Digital Media Reflections
Mandala Project
For my mandala, I originally just wanted to make something that had eyeballs in it, but in my artistic process I took inspiration from a variety of sources while creating the design. One that I thought was particularly interesting was the concept of biblically accurate angels, since (according to Google) in the book of Ezekiel, certain angels are described as being uncanny creatures consisting of many floating wheels and eyes, which was a concept I thought was cool. I also added some plants in the center because I wanted to use some leaf brushes that I found in the brush library, and during coloring I wanted to make the background look like varying colors of the sky during the day and at nightfall. Furthermore, I wanted to emulate the feeling of being watched, which is why I added a lot of eyes in unique places.
Merging these ideas together created something new that I think looks really neat, and I’m proud of how both the BW and Colored version turned out. If I could change anything, I might have put more detail in certain places, such as adding even more eyes scattered throughout, although it already looks fine as it is. Also, I currently have little to no prior experience using Adobe Illustrator, so as I grow I may look back and find more that I could have done differently, but for now I’m quite happy with my mandala and the chaotic energy it has. Through drawing I learned that just as eyes are a reflection of one’s soul, my art is a reflection of me, and the possibilities of what I can create are close to infinite.
Photoshop Art
After using mostly Adobe Illustrator in our last project, we got to move onto working with Photoshop. I was especially excited about learning how to paint since drawing is one of my passions, but learning how to edit images and composite them was interesting as well.
Pastel Painting
For this assignment I chose to base my painting off a photo of a frog standing in front of a cup; however, in the painting process I decided that I wanted to paint the frog as if he was wearing the cup on his head. Making this small change brought me immense satisfaction and joy. I learned that I can chose to make art from whatever I want to, and that painting frogs is an activity that brings me happiness.
Watercolor Painting
My painting tells the story of a cat taking a nap with a snorlax plushie. I found the original reference image online, and while I don’t know where it’s from, I imagine that the cat and its owner are currently very happy together. I have a lot of previous experience with analog watercolor painting, and I think working with physical paints is definitely a lot different than digital painting. Instead of creating new strokes with a digital pen, it feels more like moving water that’s already on the paper, and I think I prefer the look of analog watercolor over digital water color. However, I think overall this was still a good experience, as I got to create something that I think tells a very comforting story.
Watercolor Painting Effect
Though my watercolor effect photos are all very different from each other, they each tell a story that is personal to me. The first one I took with my Iphone camera when I last visited Hong Kong in 2018 to visit my extended family. The second and third ones I found online, one of a black cat because if I were to own a cat it would be a black cat, and another one of a frog holding a tiny banjo because I resonate with him on a spiritual level.
I think using filters in this way is very neat, and it can greatly improve or change an image in a dramatic way. Though not all of my attempts turned out the way I wanted them to, for example, some of the photos I chose while experimenting ended up not looking as much like real watercolor paintings than some of my other ones. I may remember to use these techniques in the future for photo editing and perhaps in creating digital paintings as well.
Compositing Images
Surreal Art
For this project, I started by combining a bunch of random unrelated ideas I had into a singular composition, which gradually got more and more chaotic, and by the end my scene looked apocalyptic and cryptic as hell. There’s no real message to my piece, but I think the fun of it is that it doesn’t make sense, and so viewers can interpret it in a million different ways. That’s also what I love about surrealism as a genre, that things can look as weird and meaningless as the artist wants.
I used a large combination of techniques, the most useful of which was probably changing the blending options to get rid of white backgrounds in stock images I found on the internet. I also used blur filters on many of the flying objects in the sky to make my scene look like a freeze frame. One of my friends also suggested I add an overlaying texture on top to unify my piece, and so I added a VHS texture on top to make my composition look like found footage of armageddon.
I really enjoyed the creative freedom I had throughout this project, which I probably wouldn’t have had as much of in a realistic project, and I liked being able to just add more and more ideas to my piece until they amalgamated together into something horrific and awesome.