Project Idea

Continuing with the idea from my first post, I will attempt to depict human emotion and connection through body language and communicative signs. Much of our expression is shown physically, not verbally, and it is often very easy to interpret someone's mood simply by his or her body (how open their position is, their posture, how much physical contact they allow, etc.). I aim to portray just how much we communicate without speaking, but for a twist, I'm going to incorporate an actual sign that says the person's feelings in each image. My work will be in black and white, and I want to draw attention more to bodies than faces, so as to highlight the action of the subjects instead of surrounding details.

Image found here. In this photo, we see that the person on the left has feelings, possibly unrequited, for the indifferent person on the right, because of their stances and what they're doing with their hands.

Image found here. We can easily see that these girls are close without even seeing their faces.

Project Idea

For my project I have chosen two important things that are very close to my heart; my mom and art. My mom has not only encouraged me to pursue a career in art but she was the one who inspired me. My mom is a very talented, independent and strong woman with a great sense of humor and Ive always looked up to her. She went to college for fine arts and now I am following in her footsteps. Art holds such a strong connection between us and I wish she was here with me, not only to help and advise me with my artwork but to sit down and make art with me. The pictures of the paint brushes, paints and other art supplies surrounds the picture of my mother and I because art surrounds us in our daily lives and its what keeps us together. I aspire to be like my mom one day and I want to show how art is not just a way to express my feelings but its a way to connect with family and the people around me.

project proposal

India (Deer) by Ryan McGinley

Nature is a symbol of our origin and our life energy. The concept I have in mind for my project is in the same vein as my first edit. I aim to portray the deep connection between human beings and Mother Nature. I will show these similarities through comparing human forms with analogous naturally occurring forms in nature. I want the images of the human form and nature to be seamlessly woven together to show how truly close we are with our natural surroundings. In my first blog post, I described my belief that when we are born, we borrow energy from the earth, and then give it back when we die. So I want to ensure that, in addition to the showing a physical similarity between us and nature, that the deep energetic and spiritual connection will be apparent as well. I hope that through my imagery, the audience will not only realize their deep connection with nature, but how every human being has this connection. This is a unifying force for all of mankind.

❝I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.❞  ~Frank Lloyd Wright

Autumn Rot by Vania Zouraliov

This is an image I took my last day of being seventeen years old. The blooming flowers suggest a blossoming of self - a coming of age. I find the life cycle of a flower to parallel that of a human.

Project Idea

For my project I picked a subject matter that I am very passionate about. I am going to create a series of three finished collages that depict the strength of a child who is battling cancer. I am not going to focus on the sadness of the subject matter. The only way I am going to portray sadness is through my color choices. All three pieces will be black an white because I feel that will bring a certain rawness and innocence to the works. My first piece will depict a child and a kitten. They will be touching nose to nose. The kitten is going to be a reoccuring symbol of strength in my collages. Representing the small and innocent nature of a child thrown into a battle in which they must turn into a lion and fight. Cancer causes children to grow up fast and face things that they should never have to face at such an early age. My second piece will represent the aspect of the battle. Chemotherapy. My goal is not to show the obvious struggle, but instead the underlying strength. I will include a kitten with a shadow of a tiger to represent this. My third picture will show more of the joy that a child who has cancer still has the capacity to feel. Even though they experience hell, somehow they still have the willingness to feel love, be happy, play, and see the beauty of life. Some of the images I hope to include are listed below. I will be using a layering technique for most collages...(once I figure out how to accomplish that) :) I watched the basics of photoshop #01 on youtube and One on one:The essentials on lynda.com

additional edit

edited / unedited
(description below)

I watched a Lynda tutorial on how to use the Film Grain effect (watch it here). In addition, I

• utilized a black and white channel mixer adjustment later to convert the image to grayscale
• minor blemish correction using an array of blemish correcting tools including the Spot Healer
• created the striped texture on the triangle by layering a yellow triangle shape (Polygon tool) and stripes (Custom Shape tool) > making both shapes edit-able by applying the Unsharp Mask filter to them > selecting the stripes on the top layer with the magic wand > clicking the layer of the triangle and erasing the stripe area I selected > deleted the stripes layer
• selected the Lighten blending mode on the yellow triangle layer
• merged layers
• edited the tones with Curves
• Unsharp Mask 

Ashling Smith

After:

Before:
This is a photograph of a small Claddagh statue near my grandmother's grave in a cemetary in Ireland. I believe it is a symbol and a sign of human love and the connectivity of humanity. To alter the photo, I first watched Photoshop CS5 Tutorials: One-On-One Fundamentals up to "Adding A Layer Mask." To change my original image, I added a blue filter under black and white adjustments, after experimenting with the different filters and their effects, such as red, maximum white, and infared.

Liqified

New Image ^

BEFORE:


I added some colors and a water like effect using the liquify tool. I watched a tutorial where a man liquified the eyes of a girl to make them appear to look bigger, almost like an avatars eyes. I also watched one-n-one fundamentals. I actually really struggled with the liquify tool because i've never used photoshop before. Most of the videos on this tool were advanced versions so I really had to just play with it until I reached the desired effect. I believe the black and white image is beautiful but the colors really make it pop. Especially the red outline of the tiger because it represents the kitten being fierce. The swirls in the backround really shows the dreamlike state of the kitten wishing or dreaming it could become a roaring tiger. The contrasting colors give the picture and more vibrant and contemporary feel.

-Caroline Duran