Beginning as nitrogen gas in the atmosphere, it is then trapped by bacteria and certain species of plant. The nitrogen in these organisms along with the nitrogen released by decomposers combine to form Ammonium. Ammonium is a component of soil that is absorbed by plants and nitrifying bacteria. Consumers intake the nitrogen in plants/other animals they consume and the bacteria’s nitrogen combines to create nitrites. Nitrites exposed to another oxygen become nitrates which eventually become nitrogen gas again. It is important because it is a component of amino acid and nucleic acid, no organism could live without these. It is converted from nitrates/nitrites to acids by our bodies.

Nitrogen is cycled by the domestic animals and plants we raise. The process is tampered with by humans in the form of fertilizers which withdraw, but also place, nitrogen in the ecosystem and meat consumption which resets nitrogen before it completes its own cycle. The ecosystem always replaces the nitrogen when organisms decompose and will continue to cycle it from there.

Nitrogen is naturally found in certain species of plants (legumes, etc.), bacteria, and the Earth's atmosphere. There are two main sinks of nitrogen, the atmosphere and the many kinds of bacteria that reside all around us.

I always wanted to print my own really cool design. Honestly, I never thought past that so the design was not thought of until I sat down to do my sketch. This piece in particular is a result of my mind wandering. I could not think of a topic, so I thought “what if I base my work around my thinking.” This is why the work outside of the creature thinking is very abstract: half of the time when I’m thinking I may not be thinking of anything at all, I’m really just zoned out and really heavy into my mind at the moment. I wanted to portray this in my print and I feel as though that went well. I believe it even conveys that exact theme perfectly as my peer reviewer saw my work and instantly thought “Is the title ‘Imagining’ or something like that?”

Although I am mostly proud of my final product, the process was very frustrating. After two days of working to cut my channels, I found that they were nowhere near thick enough to print as I wanted them to. This meant that I had to do a lot more work and really had to focus on honing the skills involved in this. Channeling IS SO CRUCIAL to printmaking, without it everything else is futile. Just being able to finally produce an acceptable print is an accomplishment I am proud of and the finished piece really fits into my collection of work. I usually do abstract art so this is no exception, however it is a different art style than I am used to which makes it unique.

A while ago I met an artist named Antonio (you can find some of his work here https://twitter.com/SantosTheArtist/media) whose style reminds me of what I aim to create. His surreal style is my mind’s first example of abstract when I think of the term as it applies to art. He uses realistic figures with very strange backgrounds and designs which I tend to do as well.

This project is a compilation of some of my previous works. I started with two photos I took of the city and used that as my background. Once I finished that I used the wand tool to segment off pieces of a painting I did to decorate space before moving onto the next large piece I inserted. I meant to expand the topmost photo so that it fit the page but I could not because I had saved the file, which means doing it over would require redoing everything that covered the photo as well. For the same reason of not redoing everything, I never added my third city photo to the bottom of the page. This means my final project has two major flaws that I did not intend to be there but I cannot really redo without erasing my other work. I covered the space the bottom photo left out by adding in pieces of drawings I did. I was never able to fill the empty space around the top photo in a way that makes sense to me.

By the end of my project, I realized that saves always count as one photo so it’s best to finish all the work you have on one layer before moving on. In my case this affected the background but that’s my only issue with the final product. If I were to do this project over, I would make sure my background was completed in the way I wanted it to be. Next I aim to do the same project, but polish it by going in and redoing what I dislike about it.

Using Pixlr was very confusing which is why my background ended up being unsatisfactory but that would not have been a problem if the editing tools were not as hidden as they are. I had to Google a lot of how-to’s for the platform. My advice for others doing the same project is that some of the most basic editing tools (like rotating/cropping) are hidden under the “edit” tab so check that out before thinking you are unable to do something.

I like abstract art and lines/curves are very easy to work with but can be very elaborate if done right. I wanted to paint a sequence that blends itself into the other colors over time, I did this so the audience can see how subtle and then extreme the transitions of colors can be. I didn’t expect any particular reaction based upon the vision I went with but I expect people to just say their honest opinion of it as they have up until now. This piece has my signature wavy look to it which reminds me of many of my past works.

I always tend to go more in the abstract direction because I like the style more than realism and the end result is more of my liking. This relates to the fairly recent artists that have moved away from the realism approach that was originally established, leaving us at a time of preference. My personal preference is of course abstract which is displayed in my pieces and it fits into the more obscure art styles that have arose lately. Although I like abstract art a lot my inspiration was just the idea of abstract as a whole, no specific works were drawn from.

I always liked the art that leaves you thinking without much to go on so I wanted to recreate that. I learned through this project that easing up on my brush leaves more control even though the entire process goes a little slower sometimes as a result. All of the paint has to be done going in the same direction so that colors do not clash or mess up how the colors look on the canvas, so it took long compared to how quickly I usually finish a piece.

Basically this piece was just my abstract take on the color wheel. It took me awhile to get everything aligned right, but I’m proud of the end result.

• How do you describe yourself as a person?

“Loving, caring, understanding…..I treat people the way I want to be treated”

• What is something that has impacted you significantly?

“My life experience has taught me what to do and what not to do."

• How do you want to impact the world and why?

“Just treat people the way you want to be treated. With all the hatred and violence, I just want to live a peaceful life. And I wish everyone around me would do the same because it’s so dangerous now”

• What does the word happiness mean to you?

“Happiness is an inside job. I believe that happiness depends on how you feel on the inside. If you’re okay on the inside, then you show it in the way that you live, things that you do, the way you treat people.“

• What’s the most important thing in life to you?