Assign 4a - photo study of shells

Asymmetrical Balance

I had trouble even getting started with this assignment because I wasn't clear what the outcome was suppose to be. Thanks to John's clarification, I think I know what I'm trying to do here. I wasn't sure if all the photos were suppose to be the same subject matter or not. But I decided to give it a try using shells as my subject. As I understand it, I am suppose to illustrate principles of design through a series of photographs. I resisted the temptation to photoshop these. Other than cropping, these are just as they came out of the camera (except for the ones for orientation).

The one I've posted at the top is my asymmetrical balance shot. This was the easiest one to do and one of my favorites. It's pretty much the shells as they were in the bowl. I rearranged a few of them to spread out the colored ones from the white ones. I took this (and most of these) on my kitchen counter in front of a large window with natural light.

Next up - symmetrical balance.

Symmetrical Balance

This is not my favorite - it's a little too bland. But it is as close to symmetrical as I could get using the shells I had available.

Alternative Symmetrical Balance

This is my alternative for symmetrical balance. I like it better. It has more depth, more interest. But, it's not as symmetrical as the one above. When I set up this picture, I started not to use the shells that were broken with large pieces missing. But once I starting working with them, I decided they add interest and character. I almost used this photo for my illustration of repetition. That is a problem I'm having with this assignment. Several of my pictures could represent more than one design principle.

Now, color balance.

Color Balance

Most of the shells I have are white, brown or a grayish blue. So even though this isn't very colorful, I think it's a good balance of the color I had to work with. I hate to admit it but the background surface for this picture is my bathroom counter top. And yes, it really does have gold flecks in it. But it was the right color, so I'm just going to imagine the gold flecks are grains of sand.

Next, dominance.

Dominance

Other than dominance with size, I wasn't sure what to do here. Then I noticed this tiny delicate shell trapped inside a larger chunky shell. So I did no set up here, just letting Mother Nature speak for herself.

And now repetition

Repetition

This has the repetition of the swirls, shape and almost size. Looking at it now, I wish I had put them closer together to give more of a connected group feel to it.

Alternative Repetition

This is an alternative for repetition. The basic shape of the shells repeats, but the size and color give contrast.

Now for scale.

Scale

I had trouble with this one and I'm not sure this will be my final choice here. I have a lot of small and medium size shells and then this one way bigger than all the others. I tried to show the large one in comparison to smaller ones of the same shape and color. But there is nothing in the photo to give it perspective. I'll think on this one some more.

And now, orientation

Orientation

This one was a challenge. I finally decided to take one interesting shell and photograph it from several different angles. I put three of them into this collage. Although I like this little collage, I'm not sure it's the best representation for this assignment. I might do something else here too.

Alternative to Orientation

Okay, I should be embarrassed by this on. I wanted to think outside the box for orientation. So I waited until it got dark, pulled out some flash lights and played around with shining lights through some of the shells. I think it was a good idea, but I'm no good at night photography. This is the only photo in this assignment that I adjusted in photoshop. I had to brighten it up and lighten it. I'm not at all happy with the results. It's grainy and dull. But this is a learning experience and I have no pride. So here it is.

Rhythm or Movement

Rhythm or Movement

This is a closeup of a shell. Even though it's not moving, I think the pattern of the shell implies movement of water.

And finally, pattern.

Pattern

This one might have been my repetition. But I decided it showed a nice contrast of two patterns, the deep ridges of the darker shells contrasted against the the fine circular patterns in the white shells.

Thanks for viewing. Comments and suggestions appreciated.
Ann

Season Collage - Winter Reflections

I'm posting this early. I know it needs more work but I need to step back from it for a day or so. The assignment was to make a collage using a triad color scheme that reflects a season. I decided to try to capture the mood of the winter season of the year and the winter season of life. The man in the picture is my 87 year old dad who is suffering from dementia. He was put in hospice care this month and is now at that time in his life where he looks back more than looks forward. Unfortunately, his memories are fading and he feels isolated from the world and his own life. So that is what I was trying to express in this collage.

The first color choice was easy because blue is the color of cold and winter. Since elderly lose their visual acuity, I wanted all the colors to be muted. So for the triad scheme, I picked a very faded yellow-orange and a faded purple. These are not the colors I would have picked had it not been stated in the assignment. But after working with them, I think they do work.

In the top panel, I put a picture of my dad filtered through photoshop. I left him isolated from the rest of the scene to reflect his feelings of isolation. In the lower panel are photos of some of his memories, all distorted, faded, and blowing away. I left his high school picture more clear because that is the time in his life he remembers most clearly. There is text floating in and out of the photos. I intentionally made the text faded and hard to read to represent the difficulty dementia patients have accessing their memories.

