Growth

1. What is the most significant accomplishment in looking at your Midterm or Final? You can talk about technique in Photoshop, investigating your Big Idea, creating a meaningful artwork, etc.

I think the greatest thing I learned overall was making objects feel like they belonged in the space I was creating. My Final turned out wonderfully because of that. The components added really made the big idea apparent which was difficult. I used level adjustments and hue/saturation adjustments to make the additions work.


2. Choose a project in the class and discuss your most challenging learning experience in Photoshop. Focus on a technique or concept from Photoshop that was difficult at first, but that you mastered by the end of the quarter.

I think learning to mask was difficult for me at first because there were many steps in getting to the actual masking. I kept forgetting where to start, so I ended up just erasing things that I would have liked to use a layer mask on. Eventually I mastered the masking and it was crucial to adding things in my Final.

3. Compare two projects from the quarter to compare and contrast how you achieved making meaning in the work. Try to showcase in your examples an improved capacity to making visual images that mean something as opposed to being a showcase of technique.

From the earlier works I noticed that I was more concerned with what made an image look realistic or full than what created meaning in a work. By the end of the class I felt that I had created two final works that were extremely meaningful and proficient. By focusing on the idea, the craftsmanship followed. The quiz image can have meaning to a viewer, but it meant nothing to me as the artist. The finals really show and say something about who I am and how I make art.

Final Project

My Big Idea is Spirituality.

I am part Native American and I am attempting to incorporate that into other parts of my spirituality. I'm using symbols like the wolf, nature, bright light and shadows to create drama in the piece. The images will tell of the white buffalo woman. I do not consider myself very religious, however I am spiritual. I have wondered about this idea for a while. I hope to create something that shows my interest in the subject. I know that this side of my faith is very important to me and I want to commemorate it in a way through these images.

Ann Hamilton and Shahzia Sikander are my influences for this piece. Their works are anthem pieces that are self reflective. Hamilton's works are dark and personal and Sikander uses visually intriguing ideas. Shahzia Sikander did an artwork on a Hindu goddess. I love this idea and I would like to incorporate it somehow. I would like to add mathematics to the imagery if possible. I think a combination of their artworks would work well for my idea. Mel Chin is another influence but not as much as the other two. His mathematical, conceptual art is in my mind, but not prevailing.

Some of Ann Hamilton's work can be found here
http://www.annhamiltonstudio.com/

Sikander's "Writing the Written"

I am most likely going to use whatever images I can find that fit the white buffalo woman's story as well as use my own images for the one of me. The two images will be replicas of each other, but one real and the other fiction. I want to use a water reflection technique but it depends on how the images turn out.

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-effects/water-reflection/

Big Idea: Spirituality

Artist: Ann Hamilton

This artist is appealing for the bizzare and technological. Her big ideas include spirituality, place, identity and consumption. I am inspired by the scale of her pieces. They are usually installation pieces which are larger than life. This artist's work will be used to inspire the elements in my final. It will use grand scale and high contrast lighting to create a dramatic effect.

Both artist's images can be found at art21
http://www.pbs.org/art21/slideshow/?show=96

"ghost…a border act"

"Untitled"















Artist: Mel Chin

This artist is inspiring because he tackles immense digital design. He constructs maze like patterns for a 3-D effect. It is visually very interesting. His big ideas include loss and desire, consuption, spirituality and memory. I have been struggling with making my images "full". I am inspired to make my images more intricate and filled with interest.

"Knowmad"

"Revival Field"

Photoshop Tutorial

http://www.planetphotoshop.com/design-layout-techniques.html

Ok. So I've typed this four times now and I spent three hours on a tutorial that wouldn't work for me. This is the last time. No thanks to bubble berry on worth1000, I was already frustrated with this. Thankfully I found a tutorial on planet photoshop to make a movie poster. I used a video game. For some reason I can't upload images to this blog. I would really appreciate any input about that.

I started with a black background and used the single row marquee tool to create white lines that would give me areas to put photos into. I used the rectangular marquee tool to make the bottom right box.

This image was achieved by simply adding an image using the magic wand tool to highlight the section I wanted and adding my image through copy and paste.

I filled each area with an image pertaining to the game and filled one block with a swatch color.

The final image has inner glow in the text blocks and a black gradient on all of the outer edges. The text is supposed to be actor characters for the movie so i just made up last names for the two characters I chose for the images. The bottom image has an adjustment layer that enhanced the peach color.

Digital Artist: Lynn Stowe

Artist, poet, and writer of fiction.
These pieces are from a series of works called The Bridge.

http://art.net/studios/visual/stowe/fgbridge.htm

Comunications
Denotations: This piece is alive with color on a black background and the colors form a face in the center. A heart shaped appeas in the center of the face, parallel images, symmetry, warm to cool from top to bottom. Connotations: Evil smile, fire, love, desire.

The Seal
Denotations: An Egyptian or old world seal. It appears very tall and encased in a tomb with a pinhole light above shining on the object, blue and gold, metallic, black negative space. Connotations: Secrets, daunting, sacred.

Wilderness Stairwell
Denotations: Stairwell, black organic figures, black and white image, spiraling, metal background structure, light grey. Connotation: Infinity, hopelessness, anxiety, confusion.