Psyche Inspired: Alana Negrón Díaz

Institution: University of Puerto Rico

Major: Civil Engineering

Psyche Inspired Class: 2022-2023

Reflections on Psyche Inspired

Reflections on Project 1: Astronomy’s Rebirth

Astronomy’s Rebirth

Alana Negrón Díaz

November 30th, 2022

Major: Civil Engineering

Genre/Medium: Procreate

About the work: The name of this art piece is “Astronomy’s Rebirth”. I’ve always been fascinated by the numerous elements and natural creations that surrounds us. Astronomy’s rebirth is an inspiration of the creation of everything. In this art piece there’s a sort of supernova in the shape of a face giving life to planets, the sun, stars, and of course, the Psyche Astroid. The shape of the supernova is a woman’s face giving life to the universe. I decided to add the woman element since it’s kind of magical how women give life to humans. It’s amazing how humans are made from a small cell turning into what we are today. From the creation of life to the creation of the universe, the science behind it, is still a mystery and at times it seems kind of magical. I wanted to incorporate these two things since I believe we are made out of the smallest and simplest of elements, meaning that we are all connected.

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Reflections on Project 2: Journey to a metal world

Journey to a metal world

Alana Negrón Díaz

February 6th, 2023

Major: Civil Engineering

Genre/Medium: Procreate/Mental Canvas

About the work: For this art piece, I was inspired by the journey of Psyche across space, from the creation of the asteroid to the mission to study it. In the video, it starts with an assumption for the origin of the Psyche asteroid, which is thought to have originated from violent impacts, giving way to an asteroid with such peculiar aspects. The fact that many years have passed and it’s out there holding a history to be discovered makes this mission quite thrilling.

The mediums used for the art piece were Procreate and Mental Canvas. I’ve used Procreate for a previous project, but Mental Canvas was the medium I focused on for this second project. First, I drew the separate layers in procreate and saved them as PNG images. After using Procreate, I uploaded the layers to Mental Canvas where I was able to create a 2D animation with the 2D images and make them pop within a 3D space to provide an interactive and immersive effect.

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Reflections on Project 3: A gift from beyond

A gift from beyond

Alana Negrón Díaz

March 22nd, 2023

Major: Civil Engineering

Genre/Medium: Acrylic paint, paint cover, canvas

About the work: For this third art piece, I was very inspired to make a scenario where Psyche was gifting us the Psyche Asteroid. Through the journey of this project, we were able to have more insight on the Psyche mission and at times it feels so close yet so far, sort of a hard-to-get gift from beyond. The main idea was to create the goddess Psyche gifting us the asteroid, but throughout the project it seemed like a lot of elements that could come together with the butterfly. In one of the meeting with David Seal we had the opportunity to learn the story about Psyche and knew I wanted to represent her, the goddess of soul, also represented as a butterfly. Here a Blue Morpho butterfly is on top of the asteroid on its way to the hands of the viewer to deliver the gift, which I wanted it to feel like it could be going to anybody. At first I was incorporating a silhouette of an astronaut but I didn’t want to define a specific person and that’s when I came up with the hands waiting to get the gift. That was the general concept of the painting.

Now for the execution, I probably changed this canvas around 4 times. I wanted to create a very colorful and mystical setting to present the Psyche asteroid. I used acrylic painting as the medium for project 3.

This project was very important since I hadn’t painted in a while, at such scale. It was a very fun project.

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Reflections on Project 4: Soulful Gift

Soulful Gift

Alana Negrón Díaz

May 10th, 2023

Major: Civil Engineering

Genre/Medium: Vectornator/ Procreate

About the work: For the fourth and final art piece, I wanted to transmit a mysterious and intriguing setting where Psyche, the goddess of the soul, is giving us a part of her essence, her soul. Her essence turns into the Psyche asteroid taking with it her light, to commemorate her resiliency. In the art piece, we have the goddess Psyche ripping a part of herself, her soul, turning it into a physical form of what we now know as the Psyche asteroid. I wanted to bring an eerie aspect in what it would be her broken chest, sort of representing her story and the evolution of the asteroid with such particular attributes. They both have been through tons of circumstances but they still remained strong at the end. The butterflies represent the beauty out of the bad circumstances. In this case, the turning point in her story, where Psyche can finally be herself. For the asteroid it represents the resiliency of the many years of history that make way for a whole new era.

For the medium, I used Vectornator for the outline and sharper effects and for illumination and other details, Procreate.

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