Week 15

.......

Website

To see my new site click here.

Week 14

Assignment: Our assignment for this week was to explore the program called iWeb and to work on our upcoming website.

Craft: I took the information from the site I had created for last weeks assignment and just shined it up and polished it. I changed the template I was using, deleted some of the things they had on the pages, and switched some of the original colors to make it my own. I also beefed up my passages with a little more detail and added my thoughts on he project.

Composition: When we meet for class last time we were told to set our sites up a certain way. We were suppose to have a page for about me, about vc, mash up 1, and mash up to. I posted some new pictures of the assignments we did and we then created a new page with something different about the assignment from my point of view.

Concept: Using this website was a way to organize all our work and to display is using the internet and the computer. Even though all of these pieces work done on a computer this program allows us to have all of our artwork and easily assessable for others. With our passages was where we were able to explain to the people what we were trying to say and do with our artwork.

Week 13

Assignment: This week's assignment was to now move our comic to the new program were using in class. The new program is called iWeb.

Craft: We are suppose to use iWeb to create a website that deals with us and our art. We want our site to show off our favorite art to our classmates.

Composition: For this project, I had to organize all the work that I have done for Visual Communications. This is very important to have the Art organize in separate folders so that it is easy to navigate. Then making a new site is important so that the other websites on my iWeb are not messed. iWeb is a program that makes it very easy to create a website. This program also have many different templates that you can choose from. Choosing a template and then creating the site is the next part of this assignment. Once all of that is done it is time to create the page about me and then the page with my art work on it.

Concept: Using iWeb I am trying to explain what visual communication is and to show all of my work to my classmates in a easy manner.

Week 12

Exempted

Week 11

Assignment:

For this weeks assignment it was now time to add color to our comics. It was time to make our comics “pop.” We discussed making things “pop” in the previous couple of classes and it was time to test them out on our comics. With making it pop we had to choose our two colors do this and we choose purple and yellow.

Craft:

This was a more remember the steps work then a difficult step. To make this work we changed the background to a normal layer, added a blank colored layer, and then added a new layer for each thing we colored. This is nice because say we wanted to change our colors all we would have to do is use the paint bucket on each layer on the colors we painted.

Composition:

I talked about making it pop in the assignment part and that’s basically what we did to arrange our elements. With choosing the colors we had to make one color the blank background, which was the purple. After that we had to use a yellow color because they are opposites on the color wheel so the yellow “pops” on a purple surface. In our pictures we decided to focus on the important things in the picture and color them yellow.

Concept:

With the comic we tried to tell a story. With the color we are adding an element to it, which makes it easier to read. With adding the color the less important information sort of fades to the background and we can pop the important stuff. Then with our story we added that suspense up until last class with having the last scene secret. Everyone thought it was a good story until they saw what our package was.

Week 10

Assignment:

What our assignment was this was simply continue our comic strip cartoon. Now, that we had our pictures and story line made we need to add the Photoshop touch to our pictures.

Craft:

For the cartoon assignment there were many different strategies taken by our classmates. For my partner and I we decided to do more work at the beginning so we had less work at the end. We decided to focus on our pictures to make sure our pictures really told the story instead of having to add to them. Obliviously there are a couple pictures we altered with Photoshop but for the most part we accomplished our goal with our pictures.

Composition:

Like I mentioned above we took a lot of time with our pictures and took many different shots so we could choose the best one. The ones that we needed to alter, we added things with Photoshop. For instance, the first scene we could not get a close enough picture of a plane so we decided to make a split frame with multiple pictures so there was not a bunch of open space.

Concept:

This project took a 180 when we had to pick a partner for our project. This was a good thing because my roommate and I decided to be partners. Seeing that we live together we get along pretty well. This helped out tremendously for our project because we were able to shoot ideas out all the time to see what each other’s ideas were. Having a partner that I got along with helped with taking the pictures to because he knew what we were looking for in the pictures so he knew how to model the pictures.

Lipstick and Dynamite

Craft: (How it was made)

This film was created by the use of a video camera. The film was a documentary which included small clips of old wrestling matches, old clips of interviews, a couple talk shows, and newly shot interviews with the actual women wrestlers. The documentary is about a series of women wrestlers who were the women who started women wrestling and where they are at now.

