"From the Outside, In"

side 1:


side 2:


side 3:


side 4:


inside of the crate:



Do you ever wonder if people are judging you due to your outer-shell or your personality? Are they really trying to get to know you or are they basing their opinion off of what you look like? This project executes this idea. It is supposed to make you question whether people take the time to really look at your insides. Do you dig deep enough? Do you take the extra step to reach a little further into someone's soul or do you just brush against them as you walk by without giving them a second glance?

For this project, pictures of my body parts were taken along with two shots of my 'whole self'. I deleted the backgrounds of all the pictures and kept it solid white. I then created a hard light overlay on top of some of the pictures to make them more intense. I used the pinch tool to create some more 'attractive' qualities in the pictures. I went into the project knowing I was going to download two paintbrush tools: handprints and fingerprints. I used these strategically and used fingerprints on all the images that I was going to put on the outside of my project. I changed the sizes of them, the direction of them, and the position of them depending on what looked more aesthetically pleasing on each picture to create a stronger composition. I used two handprints on the two images of me on the inside of my project. I printed my images out as photographs. I then bought a crate and painted the outside white while leaving the inside raw, natural wood. I glued the images of my body parts along the outside of the crate and glued two images of my 'whole self' on the inside.

I am very proud of this project. I like how at first glance, someone may not fully understand it. I enjoy how it gives enough clues away for the viewer to try and make sense of it, but at the same time it won't bore them by giving them the whole picture. I also enjoy the contrast of my body parts against the solid white background because it really made them stand out. The fingerprint and handprint tool add a hard element that contrasts greatly with the softness of my body parts. The only thing that I would have changed was to possibly just have one very large image on the inside of the crate instead of two. I feel this would depict my message stronger.

"I Am What Is Missing"

The concept behind this self-portrait is the fact that all of us may feel so trivial in life, yet we all have such a strong presence and importance. We may seem mundane in existence due to the amount of people in the world, but our life can bring so much power at the same time. The poem used in these images is by Mark Strand and helps demonstrate this idea.

The image of me in the middle was used in Photoshop while the other two images were used in Illustrator. The image in the middle is a composite of two images. First I used selective color and increased the blacks and yellows. Then I changed the contrast and enhanced the vibrance. I added a drop shadow and put on a slight sepia filter. For the images used in illustrator, I changed the contrast and increased the magentas. I used the daub painting filter on them and then created the text. I feathered the text in parts to emphasize the fact that they were the 'absence' or what was 'missing'.

Artist Presentation

The artists that we chose to present in our exhibition are Tom Repasky and Maurits Cornelis Escher. We decided to pick these artists because they both were surrealists who used different media from one another. We were interested in how both of them expressed twisted perspective views of the world. The theme centered on this idea of transforming things around us to make us look at things from a new angle.

Tom Repasky was born in 1949 in Ohio. While he was in his adolescence, he fell off of a cliff and experienced a change of perception in life. He started to see the world differently and used this as inspiration for his work once he became an artist several years later. He tried to emphasize the different psychological viewpoints of things. This was seen in his works: “Reflections” from 2008, “Life Is A Game” from 2009, “Look Out” from 2009, “Watching Them Selves” from 2010, and “The Watchers” from 2010. In 13 years he created more than 3,000 pieces.

M.C. Escher was born in 1898 in the Netherlands. He was very educated due to attending the Harlem School of Architecture and Decorative Arts and by living in Rome for 11 years. Escher drew a large amount of his inspiration from architecture school while playing with perspective and impossible spaces. Instead of trying to show the viewer a psychological viewpoint, M.C. Escher altered physical space to create different viewpoints. This was seen in his works: “Hand with Reflecting Sphere” from 1935, “Sky And Water I” from 1938, “Balcony” from 1945, “Puddle” from 1952, “Relativity” from 1953, and “Waterfall” from 1961.

Princeton Museum

I have been to the Princeton Museum several times due to the variety of work they have there. This time, my favorite exhibition consisted of the Chinese landscapes. I really enjoy how different they are from other types of art, simply for the fact that they are hanging scrolls with ink on silk. This makes it much more interesting to me. These works tried to show all different examples of the definition of a landscape. These were from the 12th century all the way to the present and showed a change in how artists approached their work. Landscapes are something that are found all around the world no matter where you are. These tie us together and make us feel connected. I also enjoyed the work from the Byzantine time period because I am learning about that in my art history class at the moment. It is always exciting to physically see something that you are discussing. It makes it much more enticing and makes me feel more emersed in the work.

