Blog 4

My Big Idea for the final project explores emotions.  I want to create a series of pieces that display various emotions.  I will be incorporating color schemes and various pictures to convey these emotions--specifically, I plan to use green to show tranquility, blue to depict sadness, red to convey anger, and yellow to communicate happiness.  The pictures I select will fit in with the emotion in the particular piece.  Additionally, I will incorporate motion through the use of a filmstrip and light effects (the techniques I will incorporate, see below).  This is to show how emotions are unstable and fleeting and they can change in the blink of an eye.  I can envision my work as decorative art--it is a colorful series so it would be fun to use somewhere.  It could also be used as album art.

I drew on several sources of inspiration for my idea.  The filmstrip idea came from Apple's iLife packaging, seen below:

My inspiration for playing with colors in a series came from Andy Warhol's famous silkscreen work with Marilyn Monroe.  A part of that series follows:

The last inspiration from my work comes from a collection of looks by designer Mondo Guerra.  He uses colors and shapes very artfully to communicate his point of view as a designer.  I also intend to use colors and shapes to make my point of view clear.  A sample of his looks:

I plan to use 2 new techniques that will from a majority of the project.  I will create a helix and using the pen tool and the warp tool as well as masking, gradients, and shapes to achieve the effect of a filmstrip.  The tutorial can be seen here:

http://www.webdesignerwall.com/tutorials/photo-strip-photoshop-tutorial

The second technique I plan to experiment with for my final project deals with glow and lighting that I plan to use behind the filmstrip.  I will once again use gradients, the pen tool, and overlay methods to achieve this effect.  The tutorial that I plan to use is this one:

http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials-effects/advanced-glow-effects/

I am excited to begin working on the project and experimenting with the tutorials.  Hopefully my project transfers well from my head to photoshop!  =)

Today, I leafed through several photographers' and digital artists' work to find a few that inspired me.  The first that I really enjoyed was the work by Stephen Carroll.  A few of my favorite images follow, and his photostream on Flickr can be found here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/scarroll99/

I really liked Stephen's work because I think each picture tells a story.  The lighting in his photos and the filters he uses are also very interesting and add a lot of depth to his pictures.  I also enjoy his work because I identify with his Big Idea, which I believe to be emotions.  Each of his photographs evokes some sort of emotion.  In the 3 images of his work that I have provided, I think the first displays happiness, the second shows desire, and the third depicts sadness.  He is a master at capturing emotion, which I find truly inspiring.  After looking at his work, I am curious to learn more about the stories behind each image and from where he derives his inspiration.

Stephen's work is very inspirational for my final project.  I would love to be able to evoke such a strong sense of emotion from my own work.  Stylistically, I would like to try to incorporate a larger usage of filters and saturations into my final project, because I think these strongly help to deliver a higher sense of emotion in Stephen's work.  Stephen is a very talented photographer who has mastered the art of conveying emotions.

The second artist whose work I really enjoyed is named Jeannette Woitzik.  She is a very talented digital artist.  Her work can be found on the following website:  http://schnettepics.de/index.php?x=browse

Jeannette's work appealed to me because I appreciate the dream-like quality of her artwork and the innocence and warmth of her work.  I think her Big Idea revolves around this perfect, dream-like state.  I find the simplicity of her work very inspiring--each picture has a very obvious focal point, yet her work is still beautifully intricate and her talent with photoshop is very obvious.  Once again, I am curious to see where she finds her inspiration.  I also noticed the recurring heart balloon in her work, and I am wondering what the specific significance of the balloon is.

I will definitely try to incorporate some elements from Jeannette's work into my final project.  Her work inspires me to use only one or two things as a focal point in my final project, but to use intricate and beautiful backdrops to frame this object impeccably.  I will try to narrow my focus to make my own work stronger.  I also like her use of a vignette in her pictures to make it seem more dream-like.  Seemingly small details like this can add a lot to a work of art, and I will try to keep an eye out for such opportunities in my work.

Overall, I enjoyed thumbing through various artists to get inspiration for my final project.  Both Stephen and Jeannette used interesting techniques that I will keep in mind as I work on my final project.