Week 16 - Final

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CRAFT:

First I took the photo looking out the window and used the polygon lasso to crop the photo to just the window/window sill. I then took the image of the keys and used the same tool to crop the key, which I rotated to be sitting on the window sill. I took the image of the church and transformed it to the size desired and made it the bottom layer. I used the cutout filter on each layer to get the pain daubs for the building, mainly. I then used the various brushes I made to recolor and add texture. I dabbled with the hues to make the image dreary and dark. I used my circle brush to put the thick black outline behind the window areas. I used a brush set up with size, shape, and color variation to create the lava spewing from the mountain. I then used the lasso tool to draw outlines for the yellow bursts of energy and the smoke. I used my plastic brush in different colors to create the smoke. Then I used my stick figure stamps and positioned/resized them where I wanted them to create the scene. I created the yellow glow the same way as the smoke, only I colored the selection yellow, then used my brush as an eraser to get the faded effect. I applied a drop shadow to the "evil" stick figures, and a glow to the heroes.

CONCEPT:

The title of my piece is "Super Sticks." The concept is that there is this fantasy world of stick figures who are capable of anything. The evil stick figures on the window sill are trying to prevent the princess stick figure from escaping the castle by ridding the key to free her. Without her freedom, she will parish in the lava. However, the glowing stick figures are saving the day by keeping the key safe, stopping the lava, and swooping down to save her. The viewer of the artwork is looking out of the window, seeing this crazy alternate world where stick figures run crazy.

COMPOSITION:

I altered the hue/saturation of the image to make it seem somber. I positioned the church to occupy the majority of the empty space in the window, as its one of the main focuses. I used dark, dreary colors to give the artwork a hopeless, depressing feel. I positioned the key in the bottom left corner to utilize the space given on the window sill. I chose red for the bad things in the photo, as it is a menacing color to me. The hero's have a glow to them and a force making their superiority seem evident. I also selected to make them larger than the bad stick figures. I also added more "bad" events than good to create the idea of hopelessness, though the "super" sticks, with their glowing outline and yellow energy bursts seem to bring hope. And of course, the female figure is pink--a stereotypical girl color, and she needs saved as in many storylines. I used the bold black around the window area to create a frame for the image that draws the eye inwards.

Special Edition - Extra Credit

CRAFT: I had an image of Charles chugging wine, so I cropped him out with the magnetic lasso. I had to recreate a portion of his jacket with the clone tool, as well as use the distort tool on the hand holding the bread. I found a loaf of french bread and cropped it from it's original image, as the same with the beret, cheese, snail, and frog. I used the transform tool to alter the shape and angles of the various items. I used the eraser to clean up all of the edges and I used the text tool to write "il est stinky..." and the shape tool to make the bubbles. I applied a few filters to the entire image to make it fit together a bit better. I then added the frame by selecting a portion of a fence from another image and rotating and duplicating it. I added shadows to the frog and snail sitting on the frame. I drew the mustaches on Charles and the frog with a soft black brush, then applied a slight blur. And lastly, I created the smoke on the cigarette by drawing a thin gray line, then applying guassian blur. To finish, I adjusted hues/saturations to make the image fit together better.

CONCEPT:

I simply wanted to piss my French flatmate off, so I thought of every stereotype that I could execute visually.

COMPOSITION:
"Francy Pants"

Because I was unable to shoot all images myself, nor planned this project, I had a difficult time making the final product appear real, without any doubt. I decided that I would make everything look very glossy and bright to create unity, but still a level of believability. The viewer can imagine this happening. I positioned the bread, snail, frog, and background image, etc. in places that I thought balanced the image the best. The word bubble fell where it did because in the original image, there was a person's head there. I brightened the bottle and the drops falling from his mouth to make it noticeable. I put a red beret and bottle to make draw the eye there, then follow down the image. Everything I added to the image was to enforce the stereotype.

