Kristin Becker's DTC Classes at WSU

On the first day in the CDSC I was not completely prepared with the right kinds of materials to scan. I brought a few drawings that I had doodled the night before, but nothing three dimensional. After seeing some of the items the class brought in it gave me some inspiration for the next class. I then brought some texture pallets, a shirt, and some bracelets to scan for my digital collage. I want my collage to be rustic and use items that can be related so I’m trying to culminate the right materials for that.

The materials I brought to the CDC were mostly flat and didn’t have much texture to them. But I did bring a hand embroiled pencil pouch in and decided to use that for one of my first scans. I decided on that because I believed it to be one of the more interesting items I had. It also had a wider color variety. I thought it would be interesting because the scan shows the intricate weaving pattern in the pouch. I think it will be interesting to use because it has these flower details that I can use to create an interesting border around my comic. I also thought of using the birds as a possible central figure throughout out my comic.

The second item I scanned was a playing card. I thought the ripped/ torn texture was recalling interesting. The scan really emphasized the texture in this unique and cool way. I have not exactly thought of how I would use it in my comic, or if I will use it in my comic, but I just found the texture to be fascinating. I also liked how the torn parts looked layered on top of the playing card almost creating this 3D or collage looking effect.

Other items that I would want to scan is maybe things that have either more of a softer or rougher texture to add more variety. I also want to practice scanning items that are not necessarily flat. I would also like to scan real flowers and possibly leaves to contrast the embroidered one . I also want to digitize things that cannot be digitized through a scanner. I also want to digitize more of my hand drawings so I can incorporate the different mediums and the different textures of the materials.

For the first day of scanning at the CDSC I bought a silk scarf that I thought the pattern of which would make a nice background. While doing my first scan I forgot to check the resolution and because the scarf I was scanning is fairly large I accidentally took a scan at a very high resolution and it  took about ten minutes to complete. I have already gone back to the CDSC and scanned the rest of my items and having made the mistake of not checking file size once I was very careful to not repeat that mistake. The remaining items that I have scanned are small patterned paintings, pretty stationary, and some wrappers off of food items that have a nice texture,such as foils or translucent cellophane.  I think the variety of textures and design that I am using in my scans will create a very multidimensional digital collage. While not too many of my items are all that sentimental they could definitely be organized into a collage that has large collective meaning. 

While I was thinking of things that I could bring in I had difficulty thinking of things that look good in a collage so I painted a couple designs that would look good in a background but also wanted different textures other than matte painted paper. So the scarf that I scanned already helps in showing a different texture. I also used a valentines day foil candy wrapper that reflects light at interesting angles and is crumpled in a cool pattern. I  used a patterned stationery that has an empty center so if there was text that I wanted to feature there would be a plain place where it could sit without looking overly busy I am unsure if there is text that I would want to use but I wanted to ensure that I left that option open for myself. 

I brought a lot of things to CDSC that day, most of them about the things I remembered for the first time. For example, the first time I came to the United States to give a gift to my family, the first time I came to the United States to buy a novel, the first time to learn English for a notebook. Although these items look simple in appearance, they contain all my memories. However, considering the problem of scanning, next time I might consider bringing some special packaging items, such as my favorite chocolate. Because the patterns are very unique and can be used for my digital comic collage, it will be interesting.

Previous to our visit to the CDSC on Tuesday, I spent an hour going through various newspapers. I chose to go through the newspapers that are offered for free in the dining hall, The New York Times, U.S. Today, and The Daily Evergreen. Knowing I wanted my topic to be about life in college I began looking for words that I thought would fit within these guidelines. I found words like money, university, debt, and sports. I then cut them out and continued on my search through them, this time looking for images. I found images of what looked to be geometry homework, and various types of money. 

I brought in all my items in on Tuesday and laid them out for my classmates to see. After seeing everything my peers brought and reevaluating what I had brought I realized I needed items with a bit more texture to them. On Thursday I brought in a new item to scan, I brought in a piece of college-ruled notebook paper. I took the pristine paper and began to crumple it up, giving it a used feel. I wanted it to look like a notebook page which had been carelessly thrown in a backpack, as papers sometimes do. 

