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.