Composition: (Arrangement of Elements)

The creator of this film begins the film as a setup/mystery kind of film. The opening scene is from a old game show where celebrities interview three different people and try to figure out who the real wrestler is on that episode. After the beginning is where numerous interviews are beginning done which are introducing all of the women wrestlers and introduces other important people who took part in the process of creating women wrestling? It was very interesting to hear all the facts about how they didn’t get paid at the beginning and how the owners would make the girls sleep with them and ban them from everyone else.

Concept: (What is trying to be said?)

Its hard to say for sure what Mrs.Lietman was trying to say and I definitely do not think it was just one thing. I feel that she created this film to show women that everything did come easy like some things do today. These women sacrificed a lot of things and worked very hard for little if no money. Showing that if you want something really bad, you might have to sacrifice everything and never give up. Another message I received from the film was these women did it for more then the money. They wanted to gain respect from the man for women and by persevering through the struggles they gained major respect from the man.

Week 8

Assignment: (Comic Pictures)

The assignment that was due for this week was the pictures we though would best fit our comic layout.

Craft: (How did we do it)

The way we accomplished this assignment was pretty easy. Seeing that were had to layout our comic for the teacher we knew what type of pictures we needed. Seeing that we knew what types of pictures we needed we simply took the pictures we thought best fit our comic.

Composition: (Arrangement of elements)

We still need to take more pictures due to some scheduling issues and other previous arrangements we were unable to get all the pictures we needed to complete the comic strip.

Concept: (What are we tying to say)

We are trying to use these pictures to convey our story to an audience without words. I described our story in the previous post so we are still trying to say the same stuff just with the pictures instead of words.

Week 7

Assignment: Comic Strip Story
Our assignment was to develop a story with our creative minds but we also had to include three requirements. The requirements were that our story had one person waiting, one person traveling, and a package.

Craft: How did I do it
This assignment had a curve-ball to it. The very first thing Peck had us do a class was to vote on whether we would like to work with partners or by ourselves for this project. The class voted for the partners, that meant everyone needed a partner. This was an easy issue to be solved for me because my roommate (Zach) is in the class so we choose to be partners. Now that we had our partners it was time to brainstorm ideas which was pretty fun to hear the different ideas that we had and putting our ideas together. We had awhile to think since it was our spring break. Once we came back from our spring break we decided on which story we wanted to use and headed to class. Once in class, the class got with their partners and we went around the room discussing our ideas. After, we were done discussing our ideas we needed to decide whether our comic would be nine slides or twelve slides. Once we decided the number of slides we had to fill the slides with scenes to our comics. Now, with all of that done we need to take our pictures and work with them in photoshop to make them comic material.

Composition: Arrangement of elements
The story that we decided on was one of a women saleswomen (Lilly) finding love on one of her business trips. While in Chicago, she was grabbing a bite to eat when this man (David) caught her eye and she caught his as well. They decided to share lunch together seeing they were both alone. These two hit it off so well they decided to continue their days with one another since neither had anything else to do. They headed back to his place. One thing lead to another and we will let your mind think of what happened. Lilly has to wake up early in the morning, when she awakes she decides to not wake David since its so early. Instead, she decides to leave her number on his nightstand for him. Once, David awakes he notices Lilly is gone which is a problem because he had some important information he needed to tell her. He notices her number on the nightstand and decides to call her. When he calls, he gets her voice mail. He leaves a message telling her when she comes back to Chicago he really wants to see her cause he has to give her something very important. After listening to this voicemail Lilly is very excited to go back to Chicago in two weeks. Two weeks have past and its time for them to see each other. They are meeting at the resturant where they first met, which seems so romantic to Lilly. When Lilly arrives at the resturant David is already waiting for her. She notices a package wrapped up on the table. All of this, has made Lilly smile from ear to ear and she can't stop. They have lunch and David gives her the package, she tears through the wrapping paperwith such excitement. When all the paper is removed she sees the box contains ........(see comic for ending)

Concept: What am I trying to say
This story is suppose to be your normal love story when things turn for the worst. This is suppose to pass the message that you should always be careful and things are not always as good as they seem. For us we decided to poke fun at the end of the story putting a serious/funny ending to our story. That is all we can comment about for now.

