Progression - Blog 5 .

 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.

My Midterm was my most significant accomplishment in this class. This piece was by far the most meaningful piece that I have created in a long time. When I was given the assignment I felt compelled to make a piece that not only fulfilled the Big Idea of Time but a piece that also was a social commentary. 

Also, this was also a new learning experience for me because I have never created a diptych before. I had to think about how I was going to compose the images in a way that both of the images were able to stand alone, but work together. The Photoshop techniques that I used were rather simple, but I did to try to use elements to ensure that the images were cohesive such as color and texture.

    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.

The Edible Architecture Quiz was the most challenging project to me by far. I had trouble with the idea of blending the image of a fruit and buildings seamlessly. It certainly took alot of time to make and to figure out how to layer the different elements so that it created one image. I think with the completion of this quiz, I feel like I mastered this technique. 

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.

With  the projects there were times when I wanted to have meaning and there were times when I was just completing the project with more attention to technique. For example, in the Retouching quiz and the magazine quiz, I was  just concerned about the technical aspects of the project. I wanted to make sure it was realistic looking and I  wanted to master the technique itself. However, in my final I was so overcome by emotion that I wanted to make sure the viewer knew how I felt. Also, I wanted to include the subject of HIV/AIDS to raise some awareness while I was conveying my message. 

CHANGE .

I changed the idea of my final COMPLETELY .
I`m going off of my emotions. SO if My final doesn't match with the blog -- thats the reason .

Artist inspiration .

David Rokeby 


Installation art .

Cloud (2007)

 

long wave (2009)  

This artist appeals to me because of his use of space. He explores many types of big ideas in his works- time being one of the main ones. He has a good idea of balance and the way that things should be composed. In the work above, he had to decide where he was going to put each red sphere. How low how high they were going to hang? How many spheres should there be? What kind of movement to capture? Even though he is an installation artist, I plan to use these same principles in my piece to elevate my art. I want to pay more attention to slight detail, rhythm and space/balance. 

Abdi Farah

(from the collection "Luminous Beings")

Abdi's work has always inspired me from when I started to watch him on Bravo's reality series Work of Art: Next Great Artist. I was always inspired by the way that he would insert his opinion into his pieces. He wouldn't be afraid to talk about where he was raised, the social stigmas that he faced or how Blacks are feeling due to oppression. I also like the quiet power that his art has. Something about his work just makes you ponder. I wish to employ this strategy in my final. Sometimes its the small or the most simple things that can have the biggest impact. 

Blog 4.

1.    Write a rough draft of your artist statement for the final project)about 100 words). Include in your statement the following:

The big idea of time is one that fascinates me greatly. These final pieces are the continuation of the diptych done previously. I am exploring the idea of time in different factors: actual reality, remembrance, progression, memory etc. My hometown of New York City is the perfect way to interpret these ideas of time. NYC is famously known as being the “city that never sleeps”. But on a deeper level has seen the good, the bad and the ugly over the years and to document this in my work is something that I really enjoyed doing.

I employed the use of striking images and a well thought out composition in order to get my message across. My point was to get the viewer to stop, notice and feel something about my piece. I wanted to use this piece as a way to make a social commentary.  For example, I feel strongly about September 11^th and the way that people seem to forget this day more and more over time until it fades into oblivion.

I don’t know if I can see my work being used in a real world context such as a magazine, but I do see it being displayed online to spread my message and to get people to enjoy my piece.

2.    List three visual genres/visual culture/artists/ designers/ material culture that have influenced your work for the final. In making visual statements, artists and designers often augment other visual phenomenon. What influenced you? Make sure to include some visual references/ hyperlinks to illustrate your point. (example: My Big Idea is music and my references include jazz album covers from the 1960s, the music of Dizzy Gillespie, and the collage work of the artist Romare Bearden)

One of the things that inspired me for this piece was the musical Rent (Which was also set in NYC). I appreciate the playwright, Jonathan Larson’s idea of time. In the the famous musical number in the play Seasons of Love, the characters say “525,600 minutes/ how do you measure a year?”. With the idea of time he also couples a social message of fighting AIDS, which many of his friends died of.

