Kristin Becker's DTC Classes at WSU

For our first day of scanning at the CDSC, I brought a plastic bag I got in Paris, a hair tie, and the top part of my AirPosds case. I thought that all of these items had unique textures and qualities to them. The plastic bag was decretive and shiny, the hair tie was solid and firm, and the Airpods case was squishy and bumpy from the design that it has.

After learning more about scanning and resolution, I decided to try and scan fabric and a candy wrapper. I chose the fabric because it has a larger surface area and I wanted to see how well I could get the texture from the physical item to show up in the virtual photo. It would be interesting to use fabric in my digital comic collage because it has a lot of different textures in it. Moreover, I chose the candy wrapper because it is shiny and is a much smaller size than the fabric. I want to see how much of the shiny part of the wrapper would transfer over into a virtual photo.

Red and Black Flannel Photo Created by: Grace Kannberg September 11, 2019

When I chose to scan the fabric from my dark flannel, I was curious as to how the color and texture would turn up on the computer. In class, we scanned white fabric with pineapples on it and it showed up bright and the shadows were very dark. After scanning the flannel, I was surprised at how bright the red came up against the black and that you could see the small fuzzes from the material the fabric was made out of. Also, I scanned it a few different ways until I got the right crunched up, cozy effect, I wanted.

Halloween RiceKrispies Treats Candy Wrapper Photo taken by: Grace Kannbger September 11, 2019

When scanning the candy wrapper, the light playing off the packaging made me want to scan more items with the same reflective surface. I think that it would make things around it pop out. You can see the glare from the scan as well as the texture it held from where I opened it. The flattened made it look more characteristic and showed detention from the fold it created. Overall, I was pleased with the virtual photo and want to play with this more in the future.

The scan of my stickers I took at the CDSC.

When we went to the CDSC for our class last week, I brought two stickers from a brewery I’ve been to in Spokane. I ended up not having time in class to scan my objects, so I decided to wait until Monday of this week to scan them. Now that I had my stickers scanned, I found that I wanted something with more detail than just a printing on vinyl paper.

I attempted to return to the CDSC to scan my Zine that I created, but I was unable to do that since the CDSC is booked solid until Friday morning. I have a printer/scanner combo here at the apartment where I live, but it doesn’t work very well compared to those available in the CDSC. I’ve included my scan of my zine, but I would like to return to campus later in the week to scan it again, this time with more detail.

The scan of my Zine from home.

I believe the texture of my hand-colored Zine will give more interesting details to look at in my collage once it’s scanned, but I also want to find something that has more going on in the subject than just a plain piece of paper with some color pencil on it. I’m not sure exactly what that will be yet, but I intend to look around my apartment and campus tomorrow for interesting materials that will work well in it!

Scanned by Joseph Alonso, September 2019

The first image is of a piece of duct tape.  I would want to use this image as a texture to convey a makeshift feel, possibly alongside a wooden or metal texture as I have always had an appreciation for anything that people just cobble together.  One of my favorite things about the Dead Rising series of games after the first one is the combo weapons.  They were usually just two things duct-taped together, such as the paddlesaw which is two chainsaws duct-taped to the ends of an oar.  Another example of things just being held together by duct tape that I liked was in the icanhascheezburger website, under “There I Fixed It.”  People would post some DIY replacements or repair jobs for things like instead of someone using a laptop fan pad, they would duct-tape a desk fan underneath their laptop.  Sometimes I look at these “repairs” and think it funny just how they reasonably should not work, yet do.

Scanned by Joseph Alonso, September 2019

The second image is of the chain on a Chain Chomp plushie.  I would use this in my comic collage for either the oxymoronic existence of a fluffy chain or for what the chain is attached to.  I am a big fan of video games, and one of my favorite Mario characters is the chain chomp due to their dog-like behavior.  The first time they have been playable was in Mario Tennis Aces which had me wondering why they haven’t been playable sooner.  There was a time where one was conceptualized as a Paper Mario partner, but the concept was scrapped.  The Chain Chomp plushie was a Christmas gift that I have kept with me for about a year now.  I like to keep it by my desk lamp and pretend that that is where it’s chained to.  Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to own a Chain Chomp as a pet.  Then again, upkeep could be a nightmare considering that its a sentient iron ball that will bite anything that moves.

The material that I brought to the CDSC for our first scanning was my sketchbook. However, instead of using just by sketchbook to use for my scanning, I was going to use my drawings that I’ve drawn for the past month. It was kind of last minute, however I wanted to show my growth as an artist and show what I can do as of now with my drawings for my first project. I decided not to do this because I did something similar to this in my COM 210 class last semester and I wanted to think of something more unique.