Week 6

Assignment: (First draft of mash up)

The assignment that was due for week six, was to have our rough draft ready to be evaluated by Peck. This draft was to suppose to clearly state our message.

Craft: (How did I do it?)

I first started with retaking all of my photos seeing that my idea had changed from when the first draft of photos were done. Another reason I wanted to retake my photos was because we learned how to setup a photo shoot where we get the pictures at the quality we wanted. I had an idea in my head already and drew a quick draft of it on a piece of paper. Seeing that I knew what I wanted to do, it was simply shooting the correct pictures and then piece them together. Having the pictures I needed for this new idea it was simply going step by step to complete my idea. I first started by deciding which two mirror photos I wanted to use. I choose these pictures by looking at the quality, the expression on his face, and if his entire body was in the mirror not just half of him. Once deciding the two pictures I wanted I need to flip one so that it looked like they could be the reflection of the person in the middle. To do this, I put each mirror on its own layer and free transformed one of the mirrors. After, free transforming it I flipped it horizontally. Once the mirrors were in place I need to put the figure in the middle. Taking the notes from our photo shoot, I took a photo of my model against a white wall so all I had to do was magic wand him into the picture. Once I put him into the picture I cleaned up the edges of him and the mirror so the edges were crisp and would pop out more. I did all of this on a white background because I still hadn't figured out what I was going to use as a background just yet. Seeing that we had to use our own photo's I started to go through all of my photographs. While going through my photos I took outside of the airplane window I thought it would be a nice background. This would be easy on the eyes and also go with the idea of the photo with someone being in the middle of nowhere trying to decide whether or not to end their life. Or someone could take that the background shows which decision the person decided to make. So basically I made a copy of the blank background and pasted the photograph into the copy. After I did that I put that as the 1st layer so that it would be in the background of everything. These were the steps that I took to arrive at the draft that I have now.

Composition: (Arrangement of elements)

The arrangement of these multiple pictures brings your eyes to the three most important parts of the picture. With the calm background it brings out the two bold crisp mirrors and while looking at those two your eyes can't help but to look in the middle where the figure is. After, looking over the pictures you notice the different looks the person has and the two decisions that he is contemplating.

Concept: (What am I trying to say?)

I still haven't decided on a title for this assignment but I think the message is clear and will become even more clear once I make some of the changes that were recommended. Basically, the message is there is two decisions for this person and one is to live or not to live. With one mirror showing that he is happy and the other one showing him disturbed with pills in his hand. I hope to change a few things, I want to change the message to show my thoughts on which one I think he should choose. Then I want to change the mirror that has the pills in it to make it clear that he is contemplating suicide. With those few changes I think I will be happy with how the art expresses my thoughts and message.

Week 5

Assignment: (Have 25 pictures for our idea)

Our assignment for the upcoming weeks was to think of an idea that we felt passionate about. The idea was suppose to be about a serious topic and was suppose to be clearly noticeable in our Art. Using the pictures that we took we were suppose to make a Photoshop mash up of our idea. That’s where our 25 pictures come into play and the reason we need them.

 

Craft: (How did I do it?)

For this assignment we were asked to pick an idea or topic that we feel strong about. This idea/topic was suppose to be some what controversial and when I started to think about controversial topics, two things came to mind that I feel strong about not having abortions and suicide.  I decided to go with suicide because I thought of an idea of something I could make. I choose this topic because when growing up I had two friends who had family members commit suicide. Seeing how much this hurt the people surrounding the victim was very hard to watch.  Also, you see so much about suicide on the news and television that it’s just a reminder to everyone that there are people out there who need help. To help with my artwork I asked my roommate and fellow classmate to be my model. I took a lot of pictures of him, him looking into a mirror, and of him holding pills. I have posted some of the pictures I took above.

