It is when people say to cherish every moment with your child, because they grow up so quickly. My sweet little Mason, is now my sweet big Mason. Watching him grow these past (almost) two months has been nothing but amazing.
This class has been so much fun; and was by far the most enjoyable class I had this semester. My knowledge about digital media has expanded a lot over this entire course. I learned multiple new online digital media websites to create my own works of art that I am sure to use some of them again. Some of the websites I plan on using after this class is Pixlr Express, Flame, and Tagxedo. Pixlr Express was very easy to use and I loved the fact that it was completely free, yet still had several editing options. Flame was just very neat and I enjoyed playing around with it; would love to take more time on the website and really learn how to use all the features. Finally, Tagxedo was also one of my favorites. I am a huge fan of word art and 'word clouds'. Some day I would like to create one and have it printed and framed for my sons room. Something I improved on was my knowledge about creating and putting and video together on Windows Movie Maker and adding my own music to it. I found it rather enjoyable and was happy with the outcome of the video mashup I made. It was also really neat to learn because my brother makes and creates a ton of video/movies at BGSU... so it was neat to see part of what he does to create those films. As far as my future career goals, I have not yet determined what I want to do with my communications degree; but I am sure several of these assignments will be great to know how to do and they all really helped expand my knowledge on how to create pieces of art and how to make them appealing to the eyes. Overall, I really enjoyed this class and kind of getting to know the students in it. I hope one of my classes next semester is this much fun.
Wow, where does the time go? I feel as it were just yesterday I was in the delivery room at Defiance Regional Hospital having my son... and today he turned SIX WEEKS old. I am thankful to have been able to cherish every single day with him; and although I want him to stay my little boy forever, it's been amazing to watch him grow so much already. He is already such a smart little boy, and I can not wait to watch his personally begin to show these next few months. I am also very excited for his first real holiday. Thanksgiving is such a great time, and I am so thankful for the family and friends that we will be spending it with. I am excited for family coming home and that they will finally meet him!
Today my son turned 1 month old. I can not put into worlds how fast this past month has flown by. Watching my son grow everyday has been beyond amazing and I am so blessed to have such a special little guy in my life. Because he was a 9lb 6oz baby, everyone tells me how he looks and acts so much longer, but no matter how old he looks and acts, he will always be my little boy.
At one month old Mason loves his swing and also loves to be held. He is very alert and loves to look around a lot. His favorite things to stare at are lights, paintings, and mirrors (or my cellphone camera when taking a selfie, lol). He loves car rides and is a very good baby when we are out in public. He also is a good baby at home. In addition, he is very strong and can hold up and control his own head movements already! He also has a very strong grip, even the doctor agreed. The one thing Mason is not a fan of tummy time, but maybe that will change over time. He only fusses when he is hungry or when he is fighting sleep. God truly did bless us with a very handsome and good baby.
This week for my digital arts class at The University of Toledo we learned all about vector graphics. Our assignment was to use Method Draw to create two different logos for our blog. I have worked with vector graphics before with different software's and have really enjoyed it, but I did not really like Method Draw. I did not like Method Draw that much because it was missing so many editing features that I am use to using. I am use to there being a lot more editing tools to make the graphics cleaner and better. With that being said, I did my best with what I had to work with. The foot logo is not exactly what I had in mind, but they did not have a "flip" tool, only a rotate tool, so I was unable to create exactly what I wanted too. Overall I am pleased with my work though based on the tools given.
These may seem rather basic, but the block was a lot more difficult to create on Method Draw than I thought it would be, and the shape of the foot was a lot more difficult than I though it would be either. Although, I do like the 'basic' look of the two logos I created because they are just enough to catch your eye. ALSO, I would have liked them to have a transparent background, but for some reason was not able to save them from the website, so I have to screenshot them and crop them. Thanks for viewing my blog! Hope you enjoyed my logos.
This week for my Digital Media class at The University of Toledo we are learning and creating images based on TYPOGRAPHY. Typography is the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible. Overall I found typography to be very interesting. With typography, not all images come out the way you would like them to, so it took me awhile to choose the best photo to use for this project.
