Capstone Project Journal
〰️
Capstone Project Journal 〰️
Follow along with me as I ideate and create my senior year capstone project for Emergent Digital Practices. January 2026 - March 2026.
February 12, 2026
It is hard to believe that we are over half way through with the quarter. This has really made me reflect on my progress thus far and what I still hope to achieve. This week I moved forward on animating my mosquito bunny. I drew several more frames and linked them together. I also began moving forward on the second part of my project. I checked out a camera, a long tripod, and a short tripod from TechCheck, and began to practice with them.
On Tuesday of this week, I presented a slideshow presentation that I put together on my progress thus far. I will include a link to this presentation at the top of this page.
Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to reflect on my project and decide what I wanted to share with my peers and professor through my presentation on Tuesday. This presentation was recorded, which encouraged me to practice even harder for it, so that I could be proud of myself when watching it back. I wanted my presentation to be engaging and playful to get my peers excited and interested in my project. I attempted to create a narrative through imagery and a history lesson about film and photography. I was initially nervous to present, but felt very comfortable once I began as I had practiced thoroughly over the weekend.
It was very insightful for me to hear my peers and professor’s feedback and answer their questions. It brought up new ideas and perspectives that I had not previously thought of. I also enjoyed getting to see my classmates' presentations. I was so impressed with everyone’s hard work, creative process, and progress.
Inspiration, Ideas, Reading, Research
Museum of the Moving Image
Gif Artists
USSR Matchboxes
Artist Profile: Rafael Santiandreea aka rasalo.tez
Digital artist and multimedia designer Rafaek Santiandreea, known online as rasalo.tez, began working in digital art in 1999. He primarily works with gifs, using vivid colors and dynamic compositions to create lasting digital work. Motion plays a primary role in his work. “TheLastBuffalo” stood out to me among Santiandreu’s work, as this gif combines color and movement to create a mesmerizing scene. The foreground of this work shows a black and white horse jockey, running just behind a light brown buffalo. The background shows a Western landscape, with bluffs racing behind the two animals.
The movement and simplicity of this work inspires the composition that I am trying to achieve in my own work.
January 29, 2026
The conclusion of this week marks the four week mark of Capstone. This week was defined by slow and steady progress as well as feedback and advice from my peers through class group critique. I continued to draw the frames of Mosquito Bunny using Affinity Designer. I have found this process to be a bit tedious, but found the technique to make it easiest. I copy and paste the previous iteration of Mosquito Bunny onto a blank document, then change its color to a bright red or blue. I then paste a black outline of Mosquito Bunny on top of this colorful one, and slowly adjust the legs so I can see where they differ from the old one. I then hide the colorful base of MB, and export the black outlined image. I have repeated this process and am currently on frame 12. I am hoping to complete at least four more frames for this project.
On Tuesday the 27th, our class engaged in a peer review session to share ideas, progress, and visuals on our projects. It was also an opportunity to receive and offer feedback on our work. I met with four of my peers, and took turns presenting and showcasing our work to each other. We all offered feedback and ideas, as well as encouragement and words of wisdom. Helpful feedback that I received was to take MB as far as I could, and to add music to his run.
Week four aligned with my goals and direction of my project. It felt like a slow week, but productive nonetheless. I nanny two young kids (age 9 and 12) twice a week, on Mondays and Wednesdays. While watching them, we often sit down and work on homework together. This week I worked on Mosquito Bunny while with them, and they absolutely loved my idea. They were enthralled watching me work, and kept encouraging me to animate MB and add more detail to his form. This was very encouraging for me to hear, and made me excited to work hard on this project to eventually show them the finished project.
The past couple weeks I have also begun passing out Mosquito Bunny stickers to everyone and anyone. I printed over 70, and brought them with me to class, to bars on the weekend, and whenever I caught up with friends. I also sent some to my friends and family out of state. I have received only positive feedback on these stickers, and it has stirred up the buzz over MB that I was hoping for. Several people told me that they googled what Mosquito Bunny was, because they were curious what it meant. I think my next step will be purchasing the Mosquito Bunny domain name and establishing a website for showcasing my Mosquito Bunny work.
Inspo for the week:
Nadia Lee Cohen, “Women Pirate Edition”
Photo book
Photography, typography, and color relationships
Mom Jean’s Music
What I listen to while working
Video by Pharell on engaging your creativity and limiting distractions
Artist Profile
The Midwest Emo music genre ultimately inspired the creation of Mosquito Bunny, as the band is credited with playing this type of music. Midwest Emo is a subsection of the emo music genre that my older sister, Sarah, introduced me to in middle school. Originating in the midwest during the 1990s, it is characterized by open-tuned guitars and whiny, raw vocals. One of the most iconic bands of midwest emo is Modern Baseball. Modern Baseball was founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 2011, and disbanded in 2017.
