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.