This week, while it wasn’t boot camp, was still a lot of work.  I made so many blog post!  You should go look at them.

This one is about what storytelling is.  At first I just thought of books and verbal memories.  Then as I thought more and more I realized songs, picture, art, videos, movies, and so much more are also stories.  My expanded notion of story telling seemed to go along with that of digital storytelling as well.  There is not necessarily a wrong or wrong way or better or worse way to tell a story.  I think it depends on the person telling it and the content they are trying to get across   Also every story, especially those of art and music, may have a specific story in mind, but they are also able to generate stories in those people looking at them and listening to them.  I

I personally favor stories in the mediums of literature, oral, and picture.  As I went through this week and look at stories as well as other people’s ideas on what a story is, I have come to the conclusion that people and the world around me provoke stories in me as well as me provoking in them.  I have done art work my entire life and I have just recently begun to understand that my pieces could mean something others as well as tell my stories.

Another blog post from this week was about the shape of a story.  I enjoyed listening to and implementing Kurt Vonnegut’s thoughts on stories having shape.  It makes sense because stories go through a series of changes both positive and negative.  Tension, changes, problems, and events all shape a story both literally and metaphorically.  I have always thought this so it was nice seeing it laid out and explained.

I chose to show the arc of one of my favorite children’s books Tiki Tiki Tembo and the digital story I found HERE.

The book starts at a good level and then goes down when the 2nd born son falls into the well.  When are gets out it goes almost back to normal, but then the 1st born son falls into the well which is worse when his mother finds out so the arc plummets   Once he gets out of the well the shape rises and levels off :

The one I found online starts lower because of confusion, then dips down because of the action taken which comes across as being bad.  Trying for a new life rises the arc until it levels off in confusion again, but not as bad as before:

It was fun looking at other student’s work.  After looking though the sites I settled on two to blog about.  One of the digital stories I chose is a photograph and the other is a cooking show video.  Both of these are examples of digital stories.  The photograph helped to explain the idea that a picture can capture a story as well as create others and bring up old ones.  The digital story video literally walked the viewer through a step by step way to make chicken pasta.  Within the greater story of the meal there were smaller ones on specific ways to cook as well as a look into the relationship between the two people in the video.  Both of these helped me to further understand what a digital story is.

I used this knew found knowledge and examples to create my own digital story using random pictures.  I call it HAPPY BIRTHDAY UNITED STATES.  This activity was kind of difficult because the random pictures were just that, random.  It was hard to make up a story with the choices I was given.  I kept thinking it may be easier to take my own picture to make my own story, but I wanted to challenge myself.  I went with an unrealistic and fun story.  I think it turned out well and hopefully you like it!

I used my new found ideas on storytelling and digital stories while I was doing my Daily Creates this week.  These are my favorite part of DS106 so far.  I look forward to seeing what the new one is each day.  The first one was about a fear I have, people dressed in costumes.

I have many other fears such as failure, having the people I love die, and corn stalks, I chose to go with costumed people (mainly the mascot type).

The next one I did was math in the world.  My first thought was to take a picture of my sister doing work or at work because she is a math major.  But like my art teacher says, “Your first idea is trash, people already thought of that one too.  You have to dig deeper into your creativity.”  So I went we a delicious cupcake made into math because there was only one cupcake, but 3 mouths that wanted to eat it!

Finally I made a picture of broken.  This one was much harder for me.   My granddad past away this past Christmas day and it has been very hard on me.  I am having a hard time grieving and moving on with my life.  I miss him so much.  I feel like I am broken.

A huge part of this week was interacting with other students in the class and commenting on their blog posts and twitter.  As I was looking through my group mates’ blogs I noticed a variety of differences from my own blog.  I liked how Fairuz was about to take specific parts from a webpage and manipulate them.  For example: I asked her how she did this and she told me, so now I can try it out myself.  Fairuz is also the only person in my group who has commented on my blog.  I even used her tips to show you!

Watkins seems to know a lot about embedding and using programs on the computer.  Another thing I thought was neat was that he acted on my question about his site and made changes because of it.

2 Responses to “About the Artist”

1. 

   Owl Be Reading says:

   January 30, 2013 at 4:07 pm

   From the look of your most current post, you seem to know a lot about embedding and using the internet. This probably comes from your background in studio art. I would be interested in seeing your art along with that of youtube. I am having a hard time figuring out how to comment on your actual post as well as navigating through your site. Maybe you could help me with this…

   • 

     Watkins says:

     February 1, 2013 at 4:01 am

     There’s not much to navigate at this point. I have this About page, a Cagegory “vermicomposting” of old posts, and the front page which has my YouTube playlist and most recent blog post. On the blog posts there is a small button at the bottom that says “# Responses->”. I’ll see about making that easier to notice. Before this class, I didn’t use the internet so much as look at it. But I have indeed applied the investigative training of my major to learning and appliying effective methods of design and creation. I’m glad it is evident.

     Lara and I have been talking back and forth about what we consider a story and more specifically a musical one.

Dylan has a great lay out that is easy to follow and flows nicely.  It is simple and fun.

I am looking forward to communicating with my group.  We can bounce ideas off each other and give one another constructive criticism.  We can also let each other know what we are doing well.

We have also been talking about ds106 and random life things on twitter.  For example:

@caseyragg Oh! My roommates a psych major so we were playing with them! They’re so cute!

— Lara Hampson (@l_hampson23) February 1, 2013

and…

@caseyragg Vinegar in the eye burns even more!I don’t like all the artificial ingredients in commercial shampoos.

— &Dragon (@ampersanddragon) February 3, 2013

Week three has been more fun than the previous two weeks.  I am getting more and more comfortable with my domain and all the accounts I had to set up.  I know longer have to go to the ds106 handbook for everything.  I was able to do things more personal to me and be more creative with my assignment.  It has been less set up and more using. I really enjoyed making the video on Tiki Tiki Tembo to demonstrate the idea of a story having a shape.  Not only did I use different programs on my computer and was able to put them together, but I had a blast doing it.

SEE YOU NEXT WEEK!