Tasks and assignment for this course

Hi!

Welcome to my first blog post.

I will begin by writing a little bit about myself.

My name is Maria, I am 33 years old, I like animals, books and candy. I have a Master’s degree in political science, and I have been working as an analyst since 2018. A few months ago I realized that what i liked most about my job was the drawing of the graphs, not the calculations or the maths or the «figuring stuff out». This was no big surprise. I have always loved drawing and presenting and making things look juuust right. So I figured I should do more of that, and here we are.

These first two weeks have been a little overwhelming, but very fun. It feels good, and it feels right, even if it’s a little bit scary. The two main tasks, making this WordPress blog and an illustration of the learning platform Moodle, were challenging.

In different ways.

Making the Moodle illustration took me a long time. I drew it by hand, and I am not 100 % happy with it. I am very excited to learn the Adobe creative cloud programs so I can speed up the process and make it easier to make adjustments. I was quite happy with the idea, but the execution could be better.

But that’s why I’m here!

The WordPress blog is difficult because it’s new and confusing and it has many buttons I can press and.. how do i make a link to a page without the words on the link being the name of the page I’m linking to? I’m not sure yet, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out one day soon.

The biggest mistake I made this academic week was not taking notes or photographs along the way. I just did the tasks. I will get much better at this so I can write better reports and reflective journals going forward.

Other than that, I am super excited to get started and begin Graphic design 1 next week! I have read all the Agatha Christie novels and seen her house in Devon.

Other things on my mind this week:

I finished Ways of Seeing by John Berger (1972). It an essay collection about how we look at art, the difference between naked and nude paintings, how «seeing comes before words», and how promotional pictures are the new oil paintings. Among other things. I thought it was very cool and interesting.

I started The Beauty of Everyday Things By Soetsu Yanagi (2018). It is (so far) about folk craft and what makes everyday objects beautiful. I think I like it.

At home we’ve been listening to the albums Maridalen by the Norwegian jazz group Maridalen, and Fleeting Adventure by Andrew Tuttle. They are both great drawing soundtracks. I think the cats enjoy it too.