Scanned photo of my Naruto Wallet 

Even though I do not know what materials I want to include for my Digital Collage, I do have a good idea of what theme I want to do for my collage. The object that I scanned for this project was my wallet. The theme of my wallet is so far my favorite anime and besides the show, The Boondocks, it inspires my art designs. It came out very clean with good quality but I wasn’t able to using the document tables and I had to use the glossy settings instead so I’m pretty sure it could’ve been better quality than it was.

Some other objects I could use for my collage is my Naruto pajama pants and scan them for the designs. I could also scan some of my Naruto drawings and maybe use other projects I’ve done related to my favorite anime show.

For the first scanning day I brought a book called “The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne, a piece of blue fabric, a white mesh bag, and a pink piece of silicone. I’m thinking for my final collage I want to have a lot of different textures within the piece with probably quite a bit of different sayings or drawings from books and old papers I have lying around.

Excerpt from “The Secret” page 16 by Rhonda Byrne

Having a lot of texture within a collage is what makes it interesting to me as a viewer, and I want to try to recreate this within my design. Having something to look at and being able to actually visualize it in more way than one way is key to a good design. I also think scanning different sayings and quotes from books will help add another aspect of connectedness between me and my viewers. The following is a quote from “The Secret” that I particularly liked and thought it might fit well into this project for the digital collage.

For my second scan I chose a fabric that I might not particularly use within the final project, but wanted to just test out how a piece of flat fabric compared to scrunched up fabric might look on the scanner. I liked how the design was clearly shown and how you can clearly see the texture. However, for my final project I think using a textured fabric scrunched up might give it a better flow with the design layout I have thought up.

Piece of cheetah print fabric

As you can see, the fabric is interesting for the viewer, but just might not flow well with different quotes from the book I’ve chosen. I might do a plain fabric with no design but with a lot of interesting textures and find a way to layer it well in Photoshop.

I took this scan of college rule notebook paper.

Last week, I brought a piece of notebook paper and a pack of gum to scan in the CDSC.  These sound like pretty random items but I am thinking about doing my collage comic from the perspective of a college student.  Now that I know more about scanning and resolution, I am definitely considering bringing different types of packaging to show the college experience through different food items as well as more traditional school gear like textbooks, a CougarCard (if it will scan well), a notebook, etc.  Alongside those items, I want to digitize items such as Advil boxes, the average football temporary tattoos, and packaging from alcoholic beverages.

I took this scan of a pack of Extra gum.

As of now, I am wanting to create a comic that compares and contrasts the weekdays and the weekends for the widely accepted stereotypical college student.  I think it will be an interesting project because college students are always told, from my experience, to learn the balance between getting good grades and maintaining a solid social life which I hope to portray. I am planning on splitting the page in half and having half of the page be referencing the school work on weekdays and the extracurriculars on the opposite.  To create contrast, I hope to make my weekday side much brighter to display the day time, while having a dark background for the weekend side to symbolize the night.  I am going to make the weekday side more uniform and organized to display the routine of an average school week, however, on the weekend side, I want to make things more hectic and exciting, including aspects of going out to football games/tailgating and partying as well.  I believe the contrast in these items will make for a very intriguing comic.

A scan of my cheetah print skirt that my mom picked out for me!

I am really excited for the freedom we get in this project. I think the concept of bringing physical items you would never think of digitally leaves lots of space for creativity, and I think there are a lot of different directions I could take my project in.

I brought in three items on our first day of scanning. I brought in a cheetah print skirt that my mom picked out for me, a birthday card that my family all signed for my 21st, and then little rose quartz stones that my aunt gave to me. I brought in items that connect me to my family and everything that they have done for me. I think I want to bring in more written things, such as cards or messages. I also want to bring in more things that my family has given me that hold a special meaning to me. I also want to go through some magazines and see if there is anything that sticks out to me with cool patterns or is visually appealing.

Scanning itself wasn’t too hard for me, but my quartz stones have to be photographed and not scanned, so that added an extra challenge. I hope that my camera quality is good enough.

I want my final collage to look cohesive but not uniform. I want it to look pink and girly, but also bring in edgy elements. I think that I need to look through all of my items together once they are scanned and then be able to properly arrange them in a way that is aesthetically pleasing to me. I am working really hard on finishing the Photoshop tutorials so that I can utilize all the tools and skills on this project and it can reflect all the hard work that I have put in.