Nosferatu
Author: Josie
Literacy Narrative Pt. 3
Link to Literacy Narrative Pt. 3: https://spacecowboyjosie.wordpress.com/literacy-narrative-pt-3/
This literacy narrative project has made me use multiple modes and methods of expressing myself. Using the visual comic was a really helpful way of making my narrative more cohesive and giving me ideas on how to push and pull the timing on the narrative (where to focus and spend more time, where to spend less time on). I also learned to be able to take inspiration from, not only my memories, but advice and past readings, such as Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue.”
Returning to the alphabetic literacy narrative felt like returning to “home” in a way. I feel more comfortable writing alphabetically as I feel like it gives me more space to be detailed as I want to be. Working in the visual narrative is interesting and something I want to continue doing, but I haven’t found exactly what I want to do with it yet.
I have always seen my Literacy Narrative in a visual way, so it was frustrating when I couldn’t reflect the entirety of what I saw in my brain on a paper, but it forced me to be more realistic about what is important in the story.
CHEFFIN’ IT UP
The rhetorical situation for my mix is “making pancakes in the Complex kitchen at 5 AM.” My roommate and I have done a lot in the kitchen of complex, from making quesadillas and pancakes to baking a whole birthday cake. I decided on a mood shift I wanted to create that follows how Carolina and my mornings go.
We usually chef it up in the morning, so I started with some light-hearted, cooking-inspired music (Le Festin from Ratatouille and Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast by Pink Floyd), followed by some silly dancing music. There is an instrumental interlude (Everything Happens To Me – Live by Joe Pass) for enjoying our food, then some more thoughtful, introspective music for when we talk about our plans for the day or what our week has been like so far. My mix conveys the feelings/moods/behavior I go through while cooking at 5 AM–still half asleep, maybe a little out-of-it, but having fun.
Mind of a Creator
For the data viz charts, I tracked my overall stress level out of 10 for the day, my top 5 music artists for the day, and what I was reading that day. Overall, I wanted to see the correlation between what I consumed creatively compared to my stress levels.
I noticed that certain genres of music correlated to my stress levels of the day. I was listening to a lot of Kendrick Lamar and Jasiah leading up to my chemistry midterm. It made sense that I listened to Rachmaninoff, Berlioz, and Shostakovich leading up to my orchestra concert on 10/29/2023 as we played Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances, Berlioz’s Roman Carnival Overture, and Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1.
For reading, the most notable difference was that the days I was less stressed, I read my current (re)read, ‘The Master and Margarita’ by Mikhail Bulgakov. As it got closer to the concert date, my stress levels increased as well as the percentage of my time spent reading music. I really like the graphs, mainly because of the pretty colors and how organized everything looks.
The peaks in stress were definitely associated with major events that I had going on in the past two weeks, so that was interesting to see. I would keep doing what I am doing if I continued to do this project but maybe make the excel sheet a bit more streamlined, so I didn’t have to keep creating new series and data points. I really like working with excel spreadsheets, and I didn’t realize that it could be so useful in self-analysis as well.
Literacy Narrative Reflection Pt. 2
Turning the literacy narrative into a comic really made me question how much the reader could deduce from images. I did not want to have to explain everything and write out everything but am worried that I overestimated the reader’s ability to understand what I am trying to say just through images.
Once the visual component was added, I reconsidered what the dialogue of the literacy narrative should follow. It was really difficult to reflect the writing style of my literacy narrative in the comic because it was already very jumbled and eclectic, so trying to maintain that tone in the literacy narrative was difficult.
Color became a lot more important in the final comic because I really considered what using red pen and warm colors meant compared to blue, cool-toned colors. My mom used to never let me use red pen to write my name or wear red, so I have always associated the color red with negative emotions and judgement.
I appreciated the alphabetic literacy narrative a lot more because my familiarity with writing alphabetically allows me to control my pacing and point-of-view a lot more. I think I could better express my thoughts and feelings through words, but with practice, I could see a comic becoming a really unique way to express my thoughts.
If I had a lot more time and resources, I would have loved to make a digital product of this comic. I think if I had the skills to draw humans, I would definitely do that because it would make the piece a lot more expressive. This was definitely part of the reason why I liked my alphabetical literacy narrative more; I felt like I was better able to describe and express details that I did not really have the skills to draw or articulate in the comics.
