Overlaying My Face

Before

Starry Eyed

Before

Cracked Mind

 This assignment involved an overlay over our own face to create an image. My first image is called "Starry Eyed". I named it this because when I daydream I sort of look out of it, or starry eyed. Looking up into an infinite space. I achieved this image by cropping the picture to an interesting size. I then created a new layer by selecting my eye with the lasso tool, making sure it feathers the pixels so the edges aren't too sharp. I then changed my eye colour to a purple/blue to compliment the space colours, and raised the contrast of the whites of my eyes. I then chose a high quality image of space and placed over my face. I lowered the opacity, so you can see my face, and then erased the areas that were covering the darkened parts of the picture. Then I warped the image to make it look like it's actually on my face. Then I turned back on the layer that I had with my eye and placed it over the top of the image.

My next image is called "Cracked Mind". It represents when people hide their sadness behind a happy face. The clouds represent when people use the expression that they are on cloud nine, meaning that they are ecstatic. Yet some people hide how they really feel to avoid a confrontation about it. The cracked face, represents the sadness that still shows through the happiness. I first cropped the image of my face, and repeated the process of making my eye a new layer. I decided to keep my eye how it was because I thought my eye colour looked really cool. I then placed a picture of clouds over my face, erased what was covering my eyebrows and then warped the image. I then placed the cracked texture over the entire image, erased what was covering the black parts of the image, then lastly warped the image to make it look like it's on my face. I thought this project was kind of cool, but hasn't beat out the surrealism which is still at number one.

Album Covers

I was finished the surrealism project and before we got the assignment I had nothing to do. So I made some album artwork for Lady Gaga, because I am seeing her live next march (no big deal!). All I did was get some images off of gagallery.com which has a bunch of hq photoshoots and such. I then cropped the images and added her name and the name of one of her songs on to the image.

p.s. on the first image I added a paint filter on it, and the second one has an abstract background that I placed behind her after cutting out the background from the original image.

Unreal Surrealism

"TEMPUS FUGIT"

This assignment involved creating a surrealism picture similar to those of Salvador Dali. My picture is titled 'Tempus Fugit' which is Latin for 'Time Flies'. I decided to show how time can escape us so quickly, without us even realizing it. In my picture it shows how time flies literally, and symbolically. The clock in the sky with wings represents time literally flying through the air. The next is how the woman is being born from the egg, yet she is already grown, and time seems to be melting away in her hands. The lampposts represent a child, a grown up, and an old person. It shows how we go through transformations as we age, and it seems to go by so fast, represented by how close they are to each other. I did a lot of stuff to this picture so be prepared for a lot of writing.
First I selected a dark beach for my ground. I selected the sky with the lasso tool and erased it. I then got a picture of a sky that looks sort of menacing because of the dark clouds near the top.I noticed that the clouds in the sky were sort of yellow, so I went to enhance and altered the colour of the ground by increasing yellow. When I was looking for an egg, I decided to do something a little different so I chose a Faberge egg. (I realize that there is supposed to be a clock on the egg, but that was a sacrifice I was willing to make to use the egg that I chose) I then separated part of the egg by copying and pasting part of the egg, and erasing that same part from the original image. Then I drew shadows facing away from the light coming from the clouds. I then copied and pasted the parts of the egg, flipped them horizontally,lowered the opacity, and warped them so they look like reflections. Then I used a brush tool and painted and smudged at the bottom of the egg so it looks like it's embedded in the wet sand. I then got the picture of the girl and the watch she is holding. I selected her dress with the lasso and changed the colour from blue to yellow so it compliments the egg. I put her behind the egg layer and drew some shadows on the bottom of her dress and away from the light. I then altered the colour of the watch, then warped the watch so it looks like it's melting. I put it over her hand, then made a new layer with her hand in it so it looks like she is holding it. I then put in the reflection similar to the egg.  Next I got the lampposts. I coloured the inside so it looks like it's shining light, and where I placed it on the picture I brightened the ground so it looks like the ground is being lit up. I copied and pasted the lamps, and altered the size. I then warped the last one. After that I made reflections like I did to the egg. I put a clock in the sky, then used a brush tool with grey, and low opacity, and painted over parts of the clock. I then smudged it in so it looks like fog. Then I found some wings that are originally supposed to be a brush tool, but I just got the image, altered the colour, and did the fog effect that I did to the egg.
I'm sure I missed some stuff because I did a lot to this picture, but I definitely got most of it down. This has got to be my favourite assignment so far. I loved doing this and I hope that shows in my picture.