Also, Andres Serrano inspires me. His pieces are singular subjects that are incredibly shocking and jaw dropping which I kind of desire in my piece. I used his most famous piece Piss Christ as a visual reference.

 Lastly, I used the art style of collage in order to construct my piece. I was inspired by Hannah Hoch and Kurt Schwitters style and color palette. 

3.    Name one new Photoshop technique that you will attempt to incorporate in your final. Be specific. You may use a hyperlink to a technique that you found on another website.

I plan to use digital distortion in my work.

http://www.computerarts.co.uk/__data/assets/image/1023169/varieties/7.jpg

colorization tutorial .

This was based of the tutorial from Worth 1000
http://effects.Worth1000.com/tutorials/161018/161018-yet-another-colorization-tutorial

Basically the goal is to convert a black and white photo into color.

In my example I used Lucille Ball . =)

Unlike the tutorial I did not mess with the levels of the initial photo. I thought the picture was fine just the way it was. The highlights are bright and there is a reasonable amount of contrast.
After this I converted the mode of the picture to CYMK color.

First, I selected all the areas I wanted to color the base color that was a light brown which would be her skin. I excluded her eyes and her lips. After selecting the area I went to Image>>Adjustments>>Curves to change the color channels one by one. In this case I mixed the amounts of yellow and red to make the skin tone.

After I got the color of the skin that I wanted, I decided that I didnt want the background or her hair to be the same color. Using the eraser tool, I just erased the brown layer. 

So instead, I chose to make her hair orange like her hair in real life. And after that I used the Curves option to color the background . 

I then used a paintbrush and the Color & Softlight blending mode to add color with makeup. 

At this point we could be finished. She has her true hair color, makeup, clothes with clothing and a bright background. But then I decided that I wanted to change the color scheme a little bit. So I want to Image>>Adjustments>>Selective Color to get a different feel for the picture. I decided to go really bright because I felt like it and not necessarily  because I wanted to be realistic and true to the time period. 

In the end after a couple of tweeks I eneded up with this final image :

It was fun! Vitameatavegamin!

--Imari

Featured Artist: Jeannette Woitzik

. barred

~this wayyyyy

~ storybook

Jeannette Woitzik

The digital art of Jeannette Woitzik is one of fantasy and imagination. Her works are whimsical 

seem to come out of a fairytale. The three pieces above are some of Ms. Woitzik works.

The first piece .barred is one that is a picture that takes place in a field of grass. The grass is a rich

shade of green. Above the field there is a sky with a multitude of clouds. The sky is relatively dark 

with a pocket of sunshine. Its rays seem to be poking though the clouds. However, in front of the

viewer there is barbed wire blocking out the sunshine. The barb wire is blocking the viewer from

entering the the field which can be seen as a pleasurable experience. Woitzik uses point of view to her

advantage in this piece with creating a sense of encasement for the viewer to feel .

The second piece ~ this wayyyyy tackles the universal theme of love. In the piece there is a road-sign in the

middle of a field of white daises. Next to the sign there is a path that cuts through the field of daisies.

The path is a basically straight one and it leads to a park bench. Sitting on the bench rests a lone, red heart.

Once again Woitzik uses point of view to her advantage. The road sign is urging the viewer to follow down to 
the path where their love is sitting on the park bench. Even the title tells the viewer that it is the right
direction to go. The red heart is sitting to the right leaving an open space for the viewer to taker his/her space.

Lastly, the piece ~ storybook is one that captures the feeling of childhood innocence. The piece

depicts a boy flying his red kite on a storybook. The book is open and inside there is a field of grass

that seems to be coming out from the pages itself. Around the book there is a bright, happy sky.

All of these images give the sense of vivid imagination. The one that comes when one gets lost in

the story of a storybook; an emotion people have felt as children. The image of boy flying his kite is also

nostalgic. The imagination that comes from a child is one that isn't experienced by an adult. Woitzik

adresses this sense of brightness and joy in this work .

- Imari

Sources :

http://www.artistsofphotoshop.com

http://schnettepics.de/