My Learning Experience

I think my most significant accomplishment when looking at my midterm and final project was coming up with a big idea that is meaningful to me. When I first started the class, it was hard for me to adjust to thinking into an artist's mind. All of my work related to me, however with my midterm and final project I was able to dig deeper and think more creatively. It was easier for me to get out of a business set mind frame and portray myself through art. As you can see below, my first quiz captured my love of working out. This is an interest of mine, however it is something that is obvious to me and the people that know me.

As I progressed throughout the quarter, I learned to really get in touch with the artistic side of myself and find meaning to my work. For my midterm project I took the idea of dream and dug deeper on how I could portray what I believe dream to be through a story. I decided not to put pictures that could easily be interpreted by just looking at the image but pictures that had to be analyzed together to figure out the meaning. When comparing the two projects, I am very proud of the improvements I have made from learning to think outside the box and find greater meaning in my midterm project than my magazine cover.

I would also say that my most difficult project was my midterm project. Again, because I found it difficult to come up with the concept and how I was going to display my story. I messed around with different layouts and ideas until I came up with the story of a tree representing life and the sky representing different types of dream catchers.  Throughout this project I mastered the selection tool, the opaque tool, and the placement tool. I had to strategically cut pieces of the dream catchers out to make sure it was capturing the right of the picture. I then had to determine the different opaqueness for each picture due to each picture being different brightness levels. From there it was challenging to find the right placement of each picture so that all of my images would fight correctly onto the background. You can see my midterm project below.

Overall I think I have learned how to think outside of the box and become more of an artistic thinker. I think you can see the difference between quiz 1 and my midterm project how I expanded my abilities with photoshop and my big ideas. The most challenging part was probably becoming comfortable with the tools and then applying them to a deeper meaning.

Big Idea: Final Project

My Big Idea for my final project is based around the concept of change. When trying to come up with what I wanted to base my project around, I decided to take a look at where I am in my life currently. In about 4 months my life will change tremendously.  School was a part of me for the past 12 years of my life and a new chapter of the unknown will begin.

I am a little unsure how I will capture this idea of change, however I visualizing the idea of stairs or stepping stones that display major milestones in my life. I want this piece of work to be used as something I can go back and reflect on so I knew how I was feeling at this important time in my life.

First, the idea of transition and movement came to my head when incorporating it into change. I decided to look for different types of artwork that displayed movement and flow. I found this picture online that not only had movement but incorporate a human aspect with strong adjectives. I felt like this idea of movement related more to my kind of life change.

 

 

After seeing the human aspect in the image above, I decided to look more into artists that used photography and photoshop to capture humans. I found the artist, Art Zdanowski, who captures beautiful pictures of different families, pets, and events.  The work really brings out points in time that were important to people. You can find his work at http://www.wix.com/artsphotoshop/artsphotoshop#!portfolio/vstc1=art-photoshop. Below is a picture captured of a family at the beach.

 Lastly, when reflecting about my life and change I want to express myself through color. I felt like my life has been so blessed and there are more happy times than not. I decided to research pieces of art that were colorful and abstract. I found lots of pictures on Google that were colorful, however the picture below stuck out to me the most.

I liked this image because it was not only very colorful but also was an umbrella. I liked the idea of capturing life under an umbrella.

In order to, to tie in the idea of color and transition I feel like I will be using the hue/saturation and transform tool the most. I want to make sure I get the perfect color and position of what I am trying to convey.

Blog #3

When reflecting over the past couple of weeks on the pieces of art I created, I would describe my overall Big Idea as friends and family.  I would consider my family and friends to be a vital part of who I am, so it is only appropriate to have them reflected in my artwork.


