Due to the unfamiliarity and active rejection of the concept of “recording the process”, the idea of a blog alone is crushing. However, a self-reminder that this is better than the day jobs is hopefully going to be engrained into my thick skull. If I can draw, I can probably learn code. If I can learn to code, I can start to understand the necessity of publishing anything other than what is necessary to the piece in front of me.

Nothing left for me now than to dive in.

On 10/7/2022, our New Media class started with a presentation by Paolo Tosolini and Tosolini Productions. Tosolini Productions is a media company in Bellevue Washington that specializes in storytelling in business media. Paolo told us the importance of prototyping, and how crucial it is to branch outwards and create projects that discover new ground whilst simultaneously enjoying that process of its creation.

Innovation is key to actively exploring what works and what doesn’t for the company, and a project that fails never “fails” per se. Paolo treats design like research, bringing a viewpoint that greatly differs from the outward characteristics of the fine arts approach; rather than collecting everything and finding pieces to use for an idea that hits you one day (like all the greats are said to have “done it” by the people who can’t define “composition”), Tosolini’s design model offers a greater point of learning from the failure and leaving prototype projects as a point of learning and even further innovation from the ideas brought to the table on the idea.

This model was coined by Paolo as “mashups”. When working on the AR/VR integrated products his studio usually focuses on, his results are culminations of the different mediums available on technologic platforms, such as video game engines, 3D environment scanning programs, the AR features available on IOS, and more.

In a beautiful way, it loops back around to the fine arts approach intrinsically with the “no mistakes; just happy accidents” ideology.

The prompt for this first project is to create a visual “mashup” of varying pieces of different mediums to create a cohesive representation of our time so far at Seattle Central College.

(To no fault or blame to the incredible staff, professors, and classmates I have met during my first two weeks in this school), I am simultaneously stressed and exhausted, yet driven and relieved. My introduction to this course was quitting two jobs over the summer, with working conditions including mold at our dumpsters due to public urination, barely making income to fund my personal projects related to art (let alone rent), and a crowded night at a boba place in Chinatown where the owner handed me a half made drink and screamed at me “MILK AND ICE!!!” Then a few days trying to navigate different social services with my mother for a late diagnosis of a developmental disorder (adult autistic spectrum disorder) and getting continuously inebriated. Doubt was really setting in on the greater existential purpose of my fine arts background, and resentment to the figures who never bothered to tell a naive Asian nerd with a low cumulative GPA that “passion” doesn’t pay for fucking food.

One desperate google search near the end of June showed me Seattle Central’s graphic design program. I bookmarked it and woke up hungover to start scrambling the portfolio needed for entrance. Once accepted, it was painstaking anxiety with the vague nature of information, and the lack of acceptance to Seattle Central College prior to my portfolio submission made things difficult to navigate. Two months of trying to find out if I was even able to come in for the first day of school with the lack of registration to school. Within the month of September, I processed through the cycles of grief, then sudden celebration at the confirmation of a real design education at Seattle Central. Nervous to ecstatic, back to nervous, then back to ecstatic. And now I’m here: inspired and tired.

Buddha be with me, that’s only the start of it all.

With my inability to explain any better about my predicament with technology and digital mediums, I abhorred the idea of having to learn any related to a computer other than drawing programs. The autism sort of to compute the logic of code, but the structure and format of how its done is overwhelming. Reading standardized forms are hard enough, so HTML is a whole other animal. It’s difficult to determine what I’m supposed to take with me technique and skill wise from conceptual visual arts. But similar to graphic novels and the serialized manga world, there is an understanding that there are standardized rules and expectations to meet in the world of free trade. Just wish some of this was on paper rather than atop the continued muck-raking we regard as an internet culture.

But that’s subjective. I’m in school for it now. Time to get my shit together.

First Medium: Painting

Took this photo after setting up an old macbook air I resuscitated after years of being out of commission. It was around this time things calmed down for my enrollment for the fall quarter, so I took a couple nights binging the classics. This will be the base foreground as I use the monitor as a subject.

This is a painting I churned out during the portfolio building process. I plan to place this on the monitor of the filtered photograph on Photoshop. It will be in contrast to the negative filter on the photo, but still saturated. It will either look nice or be garish to look at. As of currently, no clue which route it’s going.

TOdAaY (10/13/2022), I shall proceed to rush the rest of this project due to not coping to the workload of this course fast enough. Please hurl me into the sky like a clay pigeon and have a sharpshooter on standby.

“Cope” is a term used often as a meme in the context of someone being mad in a multiplayer, player vs player game. When someone is angry at you in the game, you tell them to cope. What a weird apathetic society we live in, in which mocking someone to cope with stress is a societal norm. Enforced heavily enough to regress back to the cruel idea of “laughing at the fool”. You ever sit to think about the continued cynicism that compels collective society to actively make a joke out of people who aren’t able to understand why they don’t into the standard quo of-

I’m doing it again.

Now that we have a foreground/background (photo), subject (painting), and the “COPE?” (lettering/drawing), time to mash. Originally, I was intending to set aside time to put everything together on Photoshop to help better learn the program. However, due to crippling time management skills that will eventually see me in a back alley dice game gambling for my fingers, I am going to use my native drawing setup, the illustration software Medibang Paint pro and Wacom tablet.

In conclusion, the introduction into the vocational program experience has been as rewarding as it is taxing. I was less focused on the final result and prioritized other classes instead as the blog went to the back of my mind. Three weeks in and already I’ve needed to cram at least 3 projects, not including this one. The student body is populated with highly unique individuals with the common goal of surviving the courses and their knowledge, but I still find myself lost in the masses. Navigating the maze that is social interaction with the guise of a normal person that knows how to interweave slang seamlessly into conversation is hell. So many personalities, so many collective ideas that can lead to beautiful cooperation. And yet still, in the end I always find better solace alone. Coping.

I see a therapist and regularly do get treatment. If this is an indication to anything, it’s that I need to get myself organized.

Not sure how this’ll be graded in the end, but at least I’m now familiar with the blog format and the recording of the process.

this thing is way too long, isnt it?