 

Composition: (Arrangement of the elements)

This is the most important part, for this project. We need to make our message clear so that our viewers can easily understand what were trying to say. I have decided to arrange multiple pictures into one picture, using Photoshop. I plan on having a person in the middle of the picture who is kind of a shadowy figure and then have two mirrors in front of him (one on his left and right). Each mirror will have a reflection of the person who is the shadowy figure. One mirror will be of the person disturbed/sad/confused/contemplating something and other one will have be the body of the person, but with multiple pictures making up his face (the multiple pictures will be parts of other people’s faces to make one face).

 

Concept: (What am I trying to say?)

 Now, this is the hardest part of art for me. I’m not trying to offend anyone in this piece but from my personal opinion suicide is wrong. I think there are many ways to get help and to forget whatever it is you are upset about. When I read some of the suicide stories I just feel like these situations are every day life situations that people blow out of proportion.  I think that by committing suicide you are still hiding from your problems and allowing them to win. From watching the two family’s deal with their suicides it just doesn’t seem right. The person who committed suicide does not have to deal with the pain of losing someone everyday like their family members do. I’m not saying every situation is the same and can be resolved. I’m just trying to say with this art that there are two sides of the story (the two mirrors). One with the person by themselves because that what they feel like. The other mirror being made up the person with the people they are going to hurt and who they could of gone to for help. Then there is the person in the middle who is looking at both of these mirrors confused with what they want to do.

200 Lincoln Exhibit

On Friday 13^th, the exhibit of 200 Lincoln’s opened at six o’clock. This was an exhibit of two hundred different pieces of Abraham Lincoln to celebrate his two hundredth birthday. This was a great exhibit to have to celebrate his accomplishments and his birthday, not to mention that I had a piece of art in this exhibit. I’m not much of an artist but I’m not going to lie it is pretty cool to hear that something you made is going to be in an art gallery in downtown Chicago. Nonetheless, my classmate Zach and I both knew that we had to go check it out.  We arrived right at six and this was great timing because we were one of the first to come, which allowed to move at our own pace from piece to piece. There were so many pieces, which were all done so well that I felt my art didn’t belong in the same gallery. All in all, it was a great experience and something I might start doing more often (going to check out the art gallery’s).

Week 4

Assignment: (Improve our Lincoln Mix)The assignment we have been working on was to mix one of our own pictures that we have taken and add Abraham Lincoln or part of him to our picture. We have been working on this project for about two or three weeks and we our now wrapping it up. We were supposed to make the focus of a picture clear and to make a print of our picture on 11x17 for this week.

 

Craft: (What I did and How )

When we had our critique it was evident that the message of my picture was not clear. The comments I received from my peers were very helpful and helped me decide on the message of my picture and to improve its clarity. From the comments I learned that just having Lincoln ’s face on one of my friends was pretty plain and wasn’t saying much. So I decided to add a wanted poster. The original poster was of the one for Lincoln ’s murderer and his accomplices. I decided to twist that by making it for Lincoln seeing that he is still alive and made his accomplices his vice president from his first term and my other friend who is in the picture. The way I did this was I took out of the names off the poster and switched them with those of Lincoln and his accomplices. Then I pasted the poster on the first layer and made a copy of that layer and put the poster in between the two layers. Finally, I erased the area where the poster was needed so the poster would show through.

 

Composition: (Elements)

The two most important things in my art are Lincoln ’s face and the poster. Previously Lincoln didn’t look realistic and you could definitely tell that this was photoshoped. Then the poster was the next important element to help the viewers see what I my message was. Adding the poster cleared up my message some what.

 

Concept: (My Message)

My message was very uncertain last time. I decided on what I want my message to be and it was to show Lincoln is still alive. Kind of like the Elvis, 2Pac, and Notorious BIG stories where they supposedly were killed but some people still claim they are alive. I was trying to play off those stories and make it seem like he was still alive and hiding seeing he was wearing some baggage clothes and a hood and hat. Another message that I thought would be funny to add is making Lincoln the first president who was a murderer and convicted. By adding the wanted poster behind him it showed that he was wanted and that he was still out in public defying the lay.

Week 3

Assignment: Combine two pictures together (one old and one new)

The assignment that was given was for us to combine two pictures with one being from the Lincoln era and the other being one we have taken recently. 

