Shana Cook

         My name is Shana Cook and I am a New Media art major here at Salisbury University, graduating in May of 2021. I am originally from upstate New York and moved to Maryland at the age of five. When I was younger, I mostly worked in 2D fine arts. I enjoyed painting and drawing with a different variety of mediums. I would mostly make art of my cat and dog, or just animals in general. I also drew and painted flowers and other pretty things from nature, and, of course, the beach as well. Throughout my life, before college, I would take a photograph of what I was going to draw or paint as a reference and copy what I saw exactly. I was very precise on the details from the reference photograph and my art works would take me awhile to complete. I was very meticulous in ensuring that the photograph and my art looked very similar. When I got to High School, I continued creating fine art works on animals, but started creating landscapes, and also, I would create things having to do with sports I have played in my life. The fine art mediums I enjoyed the most working in was oil paint, colored pencil, graphite pencil, acrylic paint, pastels, while I did create work in other mediums as well. With these fine art mediums, I enjoyed using all different sorts of colors and textures to make the piece’s stand out or pop.   

            Transitioning into my college career, I decided to go a different route than what I have been used to. I had never tried creating art with technology, and decided I wanted to try it and realized I really enjoyed it. I have taken many New Media course classes here at Salisbury University and had a good time learning new things in them and realizing all the things you can do to make art with technology I did not know before. I have learned a variety of programs and I found that I am most drawn to 3d modeling, animation, green screen, virtual reality, and video editing.

            As I have gotten older and in college creating art with technology, I have made my work more personal and meaningful to me than what I would do when I was younger. I especially enjoy collaborating and making art with friends. A project I had a lot of fun making in one of my New Media classes was when I had to create a music video. With my music video, I decided to make it about my personal life, including using a bunch of my friends in different clips, doing all the goofy things we usually do when hanging out. With the editing process, I was able to tell a compelling story visually, and it was a fun challenge to make the viewers feel as if they were right there with my friends and I. Recently, I got into working with Virtual Reality and using Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects to edit all the 360 videos captured on a GoPro. What I find interesting about virtual reality is how it immerses the viewer in a whole new world, one that I created.