Silkscreens Andy Warhol Style

My Three Silkscreen Images

These are the finished three images of my Andy Warhol style silkscreens. I first took a picture of myself, purposely having the light shine on one side of my face to create the effect that I wanted in the image. After putting it on the computer, I then cropped the picture and lightly smudged the surfaces of certain parts of the picture at a rate of 18% to create the smooth lighting that I achieved in the final images. After cutting out the background I created a new layer for the background colour. After that I selected my image and selected threshold. The main three colours I chose were green, pink, and orange. I first picked the light green so I decided to keep all the colours light to compliment it well. After I chose the green I thought of complimentary colours. I thought red would be too much for the light green so I went with orange, it is still a warm colour yet it's a calmer colour. Red compliments green well so after picking the orange, I also chose a light pink. I chose pink because I felt that having the orange and pink together would compliment green just as well as having the red with it. After placing the three main colours I hand drew lighting on my face from where I thought the light shone on my face the most. The fourth colour in each image is simply a lighter version of the main face colour. I am very pleased with my finished products and I really liked doing the silkscreen project. I will probably do some more of my own in the future, just for fun. :)

Advent Posters for Keeping Christ in Christmas pt.2

HAIL MARY

GOD WATCHES OVER US

Here are the posters to go with the write ups in the previous post.

Advent Posters for Keeping Christ in Christmas pt.1

This next assignment involved creating a poster for the school board to use for 'Keeping Christ in Christmas'. The school board will be using posters from Lourdes this year. I created two posters to submit for selection. The following is the write up for my two posters.

Advent Poster 1- Hail Mary            
When I first thought of Christmas I thought of how important it is to the Catholic community. I wanted to show a picture of someone praying because Christmastime is a time to thank God for our blessings and the birth of our Jesus Christ. Having Mary in this picture was also important because she is the pure woman who gave birth to Jesus. I first started by selecting the entire image and adjusting the brightness and contrast to my preference. I then typed the words that I wanted to place in the picture then arranged them. I decided to change the font colour of the words 'Christ' and 'Christmas' because I feel they are the two most important words in the image. After arranging the words to the selected areas. I found that the image of Mary was washed out, and you couldn't see her face. I selected her with the magnetic lasso tool then selected adjust colour and darkened the shadows, to show the features of the statue better than before. I then filtered the picture with the dark stroke adjustment. I am pleased with this picture, and I feel it brings across the message that we need to remember around the holidays.

Advent Poster 2- God Watches Over Us 
This next poster includes an image of St.Joseph's Church. I used this picture because it shows that Jesus is always with us and watching over us. Sometimes we forget that Christmastime is a time to reflect and thank God for what we have. This image of Jesus also symbolizes that he is always in our minds no matter what. We may forget sometimes but when we enter a church, that is the one person who we thank and pray to. I also included Mr. Macpherson in this photo because he reminds us that we should thank God and always have him in our hearts, I thought that this was a very thoughtful and important message. I first selected the entire picture went to colour adjust, and increased the amount of blue. I then typed in the font and changed them to white to show up against the background, but made sure to keep away from the windows because they washed out the words. I  then readjusted where the words were placed in the picture. Then I adjusted the picture by going to 'filter' and selecting 'cutout'. I am pleased with this simple yet meaningful poster. I hope that it brings the message to others to 'Keep Christ in Christmas'.