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.