Photoshop Digital Painting
For this assignment, we learned how to imitate various forms of physical art techniques (mainly watercolors and pastels) and then create a final product based on what we learned. This was an interesting exploration of how we can still use a digital medium to create traditional art.
Pastel Painting
Watercolor Painting
Final Photoshop Painting
Artist Statement:
I spent some time messing around with brushes before I started working on this assignment, putting lighter colors over a black background. I found it really fascinating how the colors became dull after one layer of black watercolor, but turned almost brighter after two layers of the same shade of black. That strange technique inspired me to draw on a weird train of thought I’ve been exploring recently: the idea that our memories are often happier than what actually occurred. I’ve been musing about times that, looking back, feel like some of the happiest points in my life. However, if I look at them with a critical eye, I also remember feeling anxious, unhappy, and worried that the happy times weren’t going to last. It’s so strange how we always view the past as better, and take our happy memories out of context with the bad parts of it. I used brighter colors that I thought would go well together (pink, orange, cyan) and covered everything with a background of black, adding in another layer at certain points. The intention of the brighter splotches were meant to represent the parts of our past that we remember and look back fondly on, while the grayer parts represent the full extent of our memory. There are brighter parts not highlighted by the black splotches, and duller parts of the painting are highlighted by the splotches at other points. I had a lot of fun creating this project, and I’d like to use art and Digital Media assignments to put my thoughts and feelings on “paper” in the future.
Surrealist Composition
This was a really fun project for me, especially since I went on to use many of these techniques in creating my Design Movie Poster (which you can check out on my “Narrative Visual Perspective in Design” page). I go more into this in my artist statement, but this was a very cathartic project for me. I had a clear vision in mind when creating this project, and I learned a lot about Photoshop functions in the process.
Artist Statement:
I was motivated to express myself for this project, to create an image able to convey a feeling I wasn’t sure how to put into words. I tried to invoke the feelings of dysmorphia and absurdity I felt towards my own body. It often felt like I was trapped inside the skin of some repulsive animal, like a fish. I created myself as the sunfish in the center of the piece, with big bulging eyes and lips. I also wanted to demonstrate the way small things like features of our face can become twisted and warped over time, reflected by the oarfish covered in noses. Finally, I tried to replicate the overwhelming and unrealistic expectations for beauty with my foot sea anemone and hand anemones in the background. This piece was very cathartic for me, and I’m really happy to say that I’m proud of it.
Multi-Layered Art Project
This was our main focus in Digital Media for this unit. We were tasked with creating a piece using many different layers of wood, paper, or plastic. This is the project that’s often advertised to prospective Freestyle students since it looks so cool, and I was glad to have the opportunity to create a multi-layer art project myself!
Here’s the first sketch I did of my project:
The Illustrator file I created and sent in to be cut:
And the final product!
Finally, here are some videos showing the creation process and the final product rendered in After Effects:
Artist Statement:
I chose to create this scene because of how cosmically impossible it was. The moon isn’t close enough to our sun for this to make sense, but I loved the idea of a single figure, reaching out from a dark and cold planet to the splendor of a warm star. I also liked the idea of creating a mandala on the inside of the sun. This feels relevant to my life since I’ve had many epiphany moments that feel just like this: where I’ll be feeling down and terrible and then suddenly be embraced with a comforting and wonderful revelation.
I really enjoyed working on this project, although I have to say it was one of the most stressful Digital Media projects I’ve created – I sliced open my finger pretty badly while working on my physical light box, and endured numerous After Effects crashes while trying to edit my videos. That said, having a physical product that can light up and glow is so cool! I especially love using the color changing feature on the lights. I enjoy doing physical art projects whenever they’re assigned, and my light box was no exception. I also liked getting to work more closely with Adobe Illustrator and learning more about the software.