Craft:

The way I decided to start the project was to find one of my pictures that I liked and wanted to change to have Lincoln in it. This was a bad idea because the hardest part of this project was to find a Lincoln face that would work or look right in the new picture. That's when I decided to look over the pictures I had of Lincoln so I would have an idea of the pictures I had of him. Then from there I went to my pictures and scrolled through to see which picture one of the faces of his would work in. After, finding a few that would work I choose which one I wanted to do. Seeing that the hardest part was finding the two pictures to use and now that part of it was done I could open them both and work some magic. I went to the Lincoln picture and I used the magic wand to select just his face and copied it. Then, I pasted Lincoln's face into my other picture. I free transformed his face until it was to a size that matched the size of the body. After that, I made a copy of the background picture and then put the layers in this order original, Lincoln's face, and original copy. Then I lowered the opacity of the background copy so I could see the outline of Lincoln's face and erased the person's face in the copy so Lincoln's face would show through. Then I raised the opacity back to 100% and moved to the Lincoln face layer to smooth some of the edges around his face. I then took out the saturation from both pictures and added a black/white layer to each of them.

Composition/Concept: 

In this photograph I wanted it to be something out of the norm for Lincoln and also connect Lincoln to the present which is the new picture. First, the picture is two of my friends on the train that is in Chicago,Ill which is the connection in my eyes because Lincoln is from Illinois. Then for putting Lincoln in a situation of attire that he is never seen in. All the pictures I found of Lincoln him were of him by himself and no emotion/expression.  Making Lincoln look like one of my friends gives him some expression with the thumbs up, there is a friend with him which is rare to see him with someone else in the picture, and finally he is in street clothes. All the pictures of Lincoln were of him all dressed up and I wanted to bring him out of his element which downgrading his clothes does I feel.

Week 2

Assignment: 25 New Era pictures; 25 Old Era pictures (Abraham Lincoln or Lincoln Era)

Craft: Well figuring out which old era pictures was easy and difficult. Seeing that we didn't know exactly what we were doing with these pictures we just had to look up on the internet 25 images that were real pictures and that caught our eye. The same went for the new era pictures, we didn't have much to go of

f of except for a concept except for the pictures to modern technology things in the pictures. This led us to believe that we would be doing some sort of contrast of the new and old pictures. Basically, for the new era picture

s I took pictures that I thought I might be able to mix old pictures with.

Composition: 

For this section we were suppose to pick our two favorite pictures one from each era. Well I decided to choose my new era picture to be one of me and my good friend Andrea before we went out. The reason I liked this picture so much is it just puts a smile on my face when I look at it and just reminds me of a good time. Other then my face being really red I think it is a good quality picture of us. 

As for the old era picture I choose one of a general from the civil war. The reason I choose this picture because I like how serious this man looks, he looks like he is ready for war. Then again 

his uniform is so cleaned pressed and organized. It gives you this signal of a very serious man, where as when you look at his face you get this mean serious look and and he is dressed for business. Also, there is nothing else in this picture. It is just this man and the background behind him is plain so it makes you just stare at him trying to figure out what he is trying to do or say. I think this picture will be fun to mess around with and maybe put into a new era picture.

Concept:

The two I decided two mix might change but I have decided to either mix the one of the general from above and one of my roommate/fellow classmate ( Zach ). I feel mixing those two would be kind of interesting to bring that serious of a man and in uniform and put him in an area where he would look totally out of place. I have also contemplated mixing the one of abraham lincoln and the one of myself and Andrea. I thought it would be interesting to see how realistic I could make a picture work with abe's face on mine. Those are two ideas I am still playing with and I might attempt both and see which one I like better.

Week 1

Craft: Found a picture of myself, Copied the picture to my desktop, Then logged into Blogger.com, Setup my page, and finally clicked the "add picture" and added the picture I wanted.

Composition: It was the layout that caught my eye out of all the other ones. I like how it has multiple colors and it could easily be switched to colors I like. The reason I choose this picture is it reminds me of a funny time with a good friend. It also is of good quality, both of our eyes are open, and we are both smiling nice.

Concept: The think that makes me good is I feel I am creative, athletic,very determined, hard working, and a good hearted person.  I think is a very good combination and rare which makes me different which is something very special/good in my eyes.