Lines in cartoons

Although I have never actually seen this cartoon character used before, I found it to contain a lot of the lines and things in art that we discussed earlier in the week in class. This cartoon was named “old school graffiti cartoon” illustrated by John Johnson. The first thing my eyes were drawn to when first looking at this drawing was the artist use of gestural quality lines. The artist used very ridged and jaggy lines to create the cartoons hands, ears, hair and head. Almost the entire drawing is a gestural line. By using these types of lines it almost gives the viewer an idea or feel of how this character might feel or act. To me is seems like the cartoon skater is a dare devil or someone that’s angry in some way. The character has no face giving it almost a dark feeling, if I was another cartoon character I would not mess with this skater.

Also in some way this drawing is directional. When first viewing the image my eyes went from the characters left hand all the way up to his head and then back down to his right hand and then down to the skateboard. I suppose in some way this could be considered an representational drawing, the work resembles what we see, we can all tell that this is a person, but in reality this is nothing what a person looks like. The use of lines also for some reason makes me feel that this character is a very good skater; it may not have anything to do with line. It just may be simply because the cartoon looks like he is doing a trick in the air. Even the place many of the lines which are mostly all straight lines even create a face without barley any detail at all. It is amazing what just a simple straight line can be used to create. By drawing with one line I am able to feel emotion and see a real character.

Symbols

It was hard for me to first think of something that really can capture my personality and symbolize me as a person. I have a very laid back easy going personality and wanted to find something that is somewhat like that. As strange as it may sound I finally decided on a surfboard or surfing to symbolize me and my personality. Now surfboards do not necessarily have a particular thing that they represent but I decided to think further into it. In order to ride a surfboard properly you need to have balance and harmony not only with the board but with the waves as well. This is how my life usually, having balance and harmony with all of my relationships is crucial to having good healthy relationships which I currently do with everyone in my life. Surfboards in some way “go with the flow” of things flowing through the water and riding the wave and does a surfer rarely ever encounter a bump in the way while riding the wave. Like I mentioned early I am a very easy going person and do go with the flow of things and never normally cause any type of drama or anything like that. Also it is said that if a person dreams that they are surfing a surfboard represents a person ability to control their emotions and the ups and downs that people encounter in their lives. Some may say it is a bad thing but I never normally get upset I feel that if something is not right or does not go the way that is hoped it would to move on and just keep going, everything does happen for a reason, and if something bad happens something good will fall in place of that. I never let my emotions get the best of me. Finally peace, when a surfer is deck diving underneath the waves in order to get through the ocean to paddle further out there is that moment underwater of pure silence and peace. I do consider myself to be a very peaceful person. So the things that are done will surfing, riding the wave and keep moving forward, balancing to stay on the board, going underwater and having a few seconds away from the real world all in my opinion represent me and how my life is.

Group work (extra credit)

When the group topics were first presented to me I was most excited to work with the issue if depictions in the media. I found this topic to be most interesting because it is something that I have never learned about before so I knew I could stick with this topic for the next few weeks. When finding out who was in my group I was pleased with four out of the five knowing that one may be a social loafer and bring the group down.  First I group went into the storming phase deciding which part of the project we each would work on. At the beginning I felt as though our 4 out of 5 members had great group cohesiveness, but as the project went on one of the members that felt as the initiator of our group was failing to hand in things and show up to class. I found myself later in the role of the initiator and having the project now almost completed I found that I was only fond of two of my group members. I do really truly hate group projects and hope to never do one in the near future.

Penn State and group think

As most people are aware of, Penn State is a very prestigious school that is difficult to get accepted to. Known for the scholarly work but more know for the football team there. For years Penn State has had a very good football team succeeding majority of the time. With having such an excellent team no person wants to be the one to “ruin” such a successful team. When it comes to athletics there are always many people or a group of people involved to make sure things run smoothly and make sure the team is supported and helped out as much as they can. Sometimes groups can help improve team work if they work correctly and are able to get along. However in some cases some groups get conceded thinking that they are inferior to failing, this is called group think. When people think only as a group and less about individual responsibilities that is when things can go wrong. Recently this is exactly what happened at Penn State. Jerry Sandusky the defensive coach at was discovered in the locker room shower late one night by a grad student in the shower with a young boy. The grad student went and told the head coach Joe Paterno along with other people such as the athletic director, and supposedly Graham Spanier the president was told as well. Astonishingly all of these people said nothing to help this poor child. This group of people knew how successful they were winning two championships in row so instead of one of the individuals doing the correct thing and informing people about this issue they thought as a group and did not want to see the group fail even for such a disturbing issue. Group think 99% of the time ends in failure. If one of the members of the football teams group said something, they would have been in a better place then they currently are, know having lost many members of the football team, this because of group think.