Members of Modern Baseball include Bren Lukens, Jake Ewald, Sean Huber, and Ian Farmer. The band formed at Drexel University while the members were in undergrad, releasing their first album Sports in 2012. Naming of the band was inspired by the finding of the book Modern Baseball Techniques in Jake Ewald’s family home. Modern Baseball’s music consists of stories about love, heartbreak, friendship, and deep emotional vulnerability. While I have navigated middle school, high school, and now college, their music has been a support for me and a guiding inspiration.
Modern Baseball and Mosquito Bunny share the same initials, and the same music genre. Listening to Modern Baseball while working on Mosquito Bunny reminds me of the bands roots and the ultimate reason for this project.
January 22, 2026
Week 3 of Capstone was a productive and exciting week. I created a clear plan that included the steps I will need to take to achieve my project, materials I will need to acquire, and I began prototyping. The first step I took was drawing rough sketches for my Mosquito Bunny video. This helped me to create a clear idea of what I want the finished product to look like. I then wrote a list of everything I would have to decide for the specifics of this project. This includes the type of camera I use, the number of frames in the video, and the images that will be used for each frame. Next I created a Bill of Materials (BOM) of all of the softwares, hardwares, tech, and other items that I will need. This included the price and where I could obtain them.
To organize the setup of the video, I wrote a large list of ideas for what each frame could look like. I wrote the materials I would need to create my shot and how I would achieve it. I then filtered through and decided on twelve finalists for my Mosquito Bunny film. Finally, I redrew my original Mosquito Bunny design to make him cleaner and easier to edit. I then began to draw him in his various running forms to use as bases for each frame of the film. This can be seen as a gif under the “Prototype 1/22” button at the top of the page.
The progress I made this week was useful and has made me feel optimistic about my project. Creating a roadmap to lay out the steps I will need to take was a bit daunting to see the work ahead of me, but it overall makes me feel more confident having it written out. At the end of the week, I hope to have all frames completed on my gif so I can begin creating my video.
Inspiration, Ideas, Reading, Research
I enjoy the visuals of the flashing large text, but I think it might be too fast for my video
Research into hand drawn animation
Artist Profile
I draw a lot of my inspiration from media I consume, such as films, television, and music. One of my favorite television shows is the anime DanDaDan based on the manga of the same name. My favorite part of the series is its unique art style. It's bright and sharp, and always compelling to watch. DanDaDan features several action packed scenes of its characters running, jumping, and fighting. The Mosquito Bunny running form is based off of one of these scenes.
Yukinobu Tatsu is the artist who is responsible for the creation and art of Dandadan. He was born in 1990 in Saitama Prefecture of Japan. Tatsu had been interested in art and drawing from a young age, and in junior high school he became interested in the action genre of manga. He says that his goal for his work is for readers to enjoy his drawings and find entertainment from them.
I find Tatsu’s line style and ability to convey movement through drawing admirable. My Mosquito Bunny running was based off of one of his own running drawings. In my own work, I intended to focus on adding dynamism to MB running and create that movement through gif form.
January 16, 2026
Weekly Progress Update
Week 2 of Capstone was a great time to further refine my project proposal. On Tuesday the 13th of January, I spent the class period creating a powerpoint to organize my ideas and present them in a clear explanation to my peers and professor. I uploaded this powerpoint under the “Project Proposal” button on my Capstone project blog. This powerpoint includes images and artist research that I am using for references. It also includes some of my past work that I am drawing from in my project.
I have continued to work with SquareSpace for my portfolio website. Their easy interface and accessible features makes updating my blog and ongoing projects simple. To create my powerpoint, I used Canva.
Reflection on Progress
I had to make decisions based on what my goals for the project were, and how I wanted to achieve them. My primary goal for this project is to create a digital art piece that reflects the skills I have learned within my years of Emergent Digital Practices, as well as to challenge myself to learning new skills and techniques. My secondary goal was to use Mosquito Bunny for my project. Mosquito Bunny (MB) is a self-portrait of myself in many ways. The more I work with MB, the more I learn about myself and my artistic vision.
I am content with my progress this past week. Creating my project proposal and researching artists and inspiration was very helpful to painting a clear image in my head of what I want to achieve. Due to family commitments, I had to miss classtime on Thursday, January 15. To make up for this, I spent travel time sketching and taking notes for my project. I also shared my idea with my family. Doing this led me to creative insight and critique from them.
Inspiration, Ideas, Readings, Research
Tornborg, Emma. “Repetition in Transmediation: From Painting to Poem and GIF.” AAA: Arbeiten Aus Anglistik Und Amerikanistik 45, no. 1 (2020): 29–44. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26974192.
https://www.tiktok.com/@gavinok/video/7447603339619077382
I like the animated running style of this character
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/DdeM5sxPdEQ
Study of rabbit running to model MB after
Artist Profiles
Looking throughout the scope of art history to past artists and their work has tremendous influence on my own idea process. Winter Quarter 2025, I was a part of a group of student curators who put together the Ruminations exhibition in the Vicki Myhren Gallery at the University of Denver. One of the artists that we featured was Ana Mendieta and her Silueta series. This gave me an opportunity to look deeper into Mendieta’s profile and to study and experience her work in person. The Silueta series has influence on my current capstone project.