Week 15 - Portrait

CRAFT:

I began with an image of myself. I made it the background of the photo. Then, starting from the furthest object to the closest, I began painting the shadows. I would use the eyedropper to select a matching color, create a layer, paint that whole entire object the one hue, then create a new layer, eyedrop, and repeat until I had basic cutouts of the photo. I then started flashing the original photo on and off, making marks on a new layer to create shadows/highlights. Once the person looked recognizable, I just adjusted the hues of the various layers to make the colors match better.

Week 14 - Brushes Only

CRAFT: I created two brushes -- hands and a dove. The image of the dove was obtained from a friend and the hands are one I took myself. To create each brush, I created a 2000 x 2000px canvas in grayscale. I used the various selection tools to crop the specific portions of the image I wanted. I then copied it into the new canvas, resided as needed, then created a brush. I then created the canvas for my project. I colored the background a rich crimson. I then created a layer above the background where I selected white and used my hand brush. On another layer, I selected a deep gold and created the dove. I created another layer and found some sparkle brushes. I used a 2 large sparkle brushes to create the shine coming from the hands, and the glow in the corner. I then selected different style sparkle brushes and made their positioning scattered and their size dependent on the pressure of my pen strokes on the tablet. I generated the streaks of sparkles from the hand around the dove. I then went back behind these 3 new layers to complete my background. I found a circular brush and selected a purple. I then created various layers of this brush at different hues to center in on the dove. The purple overlapping the red achieved some very pretty effects. I then did the same thing with black circles around the hand and added a golden glow by using a very soft edged brush.

CONCEPT: The concept was magic. When I think of magic, I think of white gloves, slight of hand, doves coming from nothing, etc. Colors I associate with magic are reds and golds and purples. If I could see magic happening, I would imagine it to be like fairy dust in movies--shiny and luminescent. I decided on the concept of magical hands. The hands have a magic stream coming from them, spreading out to generate a dove. I want the viewer to imagine that the dove is somehow released from the hands, and with the colors and luminescence used, that the transformation was magical.

COMPOSITION: The colors I use in the image remind me of magic. Magicians typically wear white gloves, so I made the hands white and since they are magic hands, all of the "magic dust" stems from them, so the glowing white sparkles emulate from the hand to the dove. The hands are positioned to resemble the shape of the dove flying. The background is red and purple because I feel those colors are befitting of the theme. The hands are the most important part and I want the eye to see the hands, then trace the magic stream to the dove. By using white, I think I achieve this. The dove is a deep gold, which still contrasts from the other colors, while still making it seem enchanted. I used the blacks near the hands to make the white seem brighter and add some balance.

Week 13 - Organic and Manufactured

CRAFT: I used the scanner to obtain images of manufactured and natural items. I scanned a fallen leaf, a dandylion, and a leaf stem plucked from a bush. I used 300dpi. I then cropped the items away from their background with the magnetic lasso tool. I scanned some mesh flowers and my sweater at a larger dpi to get more detail in the woven materials. I created a mask from the fallen leaf and used it to create leaves out of the manufactured materials. I scattered them about the whole background layer of my project, resized, and reduced their saturation and altered their hues to make them naturally colored, though artificial. I copied the dandylion head and duplicated it, rotating each flower to the correct angle to make a circle. I applied a filter to the entire group to increase the hue and saturation. I used the original fallen leaf and copied a circular portion of it to create a background behind the circle of flowers. I resized it as needed. I used liquefy to alter the shape of the leaf stem to make it look more like a peace sign. I again altered the hue/saturation to achieve the desired result. I then applied drop shadow to all of the natural items to make them stand out from their background. I then applied an opaque rainbow gradient over the background layer.

CONCEPT: The assignment was to merge natural and manufactured textures while maintaining a level of recognizable realism. Upon seeing the leaf stem , I thought it resembled a peace sign. Since it was a natural texture, I decided on Peace is Natural. I created the iconic peace sign out of all of the natural materials I obtained. I did not alter them greatly from their natural color because I wanted the realism. I used masks of natural leaves to create cut outs from the manufactured textures. I created a background that resembled nature, but was obviously not composed of organic material. I then added the rainbow gradient to overlay the background because I associate the idea of peace with a lot of color. I thought it helped convey my theme.

