Student Vote Poster Assignment

Student Vote Poster

Original

      For this assignment I was inspired to do a peace symbol with my hands from the poster I have bellow, because I liked the concept of how your vote can create peace for our country by choosing the right representative to lead our government. In the poster that was my inspiration the hand is depicted through a sketch, so I wanted to modify that idea by taking a photo of an actual hand and change it into that same kind of black and white.
   

Inspiration

     My concept, as I mentioned above, is that each vote can make a difference towards a peaceful and just province. I used bold uppercase letters to grab the viewers attention, as well as the the slanted white strips and the focal point of the large peace sign which makes out the word vote. Vote is the largest word in my poster because my goal is to encourage students to vote for someone, above everything else. I chose to keep the entire poster in black and white because it stands out as being bold, but also represents balance and power that connects to the election because my poster is meant to encourage voting but not for any specific party. I decided to add the Ontario symbol because it reminds the viewers that they are voting for Ontario's representatives, not Canada's government, and used this specific font for all the words in my poster because it reminded me of Vogue which I thought would appeal to the teen audience my poster's trying to draw attention to.

Macro Photography

Rosebud of White
Texture

Before B&W

Original

      For my first image I took this photo of a rose because of the many interpretations of what roses symbolizes, providing me many options for editing to create a photograph with depth and meaning.

      I cropped the picture in closer to the rose which is in focus using the rule of thirds composition, keeping the focal point off centre, because I wanted to remove the rose that was out of focus to remove distractions from the focal point. I kept the leaf which was out of focus though because I liked the depth it added to the photograph and how it draws the viewers attention into the focused rose. 

           I adjusted the contrast and saturation of the image to take away distractions of the wall in the background but then decided the photo was oversaturated and no longer crisp, so I removed the saturation of the image completely leaving a black and white photograph. I think the black and white creates a more powerful image because there is no distractions from the bright colors.

     My concept for this image is love and loss because the rose is often interpreted as a symbol of love, but the black and white symbolizes emptiness and unhappiness. The image's design element is texture because there is various rough and soft textures in the photo, such as the soft rose petals and the rough texture of the leaves and thorns.

Serenity
Color

Original

     For my second image I took a picture of this daisy but the photo was taken in a very wide crop, so the first thing I did was crop it very tight to the flower using the rule of thirds to keep the focal point to the left of the image. Then I adjusted the sharpness and contrast of the picture so that all the details in the petals and the stamen would really pop and draw attention. After I used the clone stamp tool to remove small specs and imperfections from the petals, and used a separate layer to blur the background with the gaussian blur filter. Finally I adjusted the saturation of the photo to brighten the colours further.

     I decided this image's design was color because of the vibrant contrast of whites, yellows, and greens that the viewer notices right away. I think the colours, in combination with the cropping using the rule of thirds makes this photo stand out in particular because of that pop.

In Bloom
Lines

     For my final image I chose this because it is especially macro because of the tight crop. I cropped the photo this far in because I found with the original there was no on point for the viewer to focus on where as with the new cropping the focal point is the stamens poking out of the beautiful yellow blossom.  I also adjusted the contrast, brightness, and saturation. Finally I removed specs from the petals from this flower in the bloom as well.

Original

    I chose lines to be the design element in this photo because of the lines in the stamens which are the focal point of the image.

Photo Restoration

Restoration

Original

     I chose this photo, option #3, because I thought the tears and bends in the photograph would be quite a challenge to restore.
     I started restoring the image of the baby by changing the image to black and white. By removing the saturation in the sepia tones it took away the vintage appear to the photo and I could then start retouching and fixing the tears and abrasions in the picture.
     I then created a new layer to begin restoring the image by sampling a near by area of the tear along the baby's mouth and clone stamping away the rip. I removed this tear first because it was the largest imperfection in the photo, so tackling the largest task first was a priority for me.
     With another layer I repeated the process of sampling a near by area and clone stamping imperfections and tears or bends out of the image along the baby's arms, shirt, and face. I sampled near by areas to clone stamp the abrasions out because it replicates the skin or clothing tone and texture the best for that specific spot.
     Finally, I clone stamped and painted with grey tones the background and foreground beneath the baby's arms almost entirely out to remove the remaining stains, tears, and bends and adjusted the lighting and contrast to brighten the image.
     Overall, I am fairly happy with my results, especially in the difficult task to restore the baby's mouth, but I was disappointed to see that my final restoration does not show up in true black and white tones on this website.


