Course Evaluation

1. In my final, I feel I demonstrated a true change in my work. Previously in my experience with PS, I wasn't hesitant in using destructive methods. For example instead of using an adjustment layer i would just adjust the levels directly to that layer instead. I had no problems clone stamping cut and pasted figures instead of duplicating onto a new layer, I never knew how to create a folder for multiple layers in the same area, and I have never had a layer palette hundreds of layers long (pre-folder). You can see all the layers and non-destructive damage below:

2. My most challenging project in class actually came at the end of the quarter. By far the "Edible Architecture" quiz was the most frustrating and definitely the least successful. When I begin a project I usually have a clear idea of how I want to change and edit, and for this quiz I couldn't piece and patch to get a completely cohesive end result. Clone stamp and resizing were not my friends here. As for mastering these tools; I don't think i'm there yet. However, the beauty of PS is that there are 35867389769451 ways to do the same thing. I then instead of clone stamping and erasing over and over began to use layer duplication and masks to get the repetitive pattern feel as in my final. You can tell in the grasswork where "duplicate layer" really would have gone a long way AND I could edit after I undeniably would screw up:

3. Every time I create a piece there are some artistic choices I make because I believe that they are essential to that work's overall meaning and there are some choices I make because that's just the way I always do it. Sometimes these battling methods can become a real issue when what you have always done isn't the best way, or even an available way to do something. I also believe that the "purely stylistic" choices you make are almost never that simple. Looking at my very first Selections quiz and my Retouching assignment I will talk about this a little more in depth. First the Selections:

I burn the edges of almost all of my photos I edit to create a vignette that ranges from slight to extreme. Here I did the same thing because well, that's what I do. However I also burn things when I want them to look darker or more edgy. Here the burn and levels almost black out the periphery images; forcing you to focus on the center image but also creating an environment of despair and hopelessness because the black creates an empty. So now not only do you get that this is an average crack whore, but you may even feel bad for her because you sense that it was not her choice because she has nowhere to go from here.

The retouching project is strangely one of my favorites. This used to be a mystery to me, because who would love to delete pimples and minimize scars and skin tone? I do. It's makeup in high-def for me, which is sometimes why I believe its harder to edit guys because I have a tendency to "glamourize" any portrait I touch. On a personal note this raw image is my boyfriend, and I shamelessly believe that he needs no retouching. Also on my computer at home I have the Imagemonic Portraiture filter that naturally softens skin at any level you choose, so having to do this the long way was something I had to dig way back in my PS toolbox for. Usually to even out skin tone I would take the air brush and constantly sample from the skin source to soften and cover, but it just seemed wrong here. Because of my relationship with the subject matter I couldn't bring myself to blast on a layer of paint to remove all the character. Instead I chose the patch tool over and over so that at least I would have the knowledge that it was his skin I was retouching with and the image could stay away from being so plastic.***

*** Small airbrushing was done around smaller areas and on a very light opacity to create a contiguous tone

Blog 4

For my Final Project, I think I would like to continue with my ideas from the last post, but i'm changing and expanding on a few things. I really like the idea of two unexpected elements coming together as in the mashup Jon Schmidt did of Taylor Swift's "Love Story" and Coldplay's "Viva la Vida". Keeping this mashup idea in mind, I took a look at Fred Tomaselli's work. He uses collage of small icons repetitively to create one large image isn't just pretty; but mesmerizing. You can't always tell that he has composed an image of a hand with hundreds of tiny fingers cut out, but you can see the smaller bits coming together to make something intricate and wonderful.

Somewhere along the line I started putting these two ideas together, but the idea was still unfinished. I wanted to see how the big idea of "beauty" could be tested. How much ugly

could you add in to make it interesting, but keep it visually beautiful. I realize that beauty is subjective, and for that matter so is ugly, but how much can you combine the two so that what you are creating is actually beautiful. I think a great mainstream example of this is th

e vision of Tim Burton. Whether Nightmare Before Christmas, The Corpse Bride, or the highly anticipated Alice and Wonderland, there is something sinister and gorgeous all at the same time. Check out some promos for AIW:

As for how this relates to my project... I want to take a base image and "collage" it with things that aren't traditionally thought of as pretty to make an intricate and (hopefully) beautiful final portrait.

To match the different skin tones and colors, I would really like to explore color channels and color sampling to create different tints to have a multidimensional but homogeneous final piece.

Blog 3

I think that its safe to say my two artists are pretty different, and going along with that I wanted to explopre the new big idea of "beauty". Perhaps a little more specifically, how more that one unrelated elements(s) can some together to create unexpected beauty.