Ana Mendieta was born November 18, 1948 in Havana, Cuba. She later was moved to the United States in 1961 by her family. Mendieta is known for her performance, video, sculpture and painted work. Much of her work is autobiographical, and stems from her experience of displacment from her home in Cuba. Other themes in her work include feminism, life, death, violence, equality, identity, and belonging. Mendieta worked at the forefront on the feminist art movement in New York City with her joining of the Artist in Residence Gallery in 1978. She challenged American feminism through her art, and worked to create an inclusive definition of the term.
Ana Mendieta began her Silueta Series in 1973, and worked on it until her death in 1985. In this series, Mendieta created female silhouettes in nature. She used mud, sand, fire, blood, and grass to create female forms in the earth. Medieta described the series in 1981: “I have been carrying out a dialogue between the landscape and the female body (based on my own silhouette). I believe this has been a direct result of my having been torn from my homeland (Cuba) during my adolescence. I am overwhelmed by the feeling of having been cast from the womb (nature). My art is the way I re-establish the bonds that unite me to the universe. It is a return to the maternal source.” The series remains one of the most iconic and influential examples of land and body art throughout art history.
January 8, 2026
Week one of Winter Quarter is coming to an end. This week I created my Curriculum Vita (Check out the tab at the top of the page ;) ). I also updated my artist statement on the “About Me” page.
The first week of Capstone ended in new ideas and excitement about my upcoming project. This week, I got to flex my writing muscles when I wrote an artist statement and combined “About Me” page for my website portfolio. Here I wrote a bit about my background and briefly described my art form. I also had previously described myself as a student studying art. I changed this to an artist who is studying at The University of Denver. This makes me sound more confident and assertive of my place in the creative world. I updated my website with a new capstone journal page as well, so my peers and professor can follow along with my project updates and my idea process.
I spent much of my free time brainstorming my capstone project this past week. I frequently wrote down notes and ideas that came to me in passing. My favorite way to do this is to text myself any and all thoughts I might have. Texting them to myself means I always have them on me (as long as I have my phone or laptop). I can also get my ideas across quickly and briefly through text messages.
I love setting goals. I am constantly writing checklists and notes of actions, activities, and ideals I want to complete. This new year, I took a new approach to goal setting. This includes writing out my big idea goal, then breaking it down into the steps to take to reach this goal. I also include a date that I would like to check up on my progress. I don’t necessarily choose a “complete by” date because I think a goal should be constantly changing and expanding. Setting a due by date is like setting an expiration date on the goal.
My current goals for my capstone project are to utilize the techniques that I have thus far learned as an EDP major and to learn and include some new techniques in my work.
Ideas and Inspo List:
Mosquito Bunny
Short film/ gif
Ana Miendieta
The first film of a man riding a horse
Stop motion
Range of images
Mosquito bunny running, split into a bunch of different drawings
Recreate the images out of different material
Ex: type, 3d print, fire, ice, food, flowers, breadboard, lights,
String the images together to form a video of mosquito bunny running on a loop
Project or present on video screen
Ongoing project
Questions for the culture?
Audio?
How many frames?
How fast should the images be moving?
Relevant Artist Profile
I enjoy researching and looking to other artists for information and inspiration for my projects. I have always had a deep enjoyment and fascination for film. For my Capstone project, I want to pay homage to my love for motion-picture. Eadweard Muybridge immediately came to mind as an artist that influences me. Muybridge was an English photographer who worked in the 19th century American West, taking photos of Alaska, California, and several national parks. Muybridge is particularly notable for his pioneering work in the field of chronophotography of animal locomotion between 1878 and 1886. This included using multiple cameras to capture differing images of animals in motion, most notably a horse.
The Horse in Motion is a series of photocards shot by Eadweard Muybridge in June 1878. The series of photographs include six to twelve photos of a horse galloping. When strung together, the photographs show the horse in motion. This is often credited as “the world’s first bit of cinema”. Muybridge’s work was a milestone for film, animal studies, and photography. I find his project effective in showing the movement in a single moment.
For my capstone project, I intend to do a short video/gif of a series of differing photos showing a Mosquito Bunny in motion. Mosquito Bunny, which I will now shorten to MB, is a project that I have been developing for the past year. MB is my fake band that I have created merch and art for, and is a concept that I am interested in taking further through my capstone.
January 6, 2026
First class, I set up my project journal today and began to think about what I want to work on this quarter. I think it will be mosquito bunny themed and a video…stay tuned…