   

Composite Images

Voyager

     For this assignment I really wanted to create depth and portray emotion through my images as opposed to having a more contemporary composite image which throws many different pieces together that don't always have real significance to the concept or depiction. 

    I think my first image portrays just what I desired. My concept for the composite was to represent a road of journey thats long and strenuous but worthwhile in the end. This journey is represented in my image by the mountainous trail to which the girl in the foreground is about to take and the orange and yellow sky represents hope and clarity of what's beyond the fog as the sun rises. 

Midnight Mist

Sweet Noel

Composite Image Critique

Ice Age Premonition

     George Grie was born May 14, 1962 and is a Russian-Canadian artist known for his outstanding digital surrealism artwork. George is known for his numerous amounts of 2D and 3D images as well as matte painting artwork. His detailed digital art captures dreamlike worlds, which he calls neosurrealism. This form of surrealism is a combination of dreams and fantasies he brings to life through composite images.

    I think he composed this image by taking several images of clouds and water to create the background, used pictures of buildings and icebergs to create the basis of the foreground focal point, and then added little details like the stair case, cavern, and birds. These little details, in conjunction with how he changed the tones of the multiple images so the overall effect is very monochromatic, is what I think really makes the image so outstanding. His choice of of these dark blue and grey tones in his images bring a cold and mysterious feeling to the viewer. You could stare at a picture of an ice cube all day long and not have any chills but George's image makes an impact on his viewers through these somber, unworldly composite images. For those reasons I think his result is very pleasing.
  

Digital Painting

Mechanism

      In my first digital abstract painting named "Mechanism" I used a monochromatic color scheme of shades of green to add dimension and create a 3D futuristic look. The image combines harmony in the monochromatic greens with a sharp contrast of dark and light shades and soft and hard shapes. The greens are used to ignite excitement in the viewers as hope of the future holds unforeseen promises.

 I used a range of digital painting techniques such as designing the shapes to create the focal point which is incorporated into the rule of thirds by being off to the left of the image as well as using gradients and various brushes to create the painting. The concept of this image was to create a modern, cutting edge piece so the focal point can be taken literally as "cutting edge" since the shapes that create it are extremely sharp. The focal point draws your attention to the left side of the image and the gradient guides the viewer's eyes straight to the shape.

Eye of the Beholder

     In this digital painting named "Eye of the Beholder" I took inspiration from the image to the left which I found on a digital painting website. Instead of over painting an eye I started from scratch and painted the entire eye using a wide variety of brushes and tones of colour, especially in the skin. The image captures intermediate colors of blue-violet and tones of yellow-orange which are soft variations of complimentary colours. The focal point is the detailed iris and pupil of the eye which pull the viewers attention to the middle of the image. I had originally finished with the image on the right but decided to alter and deepen the colors to make a bigger impact upon first glance and overall make                                                                              the digital painting look more realistic. 

     I decided on changing the color of the eye to a deep blue because it represents feelings of disappointment and grief which eyes can reveal so well through emotion. People say an image is worth a thousand words, and I believe the emotion an eye holds is worth just the same. This digital painting was definitely the most time consuming and difficult out of the 3 I completed but I'm very pleased with the result.

Depth of Mind

       I chose to do another abstract image for my final digital painting entitled "Depth of Mind", which uses a range of monochromatic and analogous colours that blend together harmoniously. The choice of deep purples and blues represent the deeper, distraught side of the mind and spirit that fades to the focal point of the brighter light tones of blue which represent the relaxation of the mind. The focal point is the representation of this calm state because its the relief of stress which surrounds our lives in the deep blue colours. I considered the rule of thirds by having the focal point slightly off centre and on a diagonal to signify that the journey to peace of mind is askew and not always perfect. The orbs of color reinforce this symbolization through pieces which are faded, that represents parts of our life which shouldn't be focused on or be worried about, and pieces which are clear and in focus, that represent the important things in life that leave us content and should be focused on.  

