Artist's Statement Final

For this piece, I wished to create a more realistic Time themed project. With that in mind, i tried to incorporate fewer element in this project than in the last time project in order to focus on the realism. To start, i wanted to use an open space with no human interaction, so i chose the open ocean. From there i wanted to create some sort of feeling of escape but also have the sinking, trapped feeling somewhere. The sinking is created through both the open sea and stopwatch clock sinking?/floating?, its up for interpretation. The escape comes from the birds that are flying quickly away, bursting out of the stopwatch/clock. They are not white, but they are not evil either. After breaking free, they fly away from the sun into the bleak open air. The clock, both clock and stopwatch, represents a form of captured time. Some will control the time, some will be controlled by the time. This piece has a sort of dark mood and un-revealing aspect to it. Although there are many interpretations, there is no correct thought process when it come to art, and my piece is meant to represent what you make of it.

 To start off the piece, I found all my pictures and backgrounds for the image and named them the correct respective layers. I then split the background, which was the ocean and skyline, into separate sky and ocean. Hiding both, I then placed the stopwatch where i wanted it to be. The stopwatch components other than the stopper and the other lap function were erased. Then i placed the clock face with numerals onto the stopwatch and re-sized until it fit. To make the face more realistic, i created a new layer filled with white and used the burn tool on highlights with an oval selection to darken the edges where a shadow would be cast by the sun. Also upon the top, I then selected both the image of the stopwatch and the clock face in order to cut the bottom. To cut the object out and make it look buoyant in the ocean, I used the bright edge of the waves to trace around. Then the object was cut so the ocean would show through where the clock would be under water. Creating a new layer of gray for the burn tool on midtones, i burned the clock and the ocean in order to create the darkness i needed to seam the images together. i then used the pen tool to make a selection around stopwatch and used the gradient tool to create a dark to light fade on the stopwatch. After this, i then created a shadow for the clock by creating an oval on the ocean where it should be and used the perspective function on the transform controls to flatten the image against the ocean. To place the shadow in the ocean, i erased the edges where the waves would be negating the shadow. I then created a very slight gradient on the shadow to make it more realistic going from dark near the clock to more transparent away from the clock. To align the shadows with the sun, i also brushed in black around the clock stoppers to create a bending shadow due to the clock surface.

Next, the pieces of clock were created for the explosion. I used the birds to create a new brush for the eraser tool. i erased small, medium, and large birds out of the clock, and created different selections of clock to place outside as shrapnel. The birds brushes were also used to create smaller birds around the explosion area. I duplicated the birds multiple times to get the amount i needed and moved them around to make a random flying effect. To gain perspective, i blurred some of the birds and the ocean to gain a sort of focus, as if the shot was taken by a camera. From there, i created shading on the birds with a textured 'sand'? brush, including the wings and other. Next, i realized the clock did not actually look like it belonged in the image. To fix this, i created a color overlay on the areas of the clock that would be reflecting the ocean. I faded the color of the ocean into the color of the clock so that the clock reflected both the green of the sky and the blue/black of the ocean.

To finish the piece, i used the gradient tool to create a vignette around the edges to create a sort of 'story' look. The lens flare was also created to give the image a comprehensive dynamic feeling. I had to erase some of the flare and change the opacity to blend it without overpowering the image as a whole.

I really enjoyed creating the image even though there where rough spots and hang-ups. Overall the image turned out well for it purpose and serve to fit my imagination. I hope other find meaning in the art and happen to enjoy a sense of creativity.

Blog #5

My most significant accomplishment in my final is the creation of something that actually looks real. In the midterm, I attempted to make the photo look realistic but it was tougher since my techniques were not as structured. In the midterm i tried to use the brush instead of using the gradient tool and dodge burn. The brush makes lines and blending defects as compared to the gradient tool and burning. In the final, i have used the dodge and burn on separate layers so that the blending and erasing are more directly editable.

The most challenging project was quiz 4 or the face retouching. Since i had never done frequency separation, i had to try and fail several times in order to understand the actual process. I realize how the technique is used now and will use it to speed up many editing jobs that will come up. Since Photoshop is used for faces and skin quite a lot, i believe the technique will come in handy. Although it is good to do something the easiest way, understanding why it works that way is more important to me. Many people can do something they learned online, but some do not know how to tweak the action to make it fit to their needs.

In my larger projects there is more meaning than in my quizzes because of the time restraints. This is due to just showing skill on quizzes because i usually do not have some intense deep idea about a quiz, but the projects i try to put more meaning into them. Like in last quiz, putting faces on other people does not carry a message, but in my projects i use the color and objects for the meaning of the piece. Like in my final, I am using crows for the birds flying out of the clock to represent a kind of foreshadowing or future. there are other messages but ill leave that for interpretation. Color is a main detail in my photos, and i hope to convey a meaning though this color and overlay

Artist's Statement (quiz 4)

For this quiz i chose to do the mash up of Mean Girls and Rambo. I wanted to practice using textures and colors, so i decided to put Sylvester Stallone's face onto all the girl's faces. To do this, I used frequency separation. To separate the layers, i copied the image of Rambo and used apply image>offset:128 blending mode:subtract, then blending:linear light. This allowed me to place the texture of Rambo's face upon the girl's. I used this and an eraser to blend the faces together. For the first face, i erased her features but kept the colors generally intact. To do this I blurred a selected area of the face until the details where gone. The second girl, i had some trouble matching the colors so it doesn't look exactly right due to time constraints. The third girl was next with the incorporation of the  headband. For this, i highlighted her hair with the lasso, then changed the color to black with brightness and contrast. Then i used the picture of Stallone and erased away all the hair i did not need to blend the two together. Matching the hair with Stallone's, I played with the blending tool and curves to get the colors to match. The text and title were done with the text tool, editing the size and spacing in between letters to match that of the original. Then a gradient was applied using the original colors from the poster to achieve the original effect. After this, I ran out of time to edit, so the image is not perfect by any means.