Digital Imaging Final
Proposoal/ Abstract:
For my final I would like to take pictures of myself in the certain states I can be in. With each picture, I will edit them with the paintbrush tool and special effects to emphasize each state that is a part of me.
Research:
When I started this project, I knew I wanted to do something with photoshop. Throughout the course of Digital Imaging, I've been most attracted to photoshop and the cool effects/ techniques that could be used when altering a photo. I've always been comfortable painting and drawing in real life, so I figured combining the "fine arts" with photoshop would be a project that I truly would enjoy doing.
For research, I came up with my idea myself, but added on different things to spruce up my original project by looking at other artists works online. My project consits of five self portrait photos, in which capture a mood that most commonly represent me. I am a very emotional person, but typically in a positive way. I had an idea in my head of what I wanted to create, but I did some research and found a few artists who completed projects in which are similar to mine.
To begin, the first artist I chose to look at was Picasso. Famous for incredible paintings, Picasso had the "fine arts" view on his pieces, which is what attracted me to his works in the first place. I wanted to use paint on photoshop, so seeing his painted works actually helped me envision the style I wanted to illustrate my photos in. Another reason as to why I resaerched Picasso is for his self portraits. Though some of them seem very similar to eachother, they seem to capture an emotion in which made Picasso who he was. Without much expression, his earlier portraits like figure one, two and three captured his entirity, while his later portraits (figure four) focuses on emotions I feel he may have been in every now and then.
Figure One Figure Two
With so many self portraits, and each one with such a different take on how to approach each peice, I felt a connection between Picasso's work and my idea. I wanted to capture who I was with all of my digitally altered photos, but make each one different by adding a different mood or tone to each one. Though the emotional changes are not drastic in these four pieces, they are still apparent in a slight way, which helped me understand how to go about picking the different emotions in which represent me but still capture who I am through execution.
Another artist I did a little research on was a man by the name of Jeffrey Isaac. Mainly a painter, Isaac captures surreal ideas, with demons flying about in his works around a realistic setting. An example of this would be a figure five, "Leviathon on the Line".
These out of wordly works are not what captured my eye, as his self portrait collection did. Painting himself forty different times, Isaac managed to use his face to express forty different emotions. Not necessarily depicting the emotions he can have, Isaac still represents a pluthera of different moods. I was inspired by the several different faces he made in which made each piece completely different from all the others. No two emotions are the same, and no two faces were made the same way either. His choice of color also helped emphasize the emotions he wanted to capture, which is something I wanted to do inorder to help further develop my idea with my project.The link below shows his forty different pieces in which complete his self portrait portfolio.
http://www.saatchionline.com/art-collection/Painting/40-emotional-self-portraits/97452/10308/view
Production Log:
My idea for this project was to create five mini self portraits to represent who I am. Each photo captures an emotion I can be in, and each photo is edited a certain way to emphasize the emotion through color and alterations. I placed a number in the bottom right corner of each photo to represent what percentage of the time I can be that emotion. Acting as a metaphoric puzzle, all numbers add up to one hundred, representing the one hundred percent in which makes me who I am.
Inorder to create this piece, I needed to use photoshop and the basic skills I learned during the semester. Mainly depending on the paintbrush and some special effects, I manipulated each self portrait to pertain to the emotion I wanted to represent. I am typically in a happy mood, so I placed a seventy in the bottom right corner to show I am happy seventy percent of the time. Relaxed was my next mood, as it is who I am twenty percent of the time. The other three emotions are a rare case, and I am not typically in those moods. Though, it still does not take away from the fact that I can be sad, stressed and angry, so I still wanted to show them as a part of who I am. Being only three, two and five percent, these emotions make up the rest of the ten percent needed to complete me.
Color was also a big factor in determining how my piece would come out as a whole. I wanted each self portrait to be different enough from one another, but still look as if they belonged as a whole. I believe the color pallet I chose for each photo worked well, especially for the top right peice I call "stressed". I chose green as the main color, mainly because it is the color cartoon characters turn when they are sick. When I get stressed, I essentially feel sick as well, so I felt as if green would be a commical approach to represent that state. I also colored my shirt purple, as it is contradictory to green and adds to my nauseating approach. Coloring strands of my hair white and darkening inbetween waves with blacks, I also wanted to demonstrate the "white hair effect" as when people are stressed, their hair starts to change.
Self Evalutation:
Overall, I'd like to believe that my project was a success. I did not have to alternate any major part of my original plans, but I decided to add a few pieces along the way. The only thing I decided to change was distorting the size of each piece. The thought behind resizing my work was that idea of representing the percentage I am of each mood. Though, by doing this, I ended up loosing a lot of my detail put in some of my pieces as they were very small parts in which make me who I am. Instead of altering the size, I decided to put a number in the bottom right corner of each piece. The number is there to represent the percentage of the time in which I can be in that state. By doing this, I was able to show all my five pieces without loosing their detail, and experiment with different fonts for my percentages.
The process in making the final was not much harder then the other projects we tackled in class. This final was unlimited in terms of the ideas we could execute or the tools we could use, so it was up to personal preference. I chose a medium I knew I would be comfortable, and enjoy myself with. The five pictures took a while to edit, and the posses and emotions were hard to choose to represent. I wanted to capture who I was, and I feel my pictures did my idea justice.
If I were to expand on this project later on, I feel like I would add more emotions. I would have to change the numbers in the bottom corners, as my percentages would change, but it would be interesting to find different words in which express moods I can be in. I would love to experiment with more special effects, and test different color combinations in order to emphasize the emotion I want to express. Though, as of now, I am content with my final, and I am proud of what I was able to create.
