For my portfolio, I chose the above pieces as my six works. The self portrait, gutter, and abstract piece were from my original first portfolio grouping, as I thought they were my best pieces. My newest three added works are the ones from our class assignment last week.
The reason why I chose my abstract peice again is because I like how it has a feeling of design. I love doodling and drawing different shapes and patterns in my sketchpad, and I felt like I was able to do the same for that project but on photoshop. I had the freedom to depict whatever I wanted, so I decided to demonstrate a type of design when representing that projects criteria for the rule of thirds and external lines.
The next piece I chose is a touch up photo from our most recent project. Originally looking faded and washed out, I wanted to take on the challenge of bringing colors back into this photograph. Taken from an I phone, it was not the best quality to begin with, but by playing with its saturation I feel I made an improvement on how it originally looked. I also then used the brush tool to emphasize on the original colors, and to add shadows to give the bodies more depth.
My third piece is a self portrait. This piece is the most daring piece I think I decided to take on. I really wanted to get creative, and play with different aspects of photoshop I hadn't before. I had no set plan for how I wanted it to look, other then "different". I used around 10 layers or so, doing cut and pasting work with my face. I used the oil paint tool to a cropped pictures of branches to replace where my face is in my original picture. My hair also needed work, so I went in and smudged the edges, along with adding highlights to brighten the picture. The paint tool was a big help in this piece, as I also used it in the background, my scarf, jacket, face, and hair.
My fourth piece is a picture of my friend and I. Originally there was red glare from the street and car lights, and also faded clothes, and a faded road. I chose this picture to touch up because I actually wanted to see if it was possible. I didn't know how successful I would be, but I ended up using the paint brush a lot in this piece, just like I did the last. The skin I feel is the part in which I believe was the most successful when touching up because to me it is what stands out the most.
The fifth piece I chose for my portfolio is another touch up photograph that was taken of my two friends and I. Similar to the other two touch ups, the original photo was faded. I wanted to brighten the colors, so I enhanced the saturation and used the paint brush to add definition. My friend Brandon's face was extremely washed out, and his features were hard to distinguish. I used the black paint tool to draw those features back in, and make him more defined. He was the most difficult part to touch up on that project, along with the skin in all three cases.
The final piece I selected to be in my portfolio is of a gutter I took a picture of on the TCNJ campus. This piece was originally from the cropping project, where I needed to cut something out and paste it into one of my photos. This picture in its unaltered state had icicles hanging from the gutters lips, and I wanted to replicate the idea of having water still involved. I looked through other pictures I took and previous projects, and found a photo of rain on a window. I decided to use that photograph, manipulated it and smudge it around, which ended up being my cropped in picture to substitute the icicles. Ending up being brown and flat, I then went into the new make shift water and added a light inside the gutter to create shadow, then went in with my paintbrush to create highlights and shadows.
*Unfortunately three of my six pieces are no longer stored on memory other then the blog. My usb drive was erased when I tried working on my laptop in my room, and it cleared all the information that was there. The three are my self portrait, the drain gutter, and the abstract design piece.
proposal-abstract:
This accumulation of works are from various projects I believe I personally did my best on. There is no theme involved with these six pieces as they are all from different homeworks, they are what I am most proud of.
self evaluation:
The only time I have ever taken photoshop was in middle school. We did extrememley basic skills, and worked on the same projects for weeks. I feel like I learned what I did because I played around with photoshop during class, and experimented with what I was given. Though I only had that class for a semester, I had an idea of what the program was meant to do.
Now, in college, I am taking digital imaging. I picked up where I left off about six years ago, and started to play around again with homework assignments. Being a fine arts major, I love working with my hands, either when drawing, crafting, painting; anything. Coming into this class, I have befriended the paint tool very willingly, and it has been my favorite aspect of photoshop yet. Though I know my experience is slim to none, I am proud of the work I have been producing. A lot of my classmates are familiar with photoshop as a program, and I am left to try and produce work on their level. I'm trying to use different tools and effects, hoping to learn different techniques as I go. Each day I'd like to think I am getting better, and I feel it shows through my homework.