Meeting a new friend

I love meeting new people it is one of my favorite things to do, part of the reason is well, I love to talk but I love knowing peoples stories because everyone is so different and I believe every person has a good quality in them no matter how they appear. When meeting someone a person normally judges them with in the first 30 seconds of meeting someone. That is a very short time to get a person to “know” you. So that is why when beginning a relationship with someone and meeting them for the first time instead of judging them immediately when you see them, try and focus on nonverbal communication and their gestures, or maybe get another chance to know them. It was hard for me to decide on whom I should approach for this assignment. I have a very diverse looking group of friends so there was no particular person I could find that I felt strange approaching. Recently I was at my younger cousin’s volleyball team and there was this kind looking women sitting next to me. So I decided to find out if this kind looking women was as kind as she appeared. I sat down next to her and began with small comments about the game here and there, I did not want to overwhelm her, and this is the initiating part of relationship development. Her name is Amanda and she is an accountant teacher at a high school and has one son and a daughter. Then I noticed a shirt she was wearing that said Randolph Rams on it, which was my viral school in high school. That made it much easier to strike up conversation with this woman now. I questioned her on her shirt wondering if she lived there or knew someone. Once I asked that I suppose that would be the experimenting part of relationship development because I wanted to see if we had anything in common. I actually found out that I know her daughter Katy and we played basketball against one another. After that it was easy to keep the conversation going because we had basketball in common. I suppose the stages might have skipped a few because I would consider this a bonding stage, it was an hour long game there was plenty of time to talk. I really enjoyed meeting Amanda the nice looking women that was just as sweet as she looked.

dyadic communication

Defining communication is something that is nearly impossible to do. In class we learned what dyadic communication consists of, and how to have a positive relationship with other people. They’re many things that people need to do in order to have a positive relationship. Communication can be one of the most important part of any relationship. It can help keep a relationship on a good level while at the same time it can cause fights. The question we the class was asked to answer is there any part of a dyadic relationship that is not communication? I am not entirely sure, I believe that almost everything is communication but I suppose when it comes to an intimate relationship it goes a lot deeper then just that. Maybe just knowing a person so well and knowing how they feel in a certain situation without having them say anything or even use any non-verbal’s can go along with dyadic relationship being non communication. When one person knows a person so much it is easy to read that without them even saying one thing. It is hard however to specifically answer this question, I suppose it is more of a personal opinion. It just depends what is considered to be communication and what is not.

interpersonal communication

Interpersonal communication is one of the most commonly used forms of communication. Interpersonal communication involves the face-to-face communication between two or more people. Interpersonal communication is direct, personal, immediate, spontaneous, and informal. When it comes to interpersonal communication this way of communicating is usually done between friends or family members and romantic partners. However interpersonal communication can be used in other ways and with other people as well. Theories of interpersonal communication include dialectics, face needs (positive, and negative), Knapp’s development theory, and filtering. Interpersonal is verbal and non-verbal communication, and is almost impossible to avoid when communication with other people.  With the theory of dialect there are three parts that go along with this. Expressive-protective dialect, which is choosing whether or not to express personal feelings and thoughts with another person. Autonomy-togetherness, which is when two people decided how much togetherness and closeness they should have with one another. Lastly novelty-predictability, this is when I couple falls into a routine of pattern from spending a lot of time with each other. An example of this is from the movie Sex and the City 2.  Carrie and Big have been married for sometime now and decided to take one day away from each other to have their alone time, so Carrie came to the conclusion to keep her apart that she had when she was single to get away for that time they need apart. This would go along with Autonomy-togetherness dialect.

I could not find the part in the movie I was speaking about I could only get the trailer which did not fully show and explain exactly what i was talking about. There is only i small part where Carrie says something about her and big needing time apart. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5-aOpznm44