50 Shade of Carefree

     I ended up doing another version of  "Depth of Mind" entitled "50 Shades of Carefree" which follows along with the symbolism of states of mind. I chose this title because the rainbow of bright colours represents a child like cheerfulness and incorporates more in focus orbs which signify a mind free of worries. 

Note - the posting is giving me difficulties and that is why I wasn't able to have my write up posted on time. The text editing also won't let me disable highlighting which is very frustrating so I apologize for any troubles you may having reading my write up.

Our Lady Of Lourdes Poetry Anthology Cover Design

     My cover design should be selected for the Lourdes Poetry Anthology because it represents the ideas of our students put into thoughts, expression, and poetry. The lightbulb represents the creative minds that Lourdes puts on showcase through the book. The black and white adds drama and mystery while the font ties in old handwriting in a digitally fabricated image.

Original

I also added grain to the picture to give the image more depth and texture and made the font of each set of words a slightly different size to make a larger impact. Overall I think my design cover should be picked because the combination of simpicity and represents the ideas of creative students at Lourdes

Guelph Multicultural Festival Poster

     For this assignment, my concept idea was to have a unique outstanding poster that really grabbed the readers attention with a bold font and a interesting centre point.
    I decided to have a girl kicking a soccer ball as that centre point because as May approaches, the weather gets warmer and soccer is a past time many Canadians love. Since the multicultural festival is in May I thought this worked out well and would grab the attention of sports fans and stand out from the other multicultural posters. I put the skyline of buildings including the CN Tower and Parliament building because it represents our bustling cities of Canada full of people and places to see.
     The background is a twist on the Canadian flag, pulling the foreground splashes of white in with the faded texture in red and black. Not only does this pull the image together, but it also really adds that pop of colour to make my poster stand out.
    Lastly, the group of Lourdes students and staff standing together represents the cooperation and unity  of our community and Canada as a whole, appreciating multiculturalism. I put these people in black and white because even though every individual is unique, we are all equal. If we all saw in black and white our world would be free of racism. We are lucky enough to have a country so diverse to appreciate the many cultures of the world and I think these smiling faces show just that.

Group Art Installation Rubric

       For this project, my group included Jamie, Emily, Carter, Daniel, and myself. After looking at the slideshow Mrs. Reidel showed us, we decided we wanted to do origami for our mobile because we thought it was relatively easy to learn how to make and the butterflies would flow well for the desired effect of a mobile.

       As a team we discussed our colour theme, balance and focal point. We decided we wanted our butterflies to be separated by warm and cool colours and have two larger origami butterflies in the middle as our focal point. Since we had warm and cool colours separated into two groups, we chose one of the large butterflies to be red and the other to be blue to co-inside with the colour scheme.

       Personally when I think of mobiles, I think of the ones that hang above babies cribs, so I suggested to the group we balanced our butterflies on something circular to replicate the look. We were provided a hola hoop to hang the origami and hung them at different levels to give the affect that they were flying, as apposed to strings of butterflies hanging straight.
   
       One aspect of the project my group was especially pleased with was the movement of our piece. Every butterfly hanging swayed ever so slightly and we thought we really captured the purpose of our project because of this.

       A couple of challenges we faced while creating our mobile were teaching everyone how to create the origami in the first place, and making sure everyone in our group was working towards finishing the project by completing an assigned task. It took a lot of communication and patience to get every group member to be as productive as possible to finish on time.

       In the end, my group was really pleased with the outcome of our project and felt accomplished after all the hard work we had put into it had paid off!

Digital Portrait Assignent

Opposite Emotions

      For this image, I took two picture of my younger cousin dean and layered them together. I also cropped both pictures to focus on the emotions in his face. I wanted to make the image look like I had photographed twins, who we're not feeling the same way. That way the image was contradictory in a way, twins but individuals with separate emotions, opinions, and thoughts.  

