Lonnie – Page 2 – The Secret Language of Comics: Visual Thinking and Writing

Bag o’ Stuff

December 17, 2019 Lonnie Student Posts

A quick description of the items contained in my bag:

My laptop and charger which I never leave my dorm room without.

A sketchbook and set of lead pencils for when I decide to draw in my free time.

My lab notebook for chemistry which haunts me in my sleep.

Two spiral notebooks and a calculator for classes.

A Slipknot and Starset t-shirt. Both of these bands I live this semester and have decent stories behind each of the shows.

Finally a sticker that reads “Follow @MC.SUCC”, a meme page that a friend of a friend runs.

After cataloging the items in my bag, I would say that this is a decent representation of myself. Starset and Slipknot are bands that I like to listen to often and the meme page sticker I have in my bag is a good representation of the dark humor that make sometimes. I actually did not anything to my bag because I felt that there was nothing that I needed to add to the post. In hindsight though, I might’ve added my 3DS. Probably the most challenging part of the assignment was arranging my items to make them pleasing to the eye. I don’t photograph much unless I’m taking pictures for someone so it was just kinda new for me. I feel that representing myself in a catalogue of items from my bag is form of writing because it gives a reader a glimpse into my everyday life and what I do for fun or school.

Three Useless Thespians

December 17, 2019 Lonnie Student Posts

Making a triptych was a fun yet challenging project. I knew that for this one, I didn’t want to draw one out but use some old photos I have on my phone. I ended up using three photos from closing night of a play that I directed. Me and my friend Saanya directed a play and Parker was one of the actors in the show. On our own we can do our assigned tasks but get us all together and we won’t get anything done with all of our laughter. I liked creating the first two panels with only slight differences in facial expressions to the last panel that is a close up on my face. I have a “oh well, it is what it is” look. I feel that creating this kind of comic strip is easier because with three panels you have a defined beginning, middle, and end where as, with writing you can go on longer tangents without having discernible markers.

The World in Your Eyes

December 17, 2019 Lonnie Student Posts

Choosing a set of images for this assignment was hard. It took a minute to decide what two would look good together, especially with my limited abilities with photo editing software. I ended up choosing a photo of a woman’s eye and the Earth as they are similar shapes and sizes. With the blue eyes and the oceans of the Earth together it sort of reminds of a yin yang effect, with waves in the iris going different directions and the clouds having looser patterns. It made me think of order and chaos together.

Photo credits:

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Tracing Stitches and Spinning Reflection

October 4, 2019 Lonnie Student Posts

My thesis for this assignment is: Both authors go through traumatic experience that mask their lives in veils of silence which prevents them from living their lives to the fullest but eventually, trusted adults allow the protagonists to overcome the trauma through being there for them. My argument focuses on David’s interaction with his therapist and Tillie’s singular interaction with her cello teacher about her assault. Tracing and annotating Spinning and Stitcheswas a very fun process for me. I had the opportunity to look closely at the pages that I was tracing, closer than I had looked before by just reading the pages. Annotating the graphic novels was also good for my understanding of the texts because my annotations were based on similarities and differences between the two novels, so it made see similarities between the two texts. I really enjoyed writing an inductive essay with my thesis at the end of the paper because I didn’t trap myself at the beginning with what I wanted to write but instead I let the analysis shape the thesis at the end. If I have the opportunity to write another inductive essay I would definitely choose to do so. Looking closely at the both of the texts, I now want to look at every panel in fine detail. It seems that every brush stroke or seemingly random stroke of color could have a huge significance in the novel. For example, in Stitches, towards the end of the novel, David has less shadows over him than when he is younger in the book showing that he is relieved of the burden of his family and childhood. If I hadn’t flipped through pages to choose for the assignment, I do not think I would have looked closely at this small but significant detail.

You can find the link to my essay here

Calculus Visual Notes

September 23, 2019 Lonnie Student Posts

When deciding which notes I was going to choose for this assignment I really only had the choice between calculus and chemistry. I ended up choosing calculus because I knew I could have more fun with the designs. The page of notes I chose was based on continuous functions and I drew pictures of the types of continuous functions in styles that would help me to remember which kinds of functions have continuity. I decided to make the sketch with watercolors as well because I needed an excuse to use them. For trig functions I drew a sketch of a devil with a name tag that reads: sin. It’s cheesy but I like it. For polynomial functions, I have a sketch of a polygamous relationship. The root function sketch is self explanatory, so I won’t even get into it. For inverse functions I thought that having the Spider-Man symbol next to the Venom symbol would be a good example since they are foils of each other. Finally, for rational functions I thought that a quick sketch of President Carter himself would be appropriate considering that one particular line in his speech.

Flower Pick

September 16, 2019 Lonnie Student Posts

For this Sunday Sketch, it took me a while to decided what item in my dorm I would use for the sketch. I took a break from looking around the room and played guitar for a bit and then it hit me: I should use my guitar pick as the basis of the drawing. I looked hard at the pick and tried to think of something to make it a part of. I contemplated making it a part of the body of a guitar but I thought that it would be too close to what it actually represents. My next thought went towards something nature related and a flower was the first thing that came to mind. Considering the shape of the pick, I thought that making the pick a petal would be a cool idea so I worked with it.

Trying to decide between so many different objects was interesting because although I had many different choices to work with, none of them seemed to bring forth any ideas. After taking my mind away from the assignment for a few minutes gave me the perfect idea.

Flower Pick

September 16, 2019 Lonnie Student Posts

Reflection of Literacy Narrative

September 11, 2019 Lonnie Student Posts

Writing the parts of my literacy narrative about my time in middle and high school was fun because it reminded me of many good times. I never really sat around and thought about how my perception of reading and writing has changed throughout the years, but this narrative and the prerequisite free writings helped me see that. The freewriting brought up memories that I had almost completely forgotten about like that reading competition in second grade. Through writing this I realized more that I want to be remembered. Not just like “Oh, he was in my English class in high school” but remembered by my character or something that I created such as some of writing. I’ve had this conversation with multiple friends before as kind of an existential crisis moment but thinking about it now I think deep down that everyone has a small desire of that sort. After writing this narrative I think that people would think that “Maybe that’s why I could read for hours upon hours, it allowed me to escape after a day of doing schoolwork and playing baseball against my wishes” is the most important sentence. I feel like everyone experiences this kind of escape with an activity they enjoy.

The photo in my post is of my school’s creative writing magazine where I have a poem about that friend mentioned. I stood in front of a room of mostly unfamiliar faces and read it aloud and afterwards the head of this magazine asked me to be in it. That’s probably one of my better writing achievements.

https://lonniereid.wordpress.com/literacy-narrative/

My Avatar

September 9, 2019 Lonnie Student Posts

My avatar is a picture a decided to draw tonight. I’ve been playing a game called Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice for the past couple of months and decided to take some inspiration from it. One of the main characters uses a sword for a brief portion of the game, but unlike others, she uses the weapon only as a form of defense than to harm others. For me it sounds like a “do no harm, but take no s#%t” mentality and that’s how I like to live my life.

I kept most of the image in black and white because when I typically make art, a monochrome theme is easier for me to work with. I added in blue and red as they are my favorite colors and add almost a yin-yang effect to the image. The blue is centered in the image on the hand to make it look like I’m focusing my chi (Avatar reference) and the the red is centered on the design from Slipknot which is a band I just saw live. I’m also wearing a hoodie because I always have one on when the weather gets colder.

The tag on the sword reads “Big stick” in homage to the Teddy Roosevelt quote. I feel that there is a time and place to take action and a time to sit back and let the course fo action play out.