I found Nikko Hurtado, a tattoo artist, who specializes in color tattooed portraits.  Although I do not have any tattoos, I have always found the art of tattoo work extremely fascinating.  The only time I would ever consider getting a tattoo is if a loved one of mine had died. When Nikko Hurtado creates his tattoos, his overall Big Idea is family and friends. I find it inspiring that he can completely replicate a photograph of someone and translate it onto the skin and make it look identical. I will use Hurtado to inspire me for my final project by his use of bright colors and shading. He does a good job of focusing on important features on the individual faces. He also makes it a point to draw it specific details that are important to the person in the portrait. Below is a tattoo Hurtado did of a little baby girl. In this particular piece, he wanted the viewer to focus their attention on her bright blue eyes.

Below is a fun pop culture tattoo Hurtado created of Barbie.

Artist, Odwin Rensen, from the Netherlands takes portraits and digital art to a whole new level. He finds passion in taking photographs and transforming them using programs like Corel Painter and Photoshop. He mainly focuses on creating portraits of celebrities, families, animals, and children.

I am inspired by Rensen's use of detail and realistic colors. When looking at all of his pieces, it is hard to believe that they were all created on the computer. When I create my final project, I want my final product to look as realistic as possible. I also want to use as much detail as possible in order to challenge the Photoshop skills I have learned thus far. 

If you would like to check out more about the artists below please go to the following links:

http://www.nikkohurtado.com/tattoos.asp
http://artsyspot.com/wonderful-art-by-odwin-rensen/
http://www.graphicbuzz.net/2010/10/breathtaking-digital-paintings-by-odwin.html

Tutorial

After reviewing the Worth1000 Tutorials, I decided to choose nothing else than the "Popcorn Dog" tutorial. First and foremost because I love dogs, specifically my bulldog Anniemae.  Secondly because Anniemae LOVES popcorn. Below is the link to the tutorial I referenced off of:

http://www.worth1000.com/tutorials/162575/popcorn-dog 

1. This is an original photograph of Anniemae. 

2.  I then found a picture of popcorn and pasted it as a new layer in between my background and copied the background. The popcorn image had white background so I removed it to only display the popcorn using the Quick Selection Tool.  This is called superimposing. Below is the almost finished product.

 

 

3. Next, I made a duplicate layer of the background and used the Quick Selection Tool to remove the foreground.  I then selected a hot pick background to allow the dog to stick out. I also used the brush tool to shadow and accent the curves of the dog. 

 

4. Overall this tutorial was somewhat difficult to complete.  There were several layers that had to align in order for it to look like an actual popcorn and a dog. After superimposing the popcorn several times, by rotating and scaling, I am satisfied with the outcome!

A Digital Media Pioneer: Laurence Gartel

You would think it would take on a huge responsibility and burden for one to uphold the reputation as "Father" of the Digital Art Movement. Not for Laurence Gartel.... Check out these profound pieces of artwork I discovered from the web by Gartel.

Both pieces represent famous works of art that Gartel was able to integrate into the business world. The first image displays the cover he designed for Forbes magazine in which he used bright colors mixed with the black background. The word Forbes is in bright orange as well as the bird and the title of the main article within the magazine.  He then placed a hand releasing the bird which has sharp green lines.  This describes all of the denotations of the artwork.  From there, the connotations displays a hand releasing a bright colored bird referencing the freeing of markets and time constraints.  The image overall looks very scientific allowing the reader to be intrigued, especially by the use of brights colors.

For me, the second image is more appealing. This Absolut advertisement was one of Gartel's more memorable pieces. In 1990, Gartel joined with famous artist Andy Warhol to create one of Absolut's first digital advertisements ever. There are darker shades of reds and burdgeys surrounding a bottle of Absolut vodka. Directly underneath the piece, states Absolut Gartel.  The connotations that can be referred from this that there is somewhat of an organized chaos surrounding the bottle but ultimately the bottle stands out.  This ad directly appeals to me because I fall under a target market in which alcohol is prevalent.

These are just two pieces of artwork that Gartel has created that has had a huge impact in the digital artwork industry. More of his pieces can be seen throughout the web or even at the Museum of Modern Art. To learn more about Gartel and his creations you can click the following link: www.gartelautomotion.com