The paper with its’ new texture was ready to be scanned. Before the tutorial on Tuesday, I had never thought about putting a black fabric behind the scan. I quickly realized I needed to have this behind my paper because it was white and was not going to show up very well once it was scanned. Now that I have gone through the scanning process and understand it more, I will be able to scan even more newspaper clippings and my ramen wrapper that I intend to use in my final product. I think having items that are flat, such as my newspaper clippings, and having items with texture, such as my notebook paper and my wrapper, will give my digital comic collage a more realistic and 3D appearance. 

For this project, I brought my favorite scrunchy, a picture of my sister and me, a letter from my dad, and a page out of my favorite adult coloring book. Now that I have had the opportunity to see the objects scanned onto the computer, I want to bring more printed fabric. I really enjoyed the way that the fabric on the scrunchy folded and had texture and I think that the flowery fabric will allow me to take the chunks of flowers right out of the scan. Bringing something like a t-shirt will give me the same look while also having larger items to work with. Since the scrunchy is so small I had to scan it at a very large resolution, therefore, making the file size huge. I think that having a larger piece of fabric with bigger print will allow me to grab more intricate details from the fabric.

The things that I brought in are all objects that I have held onto for a long time because they are important to me. I want to be able to use these objects to explain who I am and what is important to me. I thought about bringing some of the sea glass that I collect from all of the places I have traveled in order to add some depth to my project. I have a lot of things that are flat but still have texture because they have been worn since they are older. I noticed that the scanner can pick up more detail than I thought and so I would also like to bring more letters from my family because I think it is an interesting way to use the skill of cutting parts out of the scan as well as showing what is important in my life. I can also use those words from my family to make new sentences to explain more of the story of who I am.

For the CDSC my first scan was of my gold necklace that holds a coin from 1837. I decided to use this as my first scan because it is not completely flat and I wanted to play with the dimensions and texture that could possibly arise from scanning an item such as this. This item is something I never take off and although texture was a huge attribute that made it become the first scan it also embodies my project as a whole as well. I had other items brought to scan but when looking through the possibilities, the coin seemed the most unconventional, if there happened to be any questions or concerns to bring up this would be the item that would most likely bring forth the most concern and therefore was the first scan also due to having our perfessor there for concerns. Fortunately the scan went without any problems and the image produced, I believe, is really cool.

Now I am aware of the vast variety of items that have the ability to be scanned. I now hope to scan a couple fabric based items such as t-shirts to gain more dynamic and texture related images to bring depth to my project. I would also like to scan plants and a rose if I get the opportunity to show contrast. I believe these items would be interesting and help elicit the emotions that this collage will hopefully bring forth. My project will show the contrast of the emotions and anger felt last semester compared to the feeling of freedom and growth that I have come to embody within this semester. Some of the items I plan to scan I want to play around with in photoshop and see how different textures can be manipulated to produce a different effect than the original form it was scanned in.

When it came to scanning objects, I had a hard time both choosing and finding things. This is because I am not in my hometown and can’t just pull out the items that mean the most to me. With that said, I am fortunate enough to have amazing friends that put together a huge scrapbook for me, before I left, that contained a ton of memories.

However, the first time I came in to scan items, I wasn’t sure what to bring so I just brought items that I found around the room that had some meaning to it. But after seeing how my fellow classmates interpreted the project, I knew what I wanted to bring. And so, the following time we went to scan, I brought items that represented me. I brought a scarf that my 6^th grade girls, of whom I used to counsel, gave me before I left to college and is extremely soft like how sweet I am, according to those girls. I also brought an inspirational quote to help me stay positive, two flat-wooden birds as they are my favorite animal, two fortune cookie type of messages to keep me happy, a couple of cards as I love to play cards, a heart to symbolize how I love to help others, and a wooden letter “S” to represent my name and favorite color. All of these items help to represent my personality, since I have been working towards becoming more positive and each of the items were given to me from different people who mean a lot to me, even though to others they may simply look like meaningless objects.

There are a few items that I wanted to bring but would be difficult to scan. Those are a ceramic apple with the word luck in Lithuania, a posing ceramic cat from my best friend, a Russian nesting doll brought to me by my family and helps represent the layers of history in my family, and an emerald grizzly bear with a fish in its mouth. I tried to scan them, but there was either a glare or I couldn’t hold the object straight enough to get a good image of it.

In the end, I chose the objects that I did for their texture, meaning, and representation for my personality. I hope to effectively represent these items in my college for Project one.