although their usually is a way to tie thing into graphic design so maybe by the end of this post I will. Anyway, I would like to introduce you all to my two parakeets, Tango and Chance. I want to tell you about their ridiculous relationship and how much everyone should learn from a couple of birds.

     A brief history of my parakeets is; Tango was bought from a pet store about ten months ago. She was very happy in her new home with me although she was kind of feisty. It took me several months to tame her but soon I was able to have her sit on my finger. My two friends had baby parakeets last spring and asked me if I wanted one. Of course I just had to say yes to getting a partner for my Tango and they were irresistibly adorable. So I received a baby budgie who was named Chance. Chance is also a girl because I really can not have any baby birdies of my own. Anyway, Chance was hand raised and already tame when I got her. She was perfect and adorable and had little to no problem living with Tango.

     Of course the two birds lived and live in the same cage now but they kept to themselves. Oh I forgot to mention that my sister also got a baby parakeet too. But her parakeet lived in her room as my parakeets lived in mine. Well, Tango and Chance became closer an closer, they soon started grooming each other. I enjoyed seeing them happy and was excited to see if they could become any closer. They were both girls and normally only male and female birds bond. Soon I realized that yes, my parakeets could grow even fonder of each other. Before I knew it they were regurgitating food to each other. Yes it sounds disgusting but it is really cute. My friends feared that they were male and female but we all knew that they were both girls. Tango and Chance have now become inseparable, they even show jealousy when my sisters parakeet is  visiting. They show such emotion and love in each other that it just shows humans how animals possess feelings. Even if the animal is the size of your hand like my birds, they can still have so much love and emotion. 

     A step further into what I am saying is, give animals a chance. Even if they seem silly and just sit in a cage, try giving them a friend. Because without a friend we can never know if true feelings are showing through. I hope you take this into your own life and consider how much your friends affect you. Sometimes, just like my parakeets you get in fights. But if you're strong and care deeply for your friend, your love won't be swayed by a little tiff. Anyways, enjoy your friends and let your pets have friends too.  Care about everyone and everythings emotions.