This week, I helped with a Cascade help request, worked a bit on Figma, and made substantial progress on the shape KB.

I implemented a quick hover functionality on my Figma site.

As for the shape KB, I finished the rough draft and began working on the semi-final version. The draft is now up on the STA KB!

 

https://sta.laits.utexas.edu/blog/2021/03/05/37980-2/

Fun with Figma

This week, I finished up the Figma UI/UX training! The interface was pretty intuitive and I appreciate the component feature — it made my work a lot easier. I chose the portfolio site so that I could actually use it in the not-so-far future. Here’s my site:

More PSD Painting!

As part of the PSD Painting basic training I’ve been doing, I set out to recreate a picture of my own choosing in order to keep improving my skills using the Wacom tablet-and-PSD workflow. Here are some progress shots of this:

Here are some thoughts on this activity based on feedback from Valerie:

• What did you find challenging?
  • At first, the most challenging things on this training were
    • getting used to the hand-eye coordination of drawing with the Wacom tablet (as I had already mentioned)
    • finding the right brush for what I wanted the image to look like
    • making the initial sketched outlines of the pot
    • messing around with the color combination, especially when combining highlights and shadows
• What did you enjoy?
  • I really enjoyed seeing the process as a whole step by step. It felt super rewarding looking at the different layers in the PSD file and track how I started off and how it ended up looking. This was the case both for the teapot and the oranges. Something I also enjoyed was looking up my own picture to recreate.
• What would you do to improve this training?
  • On improvements for this training, I think I would only suggest going into more detail on different brushes or maybe even listing some websites where you can download custom brushes as I did. (Maybe also on how to install them into PSD!).
• Is there anything you want to learn more about after this training?
  • I think the only thing I wanted to learn more about was how to better go back and forth between layers and how to know if what you’re drawing is looking good (but that’s simply based on feedback I guess).
• What skills did you gain from this training and what applications might you use this for someday (within and/or beyond LAITS and the STA program)?
  • I definitely learned a couple of skills that I can list here:
    • color theory, mixing and matching to create new colors using brushes like the Wet Blender
    • gaining a better sense of proportions when sketching
    • getting used to the tablet-PSD workflow
    • a better understanding of light and shadows on objects

COLA Photo ID Editing

Additionally, I worked on retouching and editing two Photo ID’s for UT faculty which have been uploaded to the COLA website:

 

Hello!~

It seems like so long since I’ve worked, thanks to the winter storm last week. Although we were relatively fortunate — never lost power or had any damages, and just lost water for a day — it was a really turbulent time, so it feels nice to be back in relative normalcy and to be back at work.

Since I’ve only worked two days or 9 hours this week, I don’t have a lot to share. However, I wrapped up some IDs and am making significant progress in the shape KB. I’m aiming to have it done for review early next week. Here are a few photo IDs and the link to my shape KB draft. Right now the activity idea is to start with sketching different shapes based on different moods/vibes, and then move on to an introduction of patterns and shapes in AI. The last and biggest deliverable of this KB will be applying the knowledge and skills to a visual & text hierarchy.

Lesson 1 Slideshows

This week, Poonum, Abriella and I finished gathering all assets and creating slideshows for the different eras/movements that we are covering for this lesson. Here are some snapshots of each era that I took care of:

Art Deco

Bauhaus

De Stijl

Info Visualization

Isotype

New Typography

Pop Art

Postmodernism

Swiss Design

We’ve been trying to embed these assets into a slideshow on a KB post but have been having trouble with Google Slides’ iframe format for embedding and the SlideShare plugin link. Hopefully we can figure something out with this!

Here’s how the KB draft for this lesson is looking:

Bezier Curves Activity Documentation

I’ve created a full documentation for the Bezier Curves tutorial I created for the Typography Lesson. Currently, I’m awaiting feedback from Maddy to make any revisions to this. I’m really satisfied with this tutorial, and hopefully, it gives STA’s without experience in AI a good idea of what these concepts are.

PSD Painting Basic Training

I believe this is the last basic training I was assigned to complete for my orientation checklist back in July! While painting with a Wacom tablet can seem a bit challenging at first, it’s really satisfying to see how good painting looks once one gets the hang of it. In this training, I sketched the outlines of a teapot and used the PSD brush and smudge tools to recreate the teapot.

Here are some snapshots of this process:

 

After a couple of weeks of unstable power and wifi, I am happy to be back to sharing my work!

Color Correction Basic Training

This training was incredibly helpful in explaining in detail how the most commonly used adjustments in PSD change an image in a certain way or another. Here are some categories on what was covered in the basic training, with examples being used:

Brightness and Contrast

Levels

Curves

Vibrance

Hue and Saturation

Exposure

Pixel Art

This basic training was simple enough and entertaining to make, starting with choosing a picture to recreate and a limited color palette. Here are some snapshots of this process:

This is a Warhol inspiration, using the Hue slider:

And here are a Muted version, a Preset Color Scheme version, a Global Adjustment version, and a Monochromatic version: