Non –Objective Painting

For this assignment we were asked to create a silkscreen print, playing cards, a silhouette or a non objective painting. After much deliberation and failed attempts I chose to create a non-objective painting. To start off this piece we were asked to take photographs and research architecture as well as shapes, lines, textures and characteristics of buildings, which we would then use to base our non-objective painting off of.

This is my piece, I used acrylic paint on canvas and the subject matter was inspired by a picture of a house that I edited in Photoshop. The original picture was of the back of a house, with two windows and a bench; however, the photo itself had a huge lens flare in the middle from the sun. I then used the lens flare as the focal point of the piece after a bit of manipulation in Photoshop. In doing so I created a visually pleasing composition as well as piece that was inspired purely off form and shape rather than imagery.

During the creation of this piece i found it extremely difficult to detach myself from the imagery and focus mainly on the shapes and forms , rather than the subject matter itself. I also found it challenging to make nothing look interesting. It took a lot of thumbnailing, and various edits in Photoshop, but I managed to overcome these artistic problems and created a piece, which I think, looks really interesting, seeing how it is a painting of nothing. If i could do it again however, i would reduce the amount of emphasis i put on the lens flare and focus more on the architectural elements of the two buildings. I feel the piece would have been more visually appealing if they were more structured elements to it rather than the free flowing lines that the majority of the painting is comprised of.

Overall I am extremely pleased with the final outcome and recommend that everyone try at least one non-objective painting in their lifetime. It taught me that the subject matter isn’t always the most important thing about a painting and that one mustn’t always draw inspiration from what they see but rather what they feel.

Dual Self Portrait

For our second major assignment we were expected to create a self portrait that portrays some form of duality in our individual personalities. Having full creative freedom for this assignment allowed me to create a piece which not only shows duality of personality but the vast concepts that form the make up of my personalities, and the ties that bond them.
The concept for my idea was to have to my face cut in half and then put each respective half on opposite sides of the canvas. Each side of my face portraying a different side of my personality. One side shows the professional, dull side of my personality which I used monochromatic shades to express. The other half portrays the fun, energetic side of my personality, which I used warm and vibrant colours to portray. Both sides were then separated by the suggestion of a universe and placed on individual backgrounds which merged into the universe. I then placed each half of my face on an individual background; the monochromatic side was place and an extremely colourful expressionistic background, while the coloured side of my face was placed on top of a monochromatic background. Each background is supposed to represent how each respective side of my personality, stands out when surrounded by personalities of opposite natures. I felt in order to portray the intensity of my concept; acrylic on canvas would be not only ideal but necessary due to how fast paint can be. Especially because time was one of the major deciding factors of this assignment.
I am extremely pleased with the way this piece turned out simply because of how well the finished product looks. As I was creating the piece, I was also experimenting, because I hadn't done a painting like this before and could not predict how it would turn out. The finished product for me was like succeeding in an experiment, it turned out just as I had planned and it looks like a professional fished piece.
I feel as though this piece looks finished and professional due to the use of the elements and principals of design. I used movement and line to keep the observers eye moving around the entire piece and colour and shades to balance out the subject matter. The biggest problem I had when creating this piece was trying to make the subject matter balanced. Originally I had planned to put each respective background on opposite sides (reversal of the finished project), however when attempted, the coloured side felt to heavily weighted. In order to balance out the piece I decided to put the colourful background with the monochromatic face, and vice versa to balance out the weight of the painting. I then further created balance by putting a bit of grey on the edge of the coloured face and a bit of colour on the edge of the monochromatic face to unify the two sides of my personality. In doing so, I feel as though I not only connected the two faces, but unified the piece itself. This gave it that finished professional look.
If I could fix on thing on this painting it would be to extend the top of the head of the monochromatic side because the eyes make the facial proportions a bit off. By extending that hairline, the eyes would seem further down on the face, which would follow the eye placement rule of halfway down the face.
Overall I was really pleased with the finished product. This assignment really pushed me to think conceptually about myself, and in the process pushed me to create a finished piece faster then any painting I've done before.

Eisuke Sato

For our first Cyber Arts blog post we were required to research a modern/post modern artist who created a portrait that we found intriguing. I decided to focus on Japanese artist Eisuke Sato. Eisuke Sato was born in Oita, Japan in 1973. He earned his Bachelor's in fine arts at The University Of Washington, which later led him to achive his master's in fine arts at The American University. during his art career he has managed to win the Liquitex prize at GEISAI 4, in Tokyo.

The portrait I want to talk about is "Eisuke Sato" a grey scale painting done using intense line and shading. I think this painting is truly amazing simply because of the artists' ability to master the use of light and shadow to create this surreal feel about the image. I also found this painting intriguing because of the composition. Although it is very centered, he cleverly put the main focus slightly above the half way point, executing the rule of thirds composition beautifully. This along with the intense detail in the main area of focus makes the subject stand out significantly from the background making the piece not only technically masterful, but extremely aesthetically pleasing.

This piece to me is really interesting for several reasons but none more important then the simplicity of the piece. The fact that this piece is so appealing because of Eisuke's ability to use the simple elements of light and shadow in combination with strong lines shows the artists' capability of drawing one's eye with the simplest elements and principals of design. Demonstrating not only his talent but his artistic prowess.

I really like this piece and if you want to see more of what this amazing artist is capable of just click here.

Sketch Trial

This is my GIANT'S TOILET that I designed using the Sketchup design program. We were required one period to simply explore the program, while keeping in mind the design of the chairs we have been working on for the past few weeks. I ended up designing this toilet by mistake because it happened while I was trying to re-create my chair design. However I enjoy this piece because it looks interesting and the design, at least I find, is extremely appealing, especially for a toilet. Overall this brief assignment gave some experience with the program, and it was a lot of fun to use. I would recommend it to anyone interested in the digital design process.

Chair design

For this assignment we were required to design a chair that was functional, looked like a piece of art and exuded our personality. By doing this I feel as though I have designed the ultimate chair, hence the name "ULTRACHAIR".

The first thing I aimed for and had the most trouble doing was making my chair functional. After many failed ideas I managed to come up with a great idea. A food storage system under the seat. In both the model and in the orthographic drawings I portrayed how the seat lifts up to reveal a hidden storage compartment. Now for this model the storage compartment isn't refrigerated so it allows you to store other items other then food, like books, board games or movies, however for ULTRACHAIR version 2.0 the storage compartment would ideally be refrigerated, which would permit cool beverages and various snacks. This chair also has another cool function, the ability to play music. On the right arm of the chair there is an embedded Ipod docking station which is connected to a speaker system near the upper potion of the head rest, promoting maximum

relaxation and comfort. Essentially the functionality of this chair is what makes this chair so interesting and appealing and how it relates to my personality.

Others would say that I have exaggerated personality however in the comfort of my solitude I find that I am a very relaxed and laid back person which essentially led to the design of my chair. The first factor that exudes my personality is the mere size of the chair. In a full scale model the chair would be 4ft wide ad 5ft tall, which me, being a tall person, would be ideal and comfortable. I also incorporated my main interests, music and food, which I feel best exudes my personality. Essentially the size, function and capabilities of this chair best exudes my personality because it portrays my interests while still comfortably fitting my body.

Besides functionality and personality representation I designed this chair to look like an art piece. I used long curvy lines to extenuate the chair and to create a sense movement throughout the piece, as well as clean edges to give the piece a finished feel. The subtle presence of geometric shapes provides a feel of order, which I need in everyday life, yet the elongated lines provide an organic feel which I feel creates a unified look to the chair. Another factor that makes this chair a piece of art is the fact that it is balanced. Although the bottom portion is very heavy I created balance by extending the back over the seat, providing a canopy feel to the chair, not only benefiting the design of the piece but the functionality as well. The fact the the main portion of

the chair is made out of 2 main circles forces the observers to travel from the top of the chair around the back to the front, providing a sense of motion and unity throughout, giving the chair a sleek and clean feel.

The last thing I would like to talk about is final presentation and the overall design process in making this chair. Before actually creating the chair out of foam core we were required to do a series of isometric and orthographic drawings showing the different and artistic views of the chair. It went through several changes before coming to the final stage, it originally had a stand that made it come up to 7ft tall. However although cool it didn't provide the feel I was looking for so I was forced to change it. To your right is the final presentation of my chair with both of the orthographic and isometric drawings of the chair as well as an overhead view of the finished model.

Hope you enjoy my chair and when production starts be sure to place in your order for color and size (adjustable to buyer).

History of cinematography

Cinematography is an art form unique to motion pictures. Although the exposing of images on light-sensitive elements dates back to the early 19th century, n the infancy of motion pictures, the cinematographer was usually also the director and the person physically handling the camera. As the art form and technology evolved, a separation between director and camera operator emerged. With the advent of artificial lighting and faster (more light sensitive) film stocks, in addition to technological advancements in optics and various techniques such as color film and widescreen, the technical aspects of cinematography necessitated a specialist in that area.Cinematography was key during the silent movie era - no sound apart from background music, no dialogue - the films depended on lighting, acting and set.

In 1919, in Hollywood, the new motion picture capital of the world, one of the first (and still existing) trade societies was formed: the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC), which stood to recognize the cinematographer's contribution to the art and science of motion picture making. Similar trade associations have been established in other countries, too.

The ASC defines cinematography as

a creative and interpretive process that culminates in the authorship of an original work of art rather than the simple recording of a physical event. Cinematography is not a subcategory of photography. Rather, photography is but one craft that the cinematographer uses in addition to other physical, organizational, managerial, interpretive and image-manipulating techniques to effect one coherent process.

After this tutorial, you will be able to turn this:



Into this

:



As Cyn mentioned in her primary colorizing tutorial, the key to a good result is in a good clean source image. The cleaner and better resolution the original source, the easier it will be to work with and the better it will end up. Take particular care to avoid images with large blown out white sections, as these will never look right in the final image. The original I used above was around 2000 x 2000 pixels.

The nice thing about this method is the nature of adjustment layers themselves, you can always go back and change them, messing around with the colors as much as you want until it finally looks right. It also incorporates the layer mask right into the adjustment layer, so you can clean up your selection edges as you go along. It also doesn't require any pre-selection of colors as in Steveo's tutorial, or blending of colors into one another as in Cyn's (though both are excellent methods).

The first thing you should do with any image is clean it up. Dust, scratches, and uneven tones all need to go before you start working on it.

Use the clone brush to get rid of defects, and in some cases the healing brush can be used to add texture to blown out areas. The uneven tones will be taken care of in the levels. It's not required to do any of this, but it will definitely help out your final product. If you're not experienced with levels, this might be slightly confusing, but once you know your way around, this step only takes a couple seconds.

With a colorization, levels are extremely important. Levels can be found under Image -> Adjustments -> Levels. You can also just use auto levels, but that won't always give you the results you desire. By tweaking the levels by hand you can select just how you want your image to end up. You don't have to put the markers exactly where I did, just play around with them until it looks right to you. The middle arrow is the mid tones, which can be adjusted as well.

Now that you have your cleaned up image, it's time to get to work. What you need to do now is select an area to color. Just pick one (hair, skin, background, etc.), it doesn't really matter what order you do it in, you will get to everything eventually. For the purposes of this tutorial, I'll start with the skin.

Using whatever selection tool you desire (I personally just use the polygonal lasso) select all of the skin in the image, making sure you subtract things like the eyes and mouth. If you have a Tablet this step is probably much quicker. Get it close, but don't worry about getting it exactly exact, we will take care of the rough edges in a second.

Your selection will look something like this (over the whole body of course):

Now go into quickmask mode by hitting the circle-in-a-shaded-square icon in your toolbox (or just hit q). This will turn anything that you didn't select pink, and your brush palette will turn to white and black. Now you can edit it just like any regular mask (white brushing reveals, black takes away). The first thing to do is get rid of the rough edges by applying a Gaussian blur to the quickmask (usually around 5 pixels, but play around). You might want to apply some selective gaussian blurring to areas where the skin mixes with another element such as hair, to give it more of a fade instead of a harsh line. Then go around with your brush tool fixing any overlaps (the only thing that should not be pink is the skin).

It should look like this:

Hit q again and it will become a selection again (but smoother and with some feathering). You can choose to just select the entire thing in quickmask mode, but I find it faster to do it this way. It's a good idea to save this selection as a channel, in case you need it for something later. Leave the selection up. Now that you have your skin all selected, and your in CMYK mode (you are in CMYK mode right?), it's time to color.

Make sure your original layer is selected (it should be the only layer right now) and your skin selection (from page 3) is still up, and go up to Layer -> New Adjustment Layer -> Curves Name the Adjustment Layer "Skin" and click "group with previous" This will bring up the curves dialog box, and it will add a layer to your layers palette.

This is where all the magic happens. As I mentioned before, since this is an adjustment layer, you can always go back and edit it by simply double clicking on the curves icon in your layer palette. The black and white image to the left of the curves icon is your mask layer, which can also be edited (if you need to reveal more or less skin for some reason).

By adjusting each color curve individually, you will add color to your selected area. Now you can memorize exactly which values of curves give you what color, or you can just play around and eyeball it (what I do). Raising the curve up and to the left gives you more of a color, and down and to the right less. You can also add points to the curves, and tweak the highlight and darks to be different hues, but for now I'll just keep it simple, with one point curves.You can also adjust the Black levels the same way if you want your shadows to be darker, and the combined CMYK curve will adjust the brightness and darkness of the entire range. Next step is hair. New Adjustment layer, etc. It looked like brown hair would work the best based on the original, so I went with that. Raised magenta and yellow up, some small tweaks to cyan and CMYK, raised the black a little. I have no formula for colors, just keep messing around until it looks good. And remember you can always go back and edit it later.

A key point with hair: When you have whispy hair that partially covers skin or background or whatever, you will want to go to your mask layers and use a the brush tool to work with the layers until you have no overlap. You can also selectively blur, smudge, and use greytones in the mask. You want to avoid color overlap, because it creates an obvious line of color across a section of your image and makes it look bad.

A note about eyebrows: If they have black eyebrows, you can just color skin tone right over it, otherwise, color it the same as the hair and make sure you have no skin tone/hair color overlap.

For this image, I added two new (regular) layers and put them on top of the original. One I set to overlay mode, and painted in some pink/red highlights on the cheeks, bridge of the nose, chin, and forehead, then lowered the opacity until it looked good. I also added a small white gloss layer to the lips.The original on the bottom, your two tweak layers, and one adjustment layer for every item you colorized.

Your image is now fully colorized. If any colors look off, simply go back into the curves and change them. I would suggest leaving it for a couple hours, and then coming back to it for some more editing. It's amazing how your perception can change once you haven't been staring at it for a while. It's also good to get some outside opinions.

Done at last...

Your final work should look something like this:

This may seem complicated, but it's really not. All it boils down to is selecting a part of the image, moving some curves around until you get a color you like, and repeating. It's all about trial and error, everything in your .psd can be edited if you don't like how it turned out, tweak a color here, add some yellow there, it all just boils down to your eye for color.

It's actually quite simple stuff. This was my second colorization ever

Romanticism Collage

Our most recent project that was assigned in CyberArts was a choice of a dry point print, or an artistic collage, both in which had to be representative of the romanticism style.
I chose to do a collage, which I feel came out looking great. My collage is based of the prominent mythical figure, Aphrodite, and the resultant effects of her world renown beauty. What I was trying to portray with this piece is the effects that beauty has on mankind, and to show specifically that beauty, however ravishing and breath taking, comes with a grotesque dark side. Which stems directly from male instinct and the abundant need for dominance amongst men. Essentially, this piece is trying to convey blatantly the lengths men are willing to go to in order to attain such beauty.
By focusing on this myth I believe that this piece greatly portrays the romanticism style, due to it's emphasis on drama, contrast, myth, emotion and a clear focal point. All of which are the main characteristics of the romanticism style.
I decided to make Aphrodite in color, while the battle below her was in black and white in order to create contrast between the subject matter. I then placed both on a gradient background, from red to black, which I feel no only strengthens the piece's contrast, but gives the impression of blood, adding to the drama of the piece. I also created drapes, in which Aphrodite clenched to, and near the bottom, the drapes were soaked in blood adding to the drama and intensity of the piece. By drenching her garments and drapes in the blood of the men willing to die for her beauty, I feel, successfully creates drama and emotion to the piece, ensuring that the romanticism style, stays consistent throughout.
The main characteristic of romanticism is a clear focal point, which I did by emphasizing on the transition between the goddess and the battle amongst men, using various cut outs of arms and faces, drawing the eyes focus to that central point. For this focal point I decided to combine both colored and black and white imagery to portray the transition between natural human behavior, and the nothingness that becomes of men once instinct and drive replace judgement and rational thinking. By showing this contrast in color as well as the variant facial expressions, expressing agony and lust, in the same area, I feel as though it perfectly portrays the true nature of man after being influenced by beauty. Creating an interesting and favorable focal point, which draws the eye and essentially serving as the main purpose of the piece.
In addition to my focal point, one of the reasons my piece turned out looking great, was due to the composition. I decided to do a triangle composition, starting with the crown of Aphrodite, and the elongated flowing nature of the unfolding battle. I felt as thought choosing a triangle composition was beneficial because it created movement throughout the piece, with an emphasis on the focal point. By doing a triangle composition, I feel as though it unified the piece, providing it with a finished feel. This positively added to the quality of the piece.
During the creative process however, it took a lot of effort to finally get to the finished product. I initially had difficulties deciding the positioning of each cut out as well as balancing the piece by having an even ratio of collage to paint, due to the majority of the background being a painted gradient. I also had difficulty creating a purposeful composition, while unifying all pieces of imagery. In the end however, I feel as though I successfully portrayed the message I was trying to express, while still having it be purposeful and unified.
If I could, I would change the positioning off the men battling on the left side of the collage because it covers most of the drape, which I wanted to clearly show as well as making the piece unbalanced, and although the a symetrical nature of the piece looks interesting, it wasn't purposeful. Which is the only aspect I would change about this piece. Overall, I am very pleased with the way it turned out mainly because I impressed myself. All I can hope for is that you enjoy it as much as I do.

SketchBook

Chalk Cropping Work

This copping (left) was the starting point for the following pieces which I created in CyberArts. With this cropping I recreated the image three times, two were paintings one large scale and one small scale as well as a true recreation done in pastel (the same medium as the cropping) but on a large scale. I chose this cropping because it had an interesting composition (DIAGONAL).

The first piece that I did was the large scale chalk pastel done on a form of newsprint. For this piece I decided to add more value in it then the original cropping. By doing this I feel as though I successfully made the piece more interesting by bringing in multiple lowlights and highlights, which not only added value, but I feel it also added mood, because the different tonal values, I feel help portray the facial expression of the subject matter I was recreating. Changing the size of the piece however, I feel these changes benefited the composition by emphasizing the diagonal composition, making it stronger.

The second re-creation of the cropping was a large scale painting. This was my favorite one because I enjoyed the large area to work with as well as the medium. I was particularly fond of this one because I feel as though I have advanced in brush stroke technique. My lines look purposeful and meaning full and the rough nature of the brush strokes, I feel best portray the expressionistic feel I was trying to show. For this re-creation I was trying to use lose and fast brush strokes to give the piece an expressionistic feel to it. For this piece I also added a large range of highlights and lowlights but I used expressive brush strokes while creating these highlights and lowlights to continue the expressionistic feel. By changing the way I added the highlights and lowlights I feel as though it changed the mood of the facial expression to that of a more concerned one. Also another of the significant changes that I made from the chalk recreation to the painting was a gap in color in the eye. I made the eye in the painting look like a more realistic eye, which I feel added to the change in facial expression of the subject matter. Lastly in the large painting I added small flicks of red pain near the mouth area, to finish off the painting by adding ( which I fee made it stronger) to the expressionistic feel of the painting. However changing in canvas size and medium made it difficult to emphasize the diagonal composition. I feel as though the added value, although adds interest, pulls the eyes attention away from the