This image above is of my son and was created on GlassGiant.com. I used an 80 width and kept the font size small. At first I was not sure if people would be able to see what this image was, but after asking a few friends, they could immediately see it was a face and figured out that it was Mason (because why would I use anyone else's face for my projects when I have this adorable little boy).
The three images above of my son were created using Text-Image.com. Text-Image is an easy to use ASCII generator with a few different editing options. The first image is an ASCII converted photo and I chose to keep the background white, but changed the font color of the text to blue. I really like how the blue turned out with the white background. The second image is a HTML converted photo. It is hard to see (unless you click on the photo an make it bigger), but I chose normal font and used MASON as the text sequentially throughout the entire photo. This was probably my favorite photo from this portion of the assignment. Last, but not least, the third image is a Matrix converted photo. There were not many editing options for this conversion, but I chose to add extra contrast so you could see Mason's face a little better.
This image I created using Tagxedo.com. On this website they had lots of great examples that expanded my mind on all the different ways you could create word clouds. Word clouds are visual representations of text which may include additional imagery. For the image I created, I based it around all the love I have for my little family. This was my overall favorite website to use and I love the outcome of this project! Tagxedo.com was very easy to use and had a lot of great editing options. It was really hard to chose a font and color theme because I loved them all. I would use this website again to create a piece very similar to the image above to print out on a canvas and hang it in my living room.
These three images above were (in order) created using online typography generators: Textorizer 1, Textorizer 2, and Excoffizer. The first photo I used Textorizer 1, which was used on a picture of Mason laying down wearing his gray and blue jacket. Textorizer 1 takes words of your choosing and throws them onto the picture like confetti. The words I chose for this image were: Mason, baby, love, pride, & joy. I chose those words because they describe the love I have for my son. The second photo I used Textorizer 2. This online typography is really awesome. You can add random words, or you can use a quote. The quote I used for the picture of my boyfriend and son is from the song "It Won't Be Like This for Long" - by Darius Rucker. The quote is, "It won't be like this for long. One day we'll look back laughing at the week we brought him home. This phase is gonna fly by, so baby just hold on." I chose those lyrics, because our son is growing up way to fast already, and time is really flying by. I decided to keep the words a little smaller and closer together to really bring out the colors of the photo in the background, and had the words big enough to read, but not take over the entire picture. The third and final photo was created using Excoffizer. This was a lot different than all of the other websites. This image is based on using wavy lines, and does not use words or phrases. I kept the lines in this picture close so you could see Mason better. I like how skinny the lines are; you really have to focus on the picture to see how wavy the lines really are. I also like how the pitch black areas are completely filled in with solid black; it gives your eyes a couple places to rest.
Until you are a parent, you do not realize how much you can love someone. Yes, I am beyond in love with my boyfriend, but the love I have my son is unexplainable. He is my pride and joy. He and his daddy hold the key to my heart. Mason never fails to put a smile on my face. I might be a little bias, but he is definitely thee most handsome, strongest, funniest baby ever. He's got his mommy's lips and chin; and he's got his daddy's eyes and grumpy face. His grumpy face is absolutely adorable. He's also very strong. He has a very strong grip when he holds someone's finger, he has a lot of neck strength already and can hold his head up by himself pretty good, he also can lay on his daddy's tummy and use his legs to inch-worm up his daddy's tummy all the way to his daddy's head, and he can also roll over onto his side very easily. It amazes me, and others, how strong and alert of a baby he is. He also has many funny things he likes to do. Mason loves to pee when his diaper is off... The first time he peed all over his bassinet we just thought our timing was unlucky; but that does not seem to be the case. I am not joking when I say he pees 75% of the times we change his diaper. We can not help but laugh about it though, because it is absolutely hilarious and there's really nothing we can do about it, haha. He also learned how to pull on mommy's hair yesterday. I think that is just so cute and hilarious. On another note, I am beyond amazed how amazing of a father Corey is to our son. I mean, I knew he was going to be an amazing father, but actually seeing it, melts my heart into a million pieces. When he comes home from work the first thing he does is give Mason a million kisses. He also loves taking him for strolls around the block, and telling him about all the fun things he's going to teach Mason when he gets older. I love these two men with all of my heart and can not wait to see where our life takes us together.
This week for my Digital Art class at The University of Toledo we used three different online applications to create our own unique artwork.
