ART SHOW AWESOMENESS!

I think the Echo Art Show was a great success. Almost every single art, tech, design and media student had their work (or works) up on display. Some of the work was incredible and deemed fit to be in a gallery while others…well they got some criticism. All the work was made using hard child labour paid for in units. But I don’t think the students minded the child labour. They (and by that I mean me too) got our reward through our good marks and the fact that our art was displayed in the exhibit. Unfortunately, the entrance fee of $4 through off some people and made them keep away from the show. In the end, the show rose over a $1000, or so I’ve heard…. That’s not too bad but pretty bad compared to what I expected. I thought that at least every student would come to see the show and support the art department. That alone would give us around $4000, not including the teachers, the parents and the students from other schools. Oh well, I think it was a great success, lets see what some other people thought:

-"It was good but not as good as last year. They could have put more work and etc. (because it felt kinda empty in some places)." -Beatrice Tan

-“ The amount of people that showed up was very under whelming in comparison to other years, yet the content maintained the high level of consistency that had become synonymous with Mary Ward art shows.” -Jason Ng Lee

-“ Although I enjoyed going through Echo, I really wish they had more art to display.” -Stephanie Sarmiento

-“It was very nice…lots of great artwork.” -Vernon Szeto

- "I think the Echo was really good, overall. Even though there were many 'last minute cramming, I think it was able to successful come together in the end. Shout outs to the makers of A Walk in the Park, Wild Card, and Sixth Ripchord." -Brian Millado

- "I thought the show was unique" -Angelique Malcolm

Personal Contributions:

Well, being an art student myself, I had quite a few contributions to the art show. Since I take media and visual arts, I had more works than some others. From my media course, I had my hybrid, photo-collage and storybook put up. The hybrid was myself fused with an animal…not going to say which one because mine’s was pretty bad. The photo collage was a collage of pictures, taken by me and from the Internet, which explained a fortune from a fortune cookie. The storybook was a book that a couple of other friends and myself made to explain an ecological disparity. My group did our book on zebra mussels!

From my art course, I had three pieces up too: my print’s, my painting and my weird slidey thingy… The prints were made from carving a piece of soft linoleum, inking it and pressing it onto paper. I carved mine into Bob Barker! The painting was to be of a tree but with us “jazzing” it up. I made it morph with buildings and random junk. My last piece was called “Sliding Fate” and was supposed to be in the McMichaels Art Gallery but due to the fact that it was interactive, they said they couldn’t put it up. So we got it back for our art show.

Thoughts:

Well I thought the overall show was pretty good. I personally prefer last years since it had more interactivity and the movies were funnier. The best part about this year’s show was the mini golf. Too bad it broke down after the second day. I almost liked the storybooks; they were quite interesting and some were hilarious. Other than that, thanks to all who participated and made this art show one more for the books!

And now for some other random pictures i thought were pretty cool:

Are You a Right Clicka or an iBook Flippa?

Firstly, I would like to say that I don’t really care much about the operating system of my computer, or any computer that I am using. As long as it is functional and can do the job right, I am good with using it.

Ze Mac

Since I haven’t really used a Mac that much, I don’t think I should judge it…well I’m going to anyways. It does look really sleek and sick from the outside and the desktop looks so organized and clean but from what I have heard, its not that great as it looks. I heard the speed of it was pretty bad and it is unable to meet the requirement to play many online games. This kinda sucks because I play a few online games and they would get impaired if I were to use a Mac. So far…PC – 1 and Mac – 0.

There are a few good things that have really caught my attention with the Mac and that is that it comes with a lot of software. This software can be used for various reasons, from film production and editing to photo manipulation. Now if you read some of my other posts, you will find out that I’m not a very “media” kind of guy, where I work with these kinds of software on a daily basis. Thus, I would really have no need for this software. But for a person who does this kind of job, the Mac would be a great tool and asset for him/her. I guess I could give it a point for that. So now its one a piece for Mac and PC.

Ze PC

PC…where do I start. Well I could start with affordability; it’s cheap and does the job, which is all I basically need. That’s one more point for it. Secondly, though it’s kinda a small deal, it has lots of awesome shortcuts for various things, which I have taken the liberty to learn up. Yes, I have lots of time on my hands and these little shortcuts help me save even more time (not to mention keep me out of trouble).

For PC, things are quite easier as most people are used to it and you can do basically anything on it, when it comes to gaming and other multimedia. Most of these were designed with PC in mind so the compatibility is more for PC than it is for Mac, giving PC the lead by two points.

Another good thing that I like about PC is that it is more widely used. So like if you get something that can only open on a Mac, you’re screw over if surrounded by PCs. Now if you have something that can only open on PCs, you really don’t have a problem because just about every office, school or places with a computer will have a PC. Heck, even a church will have a PC!

And the judge says....

Well…my verdict is that PC is better. If using the pros and cons, you can easily see that Mac doesn’t win. But I think my opinion is a bit more biased because I know more about a PC than a Mac and also, I use a PC more than a Mac. But mehh….too bad!

When Graphic Artists get Bored...

Well I was like…WOOOW when I first saw this video. I mean I’ve seen some pretty cool things but these were amazing (well most of them). Some were really dumb, and hard to get, but most of them were simple yet so well twisted in such a cool way! Really, I wish I was motivated enough to do this kind of work!

Which image do you think is the most interesting? Why?

