Reflection

Movie Poster

Modulated Meaning

Brainstorming

Improving skill

Final

I'd say that my biggest accomplishment in my midterm was the fact that I made most of the depressing and negative pictures appear positive and uplifting when first looking at my visual. I did this by changing the colors, brightness, contrast, and and saturation. Before I started some of the pictures were black and white so I put a gradient overlay on them and changed the colors. Once I changed the colors I wanted to make them brighter so I used the brightness tool and was able to make them more vibrant. For one of the pictures I also used the color overlay tool. I picked a bright pink color and turned down the opacity so you could see through to the picture. I liked that I could make the dreary pictures appear colorful and happy. When someone is first looking at my midterm I was hoping they would see the bright colors and not necessarily notice the sad pictures. However once people continue to look at it I obviously hope they would pick up on the theme of most of the pictures.

I think my most challenging learning experience in Photoshop was the clone stamp tool. For example in one of the quizzes I thought I did a decent job on using this tool to take the star tattoos off of the girl's face. The only problem was that in some areas her face did seem photoshopped. It was very difficult to make her face not appear plastic and fake. I had a hard time also with this tool in this quiz because sometimes the parts I wanted to clone were a different color than the area where I wanted to place it down. However when I completed the next quiz, which was making the movie posters I feel that I improved with the clone stamp tool. For this quiz I mostly used this tool to add in the new actors names and change the title of the movie. This was very time consuming but I felt that the final products letters looked very realistic. For example Blake Lively's name seems like it belongs in the poster, along with the word Sisterhood. I was able to do this by individually clone stamping the other letters in the poster and pasting them down. Before I pasted them down I had to use the same tool and erase/ mask the original actors names. The one part that was very difficult for this poster was when I needed to use letters for the new title but they weren't there. So I had to take the same font from online and paste it in. Overall I think I truly improved with using the clone stamp tool.

In my brainstorming for the midterm I pretty much got a bunch of pictures together about the emotions I was feeling at the time. It was very cluttered and it overwhelmed the viewer because it may not have made too much sense. I knew it was a good start to the midterm project but I knew it did not have too much deep meaning in it. I really liked where I went with the modulated meaning project because not only did I make it more personal but I also felt it was more meaningful. For example I think the fact that I changed the colors of the pictures to make them brighter showed that there was more to just the one emotion I was trying to portray. The pictures had more meaning behind them now that I added my own touch. The modulated meaning also was more organized and better put together than the brainstorming because I added text. The text is a way to try and allow the audience to guess what emotions I'm trying to show in my visual. In the modulated meaning I kept a majority of the brainstorming pictures but I narrowed them down.

final project

Brian KeckBrendan Loughlin

The big idea that the class chose was emotions. For the midterm I decided to focus on my emotions at the time, which were anxiety, anticipation, and the feeling of being overwhelmed. I do not feel all of these emotions as strongly now since I dropped one of my classes that caused a lot of stress. The feelings I definitely still have are anticipation, excitement, and longing for the summer, my family, and friends. So for the final I was thinking of taking the pictures I have from my town, along with pictures of friends and family and creating something unique. All these pictures will show why I am longing for the summer. Of course I want to be done with school but it is more than just that; these pictures evoke many emotions in me and are memories I want to keep forever. I’m not exactly sure how I will complete my final visual but I am going to make it more intricate and meaningful than my midterm.

I’d say there is really only two particular artists that inspired me to concentrate on my hometown and get the emotions out of pictures I have. One of their names is Brendan Loughlin and he is very well known in my town for his Grass Island painting. (http://www.brendanloughlin.com/) Since I live on the shoreline of Connecticut many people are infatuated with the water. My favorite place, along with many other residents, is the docks where you can watch the sunset on an abandoned red house that is located on an island, also known as the grass island house. Whenever I sit at the docks, whether I’m with friends, family, or even alone, I tend to think about a lot of things and explore many different emotions. The other artists name is Michel Keck. (http://dreamdogsart.typepad.com/art/2008/12/pop-dog-collages-by-michel-keck.html) His artwork is collages of pictures and magazines cutouts that form dogfaces. His artwork has inspired me to not do a typical collage, but make it more interesting and form a shape with the pictures. Other than that I don’t really have many other particular artists that have inspired me.