Scribbler: Scribbler was the first online website I used. I found scribbler very easy to use when drawling the original picture, but found it frustrating that you could not save the image along the way; actually you aren't able to save it at all. I was surprised the only way you could 'save' your final image was by taking a screenshot our your computer screen. That just takes more time; time that I do not really have with a newborn. Overall I liked scribbler because it was not to complex. I choose to create the image of a bunch of flowers and a cat. I choose to keep them both black scribbles because I thought it really helped the picture pop. I took me several different times to get a final result that I liked. Overall I am pleased with my final outcomes and enjoyed this very simple to use website.
Scribbler Too: The next online website I used it called Scribbler Too. It is an advanced version of of the scribbler website I wrote about above. I love how they added the 'save' feature to this website. It makes it very easy to save your image along the way. Also another great update to this Scribbler Too is that it offers the ability to upload a photo and draw/scribble over it. That feature is awesome and allowed me to create such awesome images. Another thing I like about Scribbler Too was the wider variety of brush tools. With more options of brush tools, it allows everyone to use and create a lot of different scribbled effects. I choose the use a picture of a butterfly and a flower for my first photo. I used various amounts of fuzziness and diameters to create a fuzzy effect over the butterfly only. I think that really makes the photo pop, rather than have scribbling the entire photo. The second photo I chose to recreate is my rocket ID photo of myself. I was unsure of how successful this would turn out, but I think overall it turned out great! You can really see the volume in this photo and it kind of actually looks like me.
Flame: Flame is the third online website we used for this weeks assignment. Flame is a lot different than the first two websites we used above. Flame is an online site where you basically drawl with fire. I found this site to be a lot of fun to play around with and it was definitely my favorite site of the three. I created two images that reflect all of the love I have for my son. The first picture is of a heart, representing the one of a kind love I have for my son. For this image I used various brush sizes and blue/green gradients. I also varied the amount of 'noise' in the strokes. The second picture is of my sons name, Mason. This image took me awhile to perfect, and this is my favorite of all of them that I did with his name. I used a smaller stoke to write his name and a bigger stroke to create the background. I again used blues and greens for this picture because I think they will be his favorite colors (but we'll see about that, lol). For the blue in the background I used a bigger stroke and added more 'noise' to the stroke. Overall, I love the results of these images. They are something special to me because they showcase how much I love my son.
Thanks for stopping by my blog and taking the time to check out my artwork.
I had my son Sunday, October 11th, 2015. Mason Lee Breininger. He came into this world at 5:43pm, weighing in at 9lbs 6oz and 21 1/4 inches long. He is such a bundle of joy and I love him with all my heart. He is such a handsome little man and loves to cuddle. It has been so hard to keep up with a full time school schedule and I am definitely stressed out to the max... but at the end of the day it is all worth it; I wouldn't change a single thing.
For the project this week in my digital arts class at The University
of Toledo we were to take our audio from last week, made on soundations.com,
and make a video smashup. A video smashup is basically taking multiple pre-existing
videos on the internet and cutting bits and pieces of the videos to make one
final project. While completing this project, it was a little difficult at
times, but it was also kind of fun and I really enjoy the outcome of all my hard
work.
The videos I chose to use for my video smashup are mainly
from a website called archive.com. I found archive.com easy to use because you
did not have to sign up to download any of its contents. However, I did find it
a little difficult to find exactly what I wanted at times. I think archive.com
could do a better job categorizing their videos. The only video clips I did not
get from archive.com were the ones of the cat. I got the video of the cat off
of YouTube and was very happy to find out that downloading and saving videos on
YouTube is very easy.
For editing my video mashup I used Windows Movie Maker. As a
class we were first instructed to use a website called FileLab.com, and I do
not recommend this website to anyone. I’m a rather smart girl, and after
literally almost two hours, I gave up on trying to download the stupid thing.
(Well I should that it had downloaded successfully several times, but the
website never opened like it should have.) With that being said, I was happy to
see that Windows Movie Maker was easy to download and really easy to use. When
editing I just added the clips I wanted and placed them accordingly to my
audio. The cat video is the only video I really had to cut and paste. All of
the cat clips are from the same video, so I had to cut out certain sections of
the video to make my smashup. Cutting and “splitting” the video was not hard to
do at all… the only thing that was difficult was trying to time out how much of
each clip I needed.