I will continue to work on this one. And will appreciate any comments - good or bad - from our class.
Thanks for reading and viewing,
Ann

Graphic Animal

John suggested I clean up my swan picture from the previous post. So here is a new and improved version. I had trouble figuring out what to do about the feet. In the source photo the feet are under water. Now that I'm blackened out the water, it looked like the swan was missing feet. So I just simplified the form by removing the leg. Does that work? Does anybody miss the leg?
Ann

Chapter 3 - Imagery- Graphic Animal

This first picture is not part of this assignment. But when I was looking for my dog pictures from a 4th of July event, I found this one. The dog and the people were all in the shade of the harbor shelter. The boats were in bright sunlight. So I did some playing around in Photoshop to try to salvage the silhouette. This process is similar to what I used to do this assignment.


If I understand this assignment right, we are to do black-and-white graphic reductions of animals. Well the text's instructions are to draw, which I'm no good at. So I'm taking photographs of animals and simplifying them. I got totally carried away with this because I was watching the Westminster Dog Show. I can't believe I spent 2 hours of my life watching dogs lap around Madison Square Garden. But it made me think about how individual all dogs are yet have the characteristics of their breed. So I searched through my dog photos and did some simplifications. I put them in photoshop and used three different filters - torn edges, cutout or stamp. After several hours of playing around with the dogs, I decided it would be better to do another animal. So I tried some swans. Here's a few of them followed by the original photographs.

This one is my favorite for this assignment, I think because swans have that long neck they are always curving. I think that's their signature feature.







Some of the dogs turned out well enough to show their personality, even though they were simplified. I couldn't reduce them as well as the swans. But I'm going to post a few anyway.

Niki is always recognized around town for his short legs and stylish rain gear.

Skipper with the sad eyes.

CD's pup, part German Shepard with the pointy ears.

This black lab always has his tongue hanging out.

As for the Critique Discussion Points from the assignment: Yes, I think my final simplified image maintains the essence of a swan. It has the graceful form and the signature pose of a swan. One thing I learned about swans is that they have a lot more color than I thought. What I found most challenging about this assignment was trying to simplify the dog photos that weren't profiles. Most of the dogs I couldn't simplify enough without them turning into big, black blobs. I like the pictures anyway, so I'm posting them.
--Ann

Graphic Artist Link

As John suggested in class, I'm adding a link to a favorite graphic artist/designer. His name is John Rubio, currently of Austin, Texas. He does many types of design work from designing gift cards (you know someone has to design those things) to corporate logos and web sites. At his site, if you go to the first link - to "design" and then to "logo and identity" you'll see several logos he's developed for everything from a swim suit company to a green energy company to a roller derby cheer leading squad. A lot of these designs really illustrate what we've been working with this last week. I especially like the swim wear one. Click through them and shop around. I think you'll enjoy it.

John also does a lot of cartoon and animation stuff. And I think he has a pretty straightforward, easy to follow web site for being such an artist type. He does have very good taste (I know this because he married my niece) but a wicked sense of humor. One think I've learned from looking at the variety of his work, is that to be successful commercially, designers have to design for their clients taste, not their own.

So if your roller derby cheer leading squad needs a new logo, Rubio is the man for the job.
Later,
Ann

Project 2 - Expressive type and design

I wish I had more time to play with this. But not this weekend. I've had several ideas that I could not execute in the software I have available. In fact some of my fonts have gone missing since I set up my Adobe Bridge. I don't know if that has anything to do with it. But it looks like I have different fonts on my old desk top that doesn't have PS set up. Has anyone else noticed this?

Anyway, this is what I have so far. Stodgy - an adjective for something hard to digest. I think of stodgy as globby, fattening food so I wanted my word to look globby and fat. I started out with a big fat font, Bauhaus 93 at 105pt. I typed it in Photoshop and applied filters. First I used the sponge filter to give the characters some variation in color. Next I spherized twice so it would be nice and round. Then I applied the Mosaic tiles to give it a little more character.

Next up was ornate, as in too much decoration to be useful. So I found the most frilly font I could (Parchment at 48 pt) and I added a little color just to make it more ornate. The color was done with the gradient tool in Photoshop. And the colors don't show up as well on the blog as on my photoshop screen. I don't know why I made it so much smaller than stodgy. But I like it small and more delicate.

Sludge always reminds me of my father's warnings to change the oil in my car frequently. So I wanted my sludge to look like thick black oily gunk. I used a font called chiller at 105 pt. I also used the gradient tool in Photoshop on this to give some variation in the color. And I added a little smudge to finish it off.









I saved crush till last because I had to change computers to get the right font. When I thought about expressive type for crush, all I could think of was type being pressed or squeezed. Of course there is another definition to the word crush - an adolescent infatuation. So I decided to take a different approach to the word crush and try to put myself in the mindset of a 10 year old girl in math class, trying to concentrate on long division when all she can really think about is the dreamy guy sitting on the second row.



The font I used here is called chick. I changed the color of each letter because that's what a 7th grader would do in the throws of a crush. I decided to use this one as the one to expand. So I added a little mindless doodle in a font called Curlz MT. It was such a simple idea, but it ended up taking 4 layers in Photoshop to get all the elements in. I'm finding there are limitations to working with text in photoshop. But the work I did in Word didn't load up to the blog. So here is my last word of the day.