CALLIGRAM

 

Artist's Statement

     Before I began my design in adobe illustrator, I wrote out a letter to my future self, 20 years from now. This took a lot of effort and brainstorming because I had no idea where I would be in 20 years from now. I have a long list of goals and aspirations that I wish to achieve, so I decided to start there. I listed all of my emotional goals, especially those relating to the present time. I do not wish to live my live thinking about my past mistakes or what could happen in the future, I wish to live my life in the present. I am currently struggling with that, so I hope my future self has tackled that problem. I then went into my career goals in real estate and my family goals. I hope my future self reads this one day and has accomplished everything I intend to accomplish. 

    After I finished my letter, I began brainstorming of how to incorporate this into a design. I thought of creating a house based on my love of real estate, but I figured this would be boring to create and to look at. I thought of my hobbies and passions in life, which brought me to surfing and the ocean. I used these hobbies in my canvas project, which turned out pretty well, so I decided to go along that path for this project. All my goals and aspirations in my letter are definitely important, but none of that matters if I am not still doing what I love: surfing. I figured that incorporating my biggest passion in life with my extensive lists of hopes and goals would be the perfect design for this project. 

    I started by creating two surfboard shapes using the eclipse tool. I scaled them to the 8.5 x 11" letter document to get the best outcome.  I then created a wave with the line tool and then using the curvature tool to make a realistic wave. I filled it in with a light blue and used a white outline to make it stand out more. I then used the pencil tool to create a path for my text to go on, and started copying the text from the letter I already wrote into the design. I then added a smaller wave using the line and curvature tool for more detail. After this was complete, I used the pencil tool to draw paths for my text to go within the surfboards, and did the same process with the text in the wave. I used different sized text throughout the design to fit everything into where I wanted it. 

    After I got all of my text in the surfboard and wave where I wanted it, I started to add details, like the white line in the center of both surfboards. I used the curvature tool to create some more lines to give the boards some more detail. Then, I used the pencil tool to create a leash that attaches the board to your leg so that if you fall off, the board stays with you and will not float to shore. I added some text to the path for more detail. Then I added the part of the leash that velcro's around your leg using the eclipse tool. I added some green because my leash at home has green velcro. The then added some motivational text at the bottom for more detail and wrote out "Sean Sceery's Future" at the top using an arch under the warp tool. I used a thicker, bolder font for this text to make it stand out over the other text.

    Overall, this project took me around 4-5 hours. I had a lot of trouble when connecting my text to the path that I drew with the pencil tool. I learned some shortcuts like hitting "N" on the keyboard when using the pencil tool, and hitting "T" to draw my text along the path that I just drew. After messing up a bunch of times, I finally got better and creating my design. I enjoyed doing this project, and I hope my future self listens to what I had to say. 

Letter To My Future Self

    If you are reading this 20 years from now, I want you to pay attention and listen to what I am saying. I have many goals and aspirations that I intend to accomplish in my life, and in the next 20 years, I expect to have made exponential progress. All of the endless hours I spend overthinking about what could happen in the future needs to be obsolete. All the regrets I have looking into my past need to be irrelevant and not worth the thought. I intend to live my life in the present, regardless of the events of my past or what could happen in the future. I have made a lot of mistakes growing up, but I do not want that to affect my mindset on how I live the rest of my life. 

    Moving on to my career goals, I wish to own many rental properties that generate immense profits. I want to keep practicing real estate in Florida or whatever state I am in. As you know, I am currently working part time. I wish to be working 40 plus hours per week in order to bring in the most amount of money for myself and my family. I want to have obtained my broker’s license all while managing my own real estate firm. 

    Moving on to my family goals, I wish to own a beautiful home with water access with my family. If you haven’t already, I want you to work towards buying mom and dad a home, and the ability to completely pay off their mortgage. They have done so much for me, putting me through school, helping me obtain my real estate license, and so much more. It’s time to pay them back for the years and years of thankless support. I expect to be living a more motivated, healthier life with whoever I am spending it with. Although I wish to be working throughout the week, I expect you not to take that work with you once the weekend arrives. Keep going out and enjoying some time with whoever is in your life. 

    I hope to be a better man, with a long list of goals to strive towards.