ENG181.01. Spring 2021. Emory University
I mentions in class that I used to draw little comics in middle school, this is a continuation of said comic. The characters, (Cat, Rat, and Bat) were self inserts of me and my two best friends at the time with Rat representing myself. They all had very simple designs and while I didn’t make many strips, they’d often end up in the margins of my homework. For this comic I decided to draw what happens to me and many others during the weekend.
So, as you can tell, I’m not the greatest at visual notes. Which is strange because, back in middle school and early high school, those were the only kinds of notes I took. I think the main reason now is just because, I just don’t take a lot of notes. I know I know that makes me a bad student in the eyes of a few but I’m a theatre major. In my theatre classes we don’t learn by lecture and note taking, but rather by practice. In fact, most of my classes we just don’t lecture anymore. Most of my note taking is done outside the class room while reading whatever assigned text I have. These aren’t even from a class but rather from my latin tutoring, and with latin being structured the way it is they’re no strong visual components for the subjunctive verbs. It is nice to do my notes in different colors again. Having them separated by color somehow lets me compartmentalize them easier. If I ever do go back to re do a sketch assignment. It will probably be this one.
For my Combophoto I decided to combine a water tower and a hot hair balloon. I had a lot of trouble coming up with an idea for this assignment so I spent to looking up random words on google images and trying to see what came up. I eventually found some inspiration with a water tower. Originally I was going to use just a regular balloon but it was a bit boring. The hot air balloon is a bit more visually interesting to look at so that is what I ended up going with. I like the final product, the fact that something meant for flying is now stuck to the ground in this odd manner is humorous to me.
Writing this assignment overall was pretty easy for me. I have spent a lot of time reflecting on what I don’t like about writing and what might have caused it so I could develop writing strategies that work for me. I did the writing exercises knowing that that moment didn’t really define my relationship with writing for the majority of my life so writing the start of my piece was a little more challenging than the last part but it was still easy since those memories have stuck so clearly with me.
When writing this did make me realize exactly why I do love playwriting. Playwriting you still have to worry about grammar and spelling of course but not as much as a novel. The main chunk of the piece is going to be dialogue and most people (and certainly most of my characters) don’t speak in perfect grammar, but rather in their own languages.
I think the most interesting sentence is “I’m left handed so my writing tends to smear” since that line is actually handwritten and then smudged over to show the audience a (admittedly exaggerated) version of my messy handwriting. But picking a sentence in the text itself I’d have to say is would be “I had refrained from putting my best into essays because if I did less than great than hey, I know I could do better.”, since I feel like it is a sediment that at least a chunk of my generation has carried with them through high school.
For my piece I drew a mad scientist character sporting two Fanta bottle caps for googles. I was really struggling with coming up with ideas for this assignments, my brain has trouble processing things in 3D. The fact that I was called by contacting tracing and put in quarantine this past week wasn’t helping anything either.
However during my stay in the plague zoo I was able to come up with one idea for a mad scientist with googles. I’ve been trying to get better at drawing humans so I figured it would be good practice as well. I based her color pallet off of soda, with green hair and an orange shirt. I used an atlas ball point pen for line work and alcohol markers for coloring.
Making a profile picture is always hard for me. To capture the entire essence of a person in one small image is a daunting challenge to say the least. I saw the assignment, sat down and took a long time thinking about what I wanted to present myself as to these people that, frankly, I don’t know that well. After a deliberating on it on and off for a week I finally came up with an idea I liked.
So this is the avatar I made for this class.
The icon consists of nothing but a time photo of a rat and my name written on the side in my less-than-perfect penmanship. I thought of making a collage but I feel like this simple image alone conveys what a want.
I’ve always felt a connection to the common rat, rats being one of my favorite animals. Most people see them as pests, ugly little creatures that infest people’s homes and businesses. While they do tend to make themselves comfortable in places they shouldn’t be, there is more to them than chewing through drywall. They are quite social and intelligent creatures, needing companionship and mental stimulation when kept as pets. Domestic rats have been a staple of research in part due to their intelligence and willingness to complete simple tasks.
As a kid I was often mocked for my weight and just general awkwardness. I didn’t really know how to socialize that well with other kids and tried to make myself as small as possible to avoid the other kids. However I was a bit of a teachers pet. I was eager to please anyone I could so happily did assignments given to me and went out of my way to please them with art or cool rocks I found outside at recess. The parallels between the common rat and a younger me draw themselves. Small, intelligent, misunderstood creatures. Found in places they feel like they don’t belong.
Luckily in high school I found a group I clicked with, and made friends willing to stand up for me. Generally now a days I find myself in places where I am warmly welcomed. Still, I see myself in these small misunderstood rodents.
(Image found on: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mr_and_Mrs_Rattus_Old_English_Black_Rat_(3589381404).jpg I could not find any information on the photographer however, guessing from the age of the photo it now falls into public domain)