My first artist really inspired me conceptually. His name is Jon Schmidt and he is a concert pianist that is now a Youtube star. The specific video I love is his mashup of Taylor Swift's "Love Story" and Coldplay's "Viva La Vida". It was created for his 7 year old daughter who loves the Taylor Swift song and combined with one of his favorites to create something I believe is even more beautiful. I realy love his work, which is surprising because in general I am not in love with instrumentals. Also I found out about this artist because I shamelessly follow Taylor Swift on twitter and she posted the link and raved about it. Were it not for my favorite celebrity endorsement I never would have searched instrumental mashups on my own. Taylor is the reason I found it but the reasons I loved it were so many. I love that he took he and his daughters favorite things and put them together, I love that he brought in a cello player who plucked the instrument like a guitar, I love that he really plays out the key change (his daughter's favorite part AND mine), and most of all in the video you can see how much he loves what he does and that is truly beautiful. Here is the link to the T.Swift mashup, but also worth checking out are "Bella's Lullaby" and "Can't Help Falling in Love":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXtVBJDPs6k&feature=related

My next artist is definitely more my visual perception of beauty. Fred Tomaselli was introduced to me in another art class (I guess those presentations have an affect?) and I immediately went home to check out more of his stuff. His collage/super realistic painting approach to art makes for a very celestial and seducing feeling. While the inspiration behind his work range from perscription pills, medicinal herbs, (hopefully I am not stuck in this subject?)to more innocent plants and flowers, inner human workings, butterflies, and just general magazine cuttings. He wants to seduce the viewer and I believe he really achieves that. He has some of the most beautiful works that I have ever seen, but they are also really interesting because they have so many things in each work. For example it may be a large picture of a bird, but the work put into just one feather could be hundreds of cut-out flowers of similar shades. I am not only impressed with the time it must take him to create one work, but also by how well thought out it is. The end result is something that I believe would be hard to perceive when you are cutting out a .25 inch rosebud. Here are some of my favorites:

Worth 1000 tutorial

I decided on the "lighting a giant elephant" tutorial http://fx.worth1000.com/tutorials/161386/lighting-a-giant-elephant. I originally brought this up in class and wanted to try it out on my own. The idea behind it is that if you cut and paste an item into a photo with already dramatic lighting, you can edit so that it seems to fit the surroundings. Here is my original image:

Next I selected a special friend to add. I opened up the image in PS and selected just the figure, then cut, pasted, and transformed to where I wanted:

Selecting the image you need to "re-light" duplicate so you have 2 of the same image on top of your original image. Rename them "highlight" and "shadow". Then comes the hard part... adjusting highlights and shadows so not only the tone and color match, but then erasing the dark to let the light shone through in a natural-ish way. It's going pretty rough for me right now:

Alright so maybe it's good I have to post my progress because I forgot that the original hasn't had any levels done so there is no true black. My cut and pasted image is way too dark

Here it's getting a lot better once I lightened up my shadow layer. Still not there yet, but progress is being made:

I worked a lot with burn and dodge to tweak the lighting, and the color tones were STILL not working for me. At this point I decided to re-work the tutorial a bit and switch to black and white which ended up a little abstract, but still really giving you a much better effect than the above pic. b&w was a lot more forgiving for me, I also went back through and dodged the edges the make the image seem more "contiguous" to use a Photoshop word:

YouTube artist - Fagottron

Aside from the potentially offensive screenname, Fagottron is someone that was actually shared with me in an Art Ed. class last spring quarter. The most popular (according to the number of Youtube hits) is "Alice by far. I'm not exactly sure how to embed video, so I will provide the hyperlink.

The denotations of the artist's work are fairly similar and consistent. He (pretty sure the artist is a "he") takes iconic children's movies that are recognizable to most generations, and remixes them into electronic melodies using only sounds and clips from the movie to become something completely different.

Connotations are completely across the board. The most highly recognized "Alice" definitely has a hypnotic effect through the repetition of beat and "lyrics" (as seen in many others). Also the piece takes on a new meaning just like other types of art through what it chooses to emphasize. The repetition of words however is not always decipherable. For example in Alice, many comments from other viewers included:

"There is a long way to love that i ... gravel",

there is sail lawrence sail  up -on- this -here- up grobble , and

"We choose to love and grovel"?

Alice in Wonderland is already fairly notorious for its association with hallucinogenics and marijuana because of the reference to the bright outlandish situations, and the caterpillar smoking from a huge unidentified contraption. This video only enhances the hallucinogenic experiences as it mixes up audio and video clips to create a more confusing yet interesting composition.

Here is the link to "Alice", the other videos can be located by clicking on the artist's screenname which will take you to the channel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAwR6w2TgxY&feature=channel_page