Blog 5

1) I think my most significant accomplishment was in my final project. I successfully captured the pictures I needed after a couple trial and errors. I ran into a couple of problems with blurriness but was able to overcome that. For me, I was quite proud of the way I used the burn tool on my second picture (the one with the black eye), I feel like I made it very convincing. I feel like my big idea and theme was well developed, more than that of the midterm. I gave my final more attention because the pictures came from me and each of them reflects a part of my life. I also feel that it could be meaningful to someone else who knows a person in this situation or is actually in an abusive relationship themselves.
My finals can be viewed below.

2) This project came from my midterm. The most challenging part for me was trying to blend the pictures together and make them seamless. I had a difficult time using masks in this picture, I was still new to them and had to work hard to make my selections. For awhile I did not know that the selection was made first before you applied that mask, so once I figured that out I was a master a masks. I also grew fond of the artistic tools. It takes awhile to choose the right one that works with your picture, but once you find it, it makes a great improvement.

3) I'd like to compart my final projects compared to my midterms. In both sets, my big idea was emotion. For my midterm my theme was evolution of love, how love grows and changes over time. The pictures used came from the internet. I feel that I did get my meaning across and portrayed what I was trying to. My final project theme was relationships. For these, I used my own pictures. I think that this was the stronger of my two projects because it directly related to me.

Final Projects

Final Artist Statement

  My big idea was emotion.  I looked at how emotion played a part in a relationship, specifically anger. In both my pictures, the eye plays a big part. The eye is the most important and useful tool to seeing and depicting the world around us. There are always two sides to every story and I wanted to emphasize that with my pictures. The first picture is the eye of a bystander, someone who sees the relationship as healthy and happy. This eye has the tendency to see things more denotatively. It sees a happy couple smiling and doesn’t see that there are internal problems.  The second eye is the eye in the relationship. This eye sees the truth about the relationship, which is not happiness, its anger. I see this eye as seeing things more connotatively. Once they see their partner angry, they begin thinking about the reasons behind it. Like, “what did I do this time to make him mad” or”why is he hitting me,” questions that would only be asked if you knew the truth about the relationship.  Both of my pictures are not realistic, they have a kind of overlay to them.  This overlay I see as being a blind spot. For the first picture, the person is blind to the actual situation going on, they see the happy couple but they do not see the abuse behind it. The second picture I see the eye as being immature and self-denying. Even though they are getting abused they stay in the relationship. They put up this binder and take the fault for the actions. They see it as their fault and think that they are doing something wrong, but in reality, it is not their fault at all. I get this inspiration from someone I knew who was in an abusive relationship. They seemed to be a happy couple on the outside, but there were internal problems.  She would always claim it’s her fault he hit her. She was blind to the actual truth.

Artist Statement for Final Project

1) Artist Statement

For my final project, my big idea is emotion. Within this big idea, I will be looking at anger and how it influences actions in a relationship. The two outlooks I want to portray are the couple’s view of the relationship and their perspective. The second view is a by stander, who only see’s a certain part of this relationship. I will use the eye in each of my demonstrations because the eye is a vital tool in seeing and depicting the world around us. In each of the eyes, there is a reflection, one from each of the perspectives. The eye that is in the relationship is blackened and fearful, with an abuser in its presence. The other eye is that of a by-stander who only sees the happy and content couple.  

2)Influences

-The first influence is battered women shelters. Domestic abuse is more common than people know. I feel that more people should be aware of this and those facing domestic abuse should know where to get help. http://www.safehavenshelter.org/

-The second influence came from Alfonso Cevola. I found one of this pictures inspiring. It was useful in helping me portray my reflections in my pictures.

-The final influence came from an artist I found on Flickr, Dude Crush. His use of eyes was amazing. The pictures he took had an abundance of emotion and that was what I was looking for.

 

3) The new Photoshop tool I will attempt to use is the burn tool. I want to use in to create more focus on the eye. Also use it to make the eye appear to be blackened.

Artists

Meaghan Coles is an artist who relates to my big idea. She focuses her paintings on emotions, primarily with the face and the hands. I like her use of color. With subtle tones of browns throughout her paintings, and her use of colors around the eyes to pull the attention there. I feel in her paintings, her big idea is emotions. She draws the face based on which emotion she is trying to portray. Meaghan will soften the eyes to make the person look happy, she may harden the eyes to make the painting have a more fierce look. This artist inspires me to use simple and light colors of areas that I want to focus less on, and use vibrant colors where I want to draw the attention to. Also I like how the painting looks like its dripping, it is a way to make the picture blend together. Stylistically, for my final project, I want to use Coles use of color and dripping to make my pictures have a more complete look.

http://meaghancoles.com/Frames_paintings.html

Alberto Seveso is an artist that caught my attention. I was drawn to this artist because of his use of people and how he manipulates them into something exotic and appealing. The big idea this artist focuses on is, I believe, emotion. I find these pictures inspiring because of the advanced use of Photoshop. I like how the pictures have a 3D appearance. The very bottom picture is one of my favorites. I like how the man seems to have a pattern on his skin, while it is still obvious where his features are. I am curious on how they make their selections and how they put the pictures together. For my final project, I am going to try to pull some of these techniques and incorporate them into my picture. I want to try to use tiny pieces of different pictures to create my overall project.

http://psd.tutsplus.com/articles/web/110-artworks-from-the-top-20-digital-artists-in-europe/

Quiz 4

The Notebook and The Dark Knight

When comparing there two movie posters there are clear differences. The Notebook shows two young people, one male and one female, who are in love. This is seen by the way they are embracing each other and the way they are about to kiss. The man and women are also in the rain, which they seem to disregard because they only care about being with one another. This is aimed to catch the attention of women, who love a love story. When looking at The Dark Knight, it has a whole different feel. The use of dark colors, explosions, and fire make it feel less like a love story and more like an action movie. The single figure standing in the middle of the poster seems to have no fear as all the chaos goes on behind him, he is very masculine, which is what the movie poster is trying to portray. This movie would most likely be a male pick. When comparing these movie posters, the titles of the movie are at the bottom of the poster. There is also a blue tint in each poster. The Notebook is more subtle, where the Dark Knight is more distinct, but it's use is a lot darker.

When I chose to combined these two, I wanted to make The Dark Knight more into a love story. I first took out the burning bat sign to get rid of the fire element. I wanted to pull out some of the highlights and take away the dark blue tent, that's when I ended up with the warm gold color. I then put most of the focus on the girl, by making her more bold. The man is kind of fading away to take the emphasis off him. I wanted him to seem like he is choosing to be the dark knight over his loved one. I also made the script more feminine to give it more of a romantic feel.

Midterm 2

My Artist Statement

               My big idea is emotion. The theme within my big idea is love, more specifically the evolution of love. It is how love is passed from generation to generation, and how it remains a part of life. This can connect to everyone, whether it’s within the family or with friends. Love influences our decisions everyday. It can also influence artist in their work. It may be the reason they choose to portray a picture they way they do. And they may even make dedications to someone they love. I chose this theme and big idea because my life is full of love. I see it in my parents all the way to my grandparents. It starts small and then evolves into a lifetime. 

Emotion Collage