Pizza Hut

At first I traced different cartoon characters. I felt that they looked unprofessional and sloppy so I chose to change over and complete a logo. I practiced on several different ones before I found one that I liked. This is where the Pizza Hut logo came in. I liked the way there were delicate curves versus harsh angles. It created strong contrast. The colors were also pleasing. This was my end result.

Midterm

1. Both of my images are related. They both show different forms of hope. The first image shows how beauty and positive things can be found when you're keeping yourself open to it. The second image shows that even when things are a mess and you may not be apt to thinking that there could be something better, life surprises you and shows you something new.

2. For the first image, I combined the picture of the beach with the two people and the balloons. I put a layer mask on the people so that I was able to make them grayscale while keeping the balloons colored. I put a drop shadow on them while putting a color overlap to make them darker. I copied the balloon so that I could have more than one and changed the sizes of some of them to show more distance. I changed the contrast of the balloons and the people. I also changed the exposure. I changed the saturation and hue of the balloons to make them more vibrant. I positioned the people so that their fingers would lead your eye straight to the balloons.

For the second image, I combined the picture of the girl with the sunset picture in the background and the kite. I cropped the background picture to find the best area to fit through the window. I used the doge tool on the background image to lighten it up to show the reflection coming onto the girl. I painted orange across part of her body and changed the opacity of it to make it lighter and more realistic. I changed the hue of the kite so that it fit in with the picture more. I played with the contrast of the picture with the girl in it to make it look more moody and depressing. I added shadows to the window to make it fade into the background more easily.

3. In my first image, I really like the way the people actually look as if they are part of the picture. I was worried that they would stick out like a sore thumb, but to me they blend in pretty well. I also enjoy how their arms completely bring you right to the balloons.

In my second image, I enjoy how you really receive a mood off of it. The girl looks weathered and drained, but then you see her soaking in the sun as if she's realizing tomorrow is another day. I also like how it really looks as if the sun is reflecting right off of her. The clarity of the picture is great too.

When I put these images together, I love how they both include grayscale and color. The contrast between them excites me and makes the images much more interesting than if they were completely color or completely gray.

Image of hope

I combined the foreground with the background of the sunset. Next, I added a separate picture of a kite. I then changed the hue of the kite and took out the saturation to fit in with the rest of the picture. I then painted orange along side of the girl's body to reflect the sunset off of her. I dodged and burned the sunset background.

Image Correction

I originally clicked Auto Tone- Contrast. Then, I increased the contrast while increasing the brightness along with it. This caused the highlights in the palm trees to show up and look much more realistic. It also no longer looks gloomy and is more enticing.

composite exercise 2

I thought the way the legs were much larger in scale over the water was interesting and created an appealing composition.

composite exercise 1

Artist Crits.

My favorite of the four artists is Gregory Crewdson. I thoroughly enjoy how each photograph makes the viewer really think about what is occurring. I stare at the picture and know what is currently happening, but I have no idea what happened to get to that place. For instance, in the picture of the lady in the middle of the road stopped in the passenger seat of a car, once questions what on earth happened. I love how there is always this interaction. The artist i dislike the most is Cindy Sherman. I do not like how similar all her pieces are. I feel as if what she is doing is not as original as it could be. I also do not feel as if there is enough in her pictures for me to get excited about.

Gallery Opening

My favorite piece of the opening was "The Nightgown Pictures". I enjoyed how I could look at this piece from three different angles. At first, I studied all of the pictures on the left side of each pair that held the child in her nightgown. Just by these pictures, I felt as if I was back in the awkward stages of puberty. I then attempted to look at all of these landscapes separately from the picture beside each one that consisted of the child in her nightgown. Finally, I looked at it as a whole. I thought it was a great idea how Nina Katchadourian then went back and took pictures of the same (or as close as she could find) location as the original picture. I felt such a connection between each photograph. It was amazing how strong the passage of time was present.

Basket Weave

I enjoyed the way the basket weaved in and out of itself. It created a good sense of line and I felt I could create an interesting piece of art from it.

Dandelion Frenzy

I chose to use the rainbow tool to create a background that kept overlapping itself. I then decided to use the tool to make the white objects that looked like dandelions to me. Lastly, I used the effect 'Dry Brush' to alter it to create a stronger composition.