Two new techniques I want to try in my final are the 3D splash or the watercolor effects to add to the shoreline theme. I think both of these would fit in with my idea of what I want to do but they would also add detail which is very important to me.

http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/tutorials-effects/45-explosively-colorful-photoshop-effects/

Inspiring Artists

The artist in three of these pictures (bulldozer, train, rubble) is Liu Bolin. He is a Chinese artist who paints his body "to merge as seamlessly as possible with what is behind him." His work appeals to me because many of his backgrounds are not that appealing but he creates art out of them. One background that could be very devastating and depressing to many is the rubble after an earthquake hit China. He said that he wanted to show the development of his country and the problems that linger. His big idea is to create something positive out of the negative. I found his work inspiring because everything is not always happy or pretty to look at but if we change the way we look at it our perspective can change. When first looking at my midterm it seems as though my pictures represent a depressed tone. I wanted my pictures to have some negativeness but I changed the colors of the pictures to create an overall tone of excitement. I feel that our work are both similar because we overshadowed the negative with the positive, even though we can still see rubble (Liu Bolin) and overwhelmed people in the background (my midterm). His work encouraged me to continue with the theme I had for my midterm because at first I felt like my pictures seemed way too depressing, but I wanted them to also be positive. His work reassured me that this was possible by changing the focus of the picture.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1201398/Liu-Bolin-The-Chinese-artist-turns-Invisible-Man.html

http://www.odditycentral.com/pics/meet-the-real-life-invisible-man.html

The artist who created the three other pictures (globe, garden, sailboat) is Julian Beever. He takes chalk and creates optical allusions on pavement. He stretches out his drawings so that when you look at them at a certain angle they appear to be 3D. His artwork appeals to me because it is so unique. While in Europe a year ago I saw many chalk drawers and their pieces of work were absolutely amazing, however this is very different than what most people do. I think the big idea in his work is perspective because his artwork can be nothing special or something spectacular depending on way you literally look at it. I find his work so inspiring because he is taking boring, grey sidewalks and adding color to them to create masterpieces. He reinforced my belief that the way you use color is crucial in any art. I am amazed and baffled at how he focuses on such little detail. This inspires me to pay attention to small aspects of my midterm because the details really do make a picture better.

http://www.julianbeever.net/pave.htm

tutorial

The tutorial that I chose to follow was found on this website:

http://www.photoshopstar.com/photo-effects/landscape-change-effect/

This tutorial took a landscape picture and changed some of the colors while also creating an image of pages in a book. In order to get the look of the first image I had to copy the background layer and take the visibility off the original layer. To the new layer I changed the brightness, contrast, and saturation to create a difference from the image in front of it. Then to get to the second picture I made the original layer visible again and I used the rectangle marquee tool. With this tool I warped one half of the page to make it appear like a book. Then I did the same thing to the other side of the picture so now you can see the layer that I changed emerge. The last screenshot shows my final project, which was the hardest part. In order to create a more dramatic change and depth between the two pictures I had to use the dodge and burn tools to darken the edges and lighten the flaps. This was so difficult because it looked very unnatural to me at first but when I kept doing it I saw the similarity to the tutorial.

Christophe Gilbert's amazing creations

Christophe Gilbert has created many fascinating ads for famous companies such as Mercedes, Toyota, LG, and Playstation. Without a computer, his creative pictures would not be possible because he relies on photoshop. One of my favorite pieces of his is this one on the right. At first glance the denotations of this picture seem like a bottle of "Martini" champagne, a cork flying from the top, and "champagne" spewing out. However when looking at it closer the real denotations of this ad are still a bottle of "Martini" champagne and cork, however the "liquid" is a bunch of people partying in white clothing. The connotations of this picture are that you can't have a good time without this brand of champagne. They allude that once the bottle is opened, the party begins. Almost everyone knows (any age or gender) that champagne is traditionally used to celebrate something big, especially New Years Eve. But I think that with this ad they are showing that anytime you have this champagne you will celebrating.

The other picture I really, really like has been used for LG electronics. This one is the one on the left. The denotations of this picture are a elephant, tropical birds, trees, mountains, and a black rectangle with the letters "LG" on the bottom. The connotations of this picture are that the black rectangle is a LG Television. From this picture the audience can conclude that purchasing a LG television will provide you with a picture and sound that will replicate being in the actual jungle. Some people in my generation may assume that this is an advertisement for 3D television, however older people or people from a few decades ago would not think of this. This is because 3D television and movies are very common now a-days but people from older generations would have never guessed this could happen.

http://www.christophegilbert.com/index_low.html