My favorite part of the comic was also probably the most unnecessary one. I really liked the random jump to the Raising Cane’s drive-through because it was just fun to draw and think about. If I had more resources, skills, and time, I definitely would have made this longer, so the Raising Cane’s scene felt more like a brief pause rather than four panels of talking about chicken.
I knew I wanted to change the conclusion of the first literacy narrative, and I thought the Amy Tan block quite was a better way to do it. When I was writing the literacy narrative, I wanted to sum up my identity as a writer in the final paragraph, but I really didn’t think that was necessary in the comic. I just thought the Amy Tan quote would be a better conclusion for it.
And the bears? I just really cannot draw human faces, so bears seemed like the next best thing. If I had more time, I think I would play around with the facial expressions of the bears and making them more distinct, like with colors or clothing.
Tracing Stitches and SPinning Reflection
The autobiographical nature of Spinning and Stitches requires an emphasis on the physical body of David Small and Tillie Walden, but they differ in how they emphasize, either through maximalizing or minimalizing their art. With context, the emotional tension is built through a question: What will happen next? The process of writing this essay was really interesting for me. I focused a lot on the mediums that the graphic novelists seemed to use, whether it was ink or watercolor, since I was using pencil. Trying to replicate David Small’s linework was a lot more difficult because there is very precise but jagged linework. I think I focused a lot more on what took time, which allowed me to discover the idea of maximalizing and minimalizing in the panels.
The ABT structure was really confusing for me. I ended up just writing an introduction then cutting it out at the end.
This assignment was really fun for me as someone who has never really gotten into comics before. I thought I gained a lot of insight into the artistry of it and how the different styles of art allow the graphic novelists to best express their emotions. The single biggest insight I gained was the interwovenness of the art and writing in comics and how it truly couldn’t be separated. Even the lack of words in a panel says something.
An Unexpected hero
For me, making a quadriptych was more fun than the triptych. I got to plat around more with the story I wanted to tell, and I could have a mini “plot-twist” that built up to a resolution. Having two panels for the middle gave me more time to explain the “twist” rather than just having the reversal itself. I have been doodling a lot recently out of boredom from being sick, since looking at my laptop gave me a huge headache, so I drew some simple art with a pen for this piece.
Coffee Shop Stop
Buying coffee with my credit card single-handedly destroyed my budget. So every time I could scrape together some cash and coins, I would grab my five-dollar bill, a couple of quarters, nickels, and pennies and a bag and buy myself a Panera Iced Madagascar Vanilla Latte. I would then sit down and open up my bag and scribble or read.
- The Bag: I despise tote bags. They are big, bulky and so unorganized. This bag is medium-sized with lots of pockets. I got this bag from my aunt in Korea. It is made of entirely recycled truck tarp and old seatbelts.
- I keep two journals, one with lined paper and the other with loose-leaf paper for both writing and drawing.
- Post-it notes.
- A couple pens.
- Hair tie and hairclip.
- Mints. I hate mouthfeel after I eat.
- Airpods.
- My favorite book, The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov.
I tried to think about what I would grab if I had five minutes to get out the door to study at a coffee shop and which bag I would get. It was very easy, since all the stuff I grabbed was what I usually brought anyways. Everything I chose was in the same place because I had put it in my bag so many times. I was pretty realistic about my decisions because I usually go to Panera to read, write, or draw.
The most challenging aspect of this sketch was the design. I still don’t love the color arrangement, but I think the book really tied it together. Representing myself in a catalog of the stuff in my bag doesn’t feel like writing to me. It definitely says something about me in a visual way, but I think writing has more to do with words and potentially photos but not just photos.
Triptych
GALveston 2023 was a senior trip I took with my friends this summer. With camera in tow, there were a lot of funny and cool pictures we took. However, the most memorable moment of the trip was being chased by seagulls when we got hamburgers, which ended, well, with me without my In-N-Out burger.
Making the triptych was one of the harder Sunday Sketches. It was different from a lot of everything we have done because I had to pay attention to text and image and how they were connected. I knew what I wanted to do and how I wanted it to end, but choosing the pictures for the first two panels was difficult. I thought that building a pattern for the first two panels then reversing it for the third panel would be interesting. I was inspired by the webcomic, A Softer World, since the photos had a very edited, dream-like quality while the text was ironic and dark.
I do not think my triptych is that funny, but it was still fun to make.
Galveston, Texas
Taken by Josie Sim