COMPOSITION: I gave the manufactured leaves very natural looking hues because I wanted a level of realism even though the items were not organic. I rotated and resized the leaves to make sure that their key parts, such as the stems, were visible and not hidden under the peace sign. I wanted it to be obvious that the background was made of a leaf shape. The peace sign is centered. The dandy lions are the brightest because they are the first thing i want to be seen. Then the eye follows to the green stem within to formulate the peace sign. However, before that correlation is made, you see the flowers...the natural portion. Then with the addition of the stem, the recognizable symbol of peace is formed. Then the eye trails from the brightest portion of the image to the background, which lies apparent that it is not made from the same materials as the peace sign. The title, "Peace is Natural", also conveys this message.

Week 12 - Photo Recolors

CRAFT: I used my camera to take photos of shoes. I converted the image to grayscale and enhanced the vibrance of the shoes. I set it to multiply, then created a layer behind it in a dark orange. I created a layer above it with a lighter, and then a nearly white variation of the same color and used the paintbrush on the different layers to paint the objects I wanted to enhance. I then used a combination of an eraser with a soft edge and the magnetic lasso tool to trim the color that fell outside of the lines. I used brightness and contrast to brighten the lights and darken the darks until I got my desired result.

CONCEPT: I really enjoy shoes and the idea of viewing the world from the same level as them. I wanted images that were interesting so that I could enhance different parts of the photo to draw attention to details. I chose shoes to be my most important part of the photo with the things they see as the secondary.

COMPOSITION: All of my photos are from angles near ground level of whatever the shoes are on. I made sure to take layered images so that I had different things to look at. I tried to make the shoes the largest portion of the photo, even if they were not the largest thing in the photo. I selected interesting angles on the shoes to try to make the photos more interesting and I tried to keep the poses natural.

Week 11 - Misfit Toy Advertisement

CRAFT: (See Week 9 for Barbie's craft)

I took an image of the McDonalds Logo against a white background and used the magic wand to remove the white. I then used the text tool to add the "Brought to you by" and the eyedropper to select the proper red from the original logo. I merged the 2 layers and applied an outline. I used the text tool to create "Barbie" and applied an outline and drop shadow. I used text to create "Supersize Me" and used the eye dropper to match the yellows and reds to the McDonalds logo. I added a bevel and red outline, as well as drop shadow I used the text tool to create"Bigger Barbie, Bigger FUN!". I used Character to resize and tamper with the width of the letters to create the enlarging effect. I used traditional Barbie pink from the bathing suit and added the same pink outline as the Barbie logo. I then added 2 more layers with the McDonalds colors. I then added the text "Includes 1 FREE meal" and englarged the 1 FREE and made it the Mcdonalds yellow, rather than the red. I beveled both and then added a drop shadow to just the words "includes" and "meal".

CONCEPT:

I created an overweight Barbie themed along the idea of McDonalds, since McDonalds fast food is associated with obesity. I wanted something taboo that nobody would buy, but I wanted to sell it as if it were an amazing toy. I've heard the phase Bigger is Better, so I did a spin off on it with "Bigger Barbie, Bigger FUN!" In order to put understanding behind the large Barbie, I incorporated the McDonalds theme into it with their logo and colors.

COMPOSITION:

I examined a few Barbie advertisements and the one that was the most striking to me had an image of the Barbie's face only along the whole side of the ad. In the white space was the text selling the doll with the catchphrase and the logo at the bottom right. I borrowed this idea to create my ad. I wanted to be sure that the Barbie's size was apparent in the advertisement so I chose to use her whole figure. I wanted her to be a large portion of the ad, since she is large. I incorporated Barbie colors as well as McDonalds colors in order to create consistency. I made the slogan the largest text in the ad aside from the Barbie trademark because to me, the slogan sells the toy. I tried to balance all of the colors, especially the pinks, throughout the ad, hence the pink background. I made the text "Bigger FUN" the largest to emulate the text being bigger.