Well, it was hard to pick from all those images. Many just jumped out at me, such as the orange/frog duo, the cow/earth map and the penguin/hockey jersey, but the one that I loved was the KISS Pandas. THOSE WERE AWESOME! Like I don’t really know if there is a deeper meaning to it, but I don’t really care. They just look amazing. I don’t know if those pandas really exist in real life but if they did, I would want their autograph (or paw mark?).

Describe step-by-step how you believe the graphic artist was able to achieve this hybrid image in Photoshop.

Well achieving this effect in Photoshop isn’t really very hard. There are two ways to do this, the long way and short way. The long way would require getting a picture of the KISS group, copying the eye types, pasting it on top, blending it in and such. But the shorter way would be quite easy. First, the artist could use the lasso tool to select the eyes in the shape of the KISS eyes. Then with that area selected, since you can only change that area, he/she can use the clone/stamp tool to clone the black part of the panda’s fur and stamp it on the areas selected. They wouldn’t even have to be too careful if they selected well enough. The selection could also be done using a masking effect. Once this is done, copy/paste the original eyes and it’s basically done. To make it more professional, a few touch-ups could be added. But doesn’t seem like a lot of work!

Facebook and Education...a new partnership?

What do you think about the whole situation?

I think the whole situation was being blown out of proportion by the university. I mean the guy didn’t really do anything wrong. He basically offered tutoring online, where it can be accessed to more than one person. Instead of tutoring one person face to face, he found a way to give help to a lot of people at once. According to the second article from the blog question, there wasn’t even any valid proof of answers being given out.

“Loreto continuously stated there was no evidence that answers had been posted on the site.”

Now if there isn’t any proof, how the hell can they charge the guy? I think this situation is just another way for the teachers to stop the use of online forums for the students.

Do you feel the university is in the right or the student?

THE STUDENT!!!!!!! No way is the university right. They were basically about to expel him for trying to help others out. So far as I’ve heard, people who help others should get rewards, not expelled from school! Also, if the university were scared of people sharing answers, why would THEY support a tutoring program? That’s basically the exact same thing except its not online and that’s supported by the university but this facebook group isn’t. Pure stupidity, it’s not rational, incomprehensible…the sheer thought is unfathomable!!!!!

Do you see how facebook could be used as an educational tool or is it simply a social utility?

Well I knew all along that facebook is both a social utility and an educational tool. Last year one student tried to make a group that would help people who are behind to catch up. This group didn’t flourish as well because people joined, but no one was willing to post any of their notes or answers up. Thus I left the group soon after as I saw it as a waste and I think it’s abandoned now. So it can be a great educational tool but I think its mostly used as a social utility. As a high- schooler, I think that homework takes up too much of our lives and we don’t want facebook turning into a place for homework too. Thus we only use it as a social outlet rather than chance to get help regarding education.

Music Mania Downloads!!!

How do you feel about this practice of downloading anything you want for free?

Lets see...how do I feel? Seriously, I really like it. Like all teens and basically everyone in the world, getting something for free is better than having to pay for it. Sure its not the most moral thing to do but mehh...something is better than nothing. I, for one (out of every million), am actually without any physical listening devices. No mp3, ipods, walkmans, etc. I do have a phone but my laziness stops me from downloading anything onto it. So everything I listen to is form television, the radio and mostly downloaded from some random sites on the Internet. The ever-growing expanse of the Internet has a lot to offer and why not milk it for what its worth. Getting something free, sure why not...if I have to pay...sorry "NEXT!"

Do you have any ethical reservations about downloading software or music? Why/why not?

Err...no. Why would I have ethical issues for downloading for free? Most software is WAYY to highly priced. Things like Photoshop and other adobe software I barely even use, and like if I buy it its like friken hundreds of bucks. That's like wasting money on stuff I'm only using for homework and then never touching again. Might as well get a keygen for it and use it. Then later I delete it anyways so there's no point in buying it.

Music is a whole different story. But even for this, I have no moral or ethical reservations. See the thing about music is that it's a pure money making scheme. Not so much for the artist as for the record producers. Because the record producers give a percentage to the artist but most of it goes to them. This means that we are making some lazy bums rich by just buying their albums. I mean come on, they’re already rich enough without us giving them more money. So I say downloading it is fine and even good to a point because then it helps people socialize…somehow. Seriously, downloading music is like second nature to everyone. Most people have some sort of listening device and so download music on a daily base. To them it’s like checking email or going on Facebook (to all those Facebook addicts).

Ecological Footprint

The footprint that I leave on the planet is 4.7. Now I’m not sure what this means, but I’m pretty sure it’s a good thing since the ecological footprint in the whole of Canada is 8.8. In comparison to that, I think that I’m doing pretty well. I feel that my footprint is pretty good because, not only is it lower than that of the rest of the country, it’s also pretty low compared to some of my friends. When they said they did this test, some reported getting 6 and 7 plus.
Still, if I could change anything, it would be the food part of this survey. The food section gave me the highest ranking and I think that that’s not good. I guess I can eat less processed food and maybe less meat. I tried redoing the survey using “vegan” and “very little processed food” as answers and I saw that the print goes down drastically. So changing my dietary would help. But seriously...no way am I going to do that. Food is like my life and too bad for anyone who tells me to get off it. No way thats gonna happen. Besides that, there is not much else that I can change; my house, car fuel efficiency and amount of people living in my house cannot change.

Finally, I don’t really think that this site is helping to bring about a change to our future. How often do people actually go on the computer to look for surveys that would make their impact on this planet less? Using common sense and experience, I would say never or only when they have an assignment of some sort. If this site wants more hits, they should advertise and send these kinds of surveys to people’s houses. That is the only way someone would be interested in this crisis/issue.