Original

Pride

      In this image, I had the opportunity to capture veterans listening to the speaker during our national Flag Day. This day was meant to commemorate our country and many veterans and important individuals visited Lourdes that day. The man's face who is in focus says a lot. I took it as pride, for his country and his service. I had already changed the image to black and white in a previous assignment, so I decided to leave that as is since I felt it really focused on the man's expression. To further centre the attention on the veterans face I cropped the picture in tighter so the remaining wall was no longer a distraction, and heightened the contrast a little more. I also think the grain works well with this image because it coincides with his old age, since the grain makes the photo look old and worn. 

Utopia 

Original

     Finally, for my last image I photographed this grade 12 we used as a model in a trial photo shoot. His skin tone ended up turning out over saturated, so I converted the photo to black and white and adjusted the levels, contrast, and brightness. I also cropped the image using the rule of thirds in tight to his upper body to focus on the expression in his face. I chose this image because I found the focus, lighting and over all quality well done and also liked his pose. 

Face Overlay

Nightmares

  For this photo I started by taking textures of blood, scrapped skin, and cuts to use as overlays on my face after I removed the background. I converted every layer to black and white, and added a dark wall background which I burned to give it the vignette effect. The eyes took a lot of time, and was definitely my biggest challenge while creating this image. I used several layers to fill the eyes in black, burned the eyelid area to make it look more natural, and duplicated the refection of the eye so a reflection showed through. Still, the effect was too strong so I changed the mode to screen and adjusted the levels of that difference and I was very happy with the results! After I added the other images and adjusted the way they laid on my skin, changed their modes depending on my desired effect, and erased excess parts so that they blended with my skin.
     I felt I was very successful with what I wanted to do for this image, and I am very happy with the final results. Did I scare you? 
*Note - Mrs. Reidel, just a reminder I already showed you my orginal picture and did not want to post them on my blog.

One With Earth

Inspiration Idea

For my additional image, I took my idea from this photo which I thought was a really interesting concept. I faded the earth in the background so it wasn't taking away from my face because that was my desired focal point for the picture. Then I  took the same picture of the Earth and overlayed it on my face, and changed the mode to multiply. I was having a lot of difficulties finding a way to use the Earth on my face in a way that looked appealing, and using the multiply mode was my best option for a very strong image. 
     Overall I'm fairly happy with the results of this image, but I prefer my first photo much more. 

Pop Art Posters

Andy Warhol Style Self Portrait

        For each of my Pop Art photos, I used analogous colours on the colour wheel because after going through several trial and error photos I was happiest with the result of using similar colours that blended well with each other. I wanted to stick with colors that I associated with Andy Warhol's work and were bright and appealing to the eye. Since I have a big grin on my face, I chose colors that I thought matched the happiness of the image to stick with that feeling. To me these four groups of colors remind me of the 70's and I really liked the turn out.  I started with the last photo, using warm shades of yellow and then adding a pop of red to the lips to make them stand out as a focal point in the image. Then I decided to go to the other side of the spectrum, using cool shades of blue. These two out of the four are my favourite because of how bright they are. In the other two photos I used shades of violet and green because they are secondary colors of blue and yellow and I wanted to incorporate more uses of the color theory into my work. 
     As for how I created these images, instead of taking hours to fill in every detail where the black occupied I used layers to fill that entire section of color and changed certain layers blending modes to lighten. This seemed to work really well to save time and used the same sort of process as Andy Warhol did with Silk Screening.The hair in particular turned out really well by doing this in my opinion, and gave lots of depth that wouldn't of been there if I were to just fill it in piece by piece. 
     I decided to leave the shadowing underneath the lip because personally I like it. Many of Warhol's silk screen portraits included shading and I don't think the shading takes away from my image. Although I did try to remove it, I found the lips to look quite odd so I left it as is. 
   Finally I flipped the image by enlarging the background, merging the layers I used to color the threshold, and flipping the duplicate of the new layer I created. I repeated this process with all four images because that was the way I found to be most consistent so my images were identical apart from color variation. 

Original Photo

     As you can see, a lot of changes were made in the process of this assignment to make this photo into the four final images I have now.