Overall I feel like I was rather successful making my first
ever video mashup. After getting an editing software to download I had a lot of
fun creating it. The video clips of the cat are my favorite because they are
just so random; but random is good when creating a video mashup. I can’t really
say I would change anything about my project, because I like the outcome of it…
but maybe if I could have taken more time on it, it may have turned out better.
BUT I have a baby coming this week and a full time class schedule, so I’m
trying to complete as much work as I can now so I don’t fall behind.
What another crazy week. Had a baby appointment on Wednesday and found out that I was still not dilated at all... Such a stubborn little boy I have already, lol. So to make sure he was still doing okay they sent me down to the women's center to run tests on him. They hooked my tummy up to a monitor that tracked him heart rate and movement. Although I was a little scared at first because I was all alone, I knew my little man would pass with flying colors; and he did. It is so good to know that end though he is over his due date he is still healthy and doing good. With that being say, I am very tired of being pregnant, and was happy to hear that they are inducing me Sunday night/Monday morning. I am low-key beyond scared, but I know everything will be alright once I have my son in my arms. So I have my fingers cross that my son will finally make his appearance Monday and for it to be an easy and quick delivery. P.S. - My dad has been home from the hospital for about three weeks now and is doing great. Unfortunately he has awhile before he can return back to work, but he has been very nice company. I have been taking care of him a lot, and do not mind doing so because he has done so much for me in the past.
It is absolutely crazy to think that tomorrow will be the first day of October. The month I have been waiting for ALL YEAR. Not only because fall is my favorite season. Not only because I love going to Leaders Family Farm's and getting completely scared in their haunted corn maize, Screamacres. Not only because I love watching the leaves change colors and fall to the ground. BUT because it almost time for my little man to make his appearance. I never thought I could love someone so much, but I do. I am completely in love with this bundle of joy I have been carrying around with me for the past 9 months, and I can not wait to hold him in my arms and spoil him with my love. Although with that being said, he's being a little suborn, just like his daddy, lol. My doctor told me this week that I will likely go over my due date, maybe even as much as a week over my due date. This news was almost overwhelming to me, because I am SO over being pregnant. My baby is completely healthy and ready to go whenever he wants... he just must be really cozy in my tummy.
My latest assignment for my Digital Arts class at the University of Toledo was to create an audio mashup using soundation.com. I found this website very easy to use after watching a few tutorials on youtube. With that being said, I highly enjoyed this assignment and recommend soundation.com to anyone who is interested in learning how to make background music and/or DJ'ing type music. I found this assignment especially fun because my brother and his friends are big into making their own music like this. It was neat to be able to create something similar to what they do, even though their audio editing is way more complex and high-tech than what I have created. As for the name of my soundtrack, I just wanted to keep it with the theme of my blog. It was the first thing that popped in my head, which might be due to the fact that I saw someone post on Facebook yesterday that 2015 must be the new baby boom, lol.
This week for my Digital Art class at the University of Toledo we learned about typologies. We were to shoot a series of photos and create our own typology. This assignment is inspired by the work of Hilla and Bernd Becher who took a series of photos of industrial sites and made a grid display of the resulting images. For my typology I chose to shoot of series of onesies. To put all 16 images together and create the final project I used Pixlr's Advanced Photo Editor. With tutorials on how to complete this assignment I found Pixlr very easy to understand. I found it interesting how drastically the background color changed in all of the pictures. The background is actually a baby blue blanket, but some of these images would convince you otherwise; but I think the different colored backgrounds is really neat and helps your eye bounce around the entire image even more. Overall I was very happy with how this project turned out, and makes me even more excited for my son to get here! Did I mention there's less than two weeks until my due date?
What a crazy week it has been. With everyone else being sick in my household I was sure I was not going to catch what had been spreading around; but that was not the case. I've now been sick since Saturday now and even the medicine proscribed by my doctor hasn't helped much at all. Its only made me tired. Totally frustrating! On an even worse note, my dad had a planned surgery Monday morning, so I took care of him Monday and Tuesday due to him not being able to walk much. The pain in his legs became worse, so I took him to urgent care Wednesday morning with my mom. After 30 minutes of being at the doctors, my dad was omitted in the hospital to run tests and have an MRI done. That night we found out that he has a bulging disc in his back between his L4 and L5. Not being able to do much physical therapy due to his non-related surgery Monday, not much progress has been made. His pain level is still very high and has to stay in the hospital until at least Monday. It absolutely breaks my heart seeing my dad like this. Since I was put on maternity leave last Friday I have been able to visit him a lot. I actually spend all afternoon and night with him. I barley have time to squeeze in any homework between sleeping all the time because of my medicine and being with my dad, but I am seeming to manage it some how. I have a little over two weeks of pregnancy left and am very excited for the birth of my son, and to simply not be pregnant anymore. A child is a true blessing, but pregnancy is a literal pain in my back! haha. Although I am so worried about my father and focusing on him right now, he continues to tell me not to worry about him and to focus on the baby coming. It's so hard not to worry about him and not to stress out about school though. Really hoping these next couple of weeks fly by and my dad is able to be released from the hospital sooner rather than later. I don't want him to miss seeing his grandson the day he's born..
This week for my Digital Media class we were to take our Urban Landscaped photos and make a video collage of them. I used animoto.com to create this presentation of my photos and highly recommend it. Animoto is very easy to use and comes with numerous pre-made styles to choose from. The style I chose for this particular project was called "Frayed Edges". I chose this one because it looked neat and goes very well with my urban landscape photos. On animoto there are also some customization features, so you can edit how your final product appears. You can also choose to use your own music or use a song on their website. I chose to use one of their songs, simply because I do not have music on my laptop and because I liked the song chose.
For my Digital Arts class at The University
of Toledo we were to take pictures of Urban Landscapes last week, and were to
edit them this week. Out of all the pictures I took and edited, this is my
favorite. It has a lot of meaning to me because it one of the spots in Napoleon
where my boyfriend Corey and I go fishing together. Well he mainly does the
fishing… I just keep him company and complain how it’s too hot, haha. Anyways,
I took this picture using my iPhone 5c, which has a 4-inch 640x1136 display,
and an 8-megapixel rear camera. This photo has the dimensions of 2448x3264.
When you multiply that out it gives you a total of 7,990,272 pixels, which is
just shy of 8 megapixels. It is nice to know that my camera is taking that best
quality photos that it can. I then edited this photo using Pixlr Express, a
free online website to edit pictures, and love the way it turned out. When
editing the photo I enhanced and made the colors much richer by increasing the
contrast and by increasing the vibrancy. I also dimmed the exposure of the
light a little bit by -2 brightness. Overall I am really happy with how the
final project turned out.
Wow... I can not believe it. I am exactly one month away from my due date today! It feels like just yesterday I found out I was 5 weeks pregnant. Most people think their pregnancies go by very slow, but mine has flown by for the most part. These past two weeks (and probably this last month) have seemed to be taking the longest though. I am just so overly excited to meet my little one, and hold him in my arms. That sounds a lot more enjoyable than feeling him kicking my right rib cage all day and all night! But I can not complain to much, because I have had an easy pregnancy; even my doctors reminds me how easy of a pregnancy I have had. And I could not be more blessed that my baby is still on track and very healthy!
Hello! First of all I would like to welcome you to my blog
and thank you for checking it out.
My name in Megan Yarnell and I was born and raised in
Napoleon, Ohio. I graduated from Napoleon High School in 2014 and also attended
Northwest State Community College (NSCC) my senior year. I then stayed another
year at NSCC because I was unsure of what I truly wanted to major in. At the
time I was sort of bummed out, knowing I was not going to have the ‘college experience’
everyone always dreams about, but I really did not want to waste my money and
change majors. I am overall happy that I decided not to go off to college,
because I met an amazing guy name Corey. We met at a mutual friend’s bonfire
and immediately clicked; we have been inseparable ever since. This February we found out I was pregnant… It
was quite the shock to say the least, but after the shock wore off we both
became very excited. I am currently at the end of my third trimester and have
less than six weeks to go! I am very eager and beyond ready to meet my little
one! I tend to use this blog to post about the final weeks of my pregnancy and
the birth of my child, along with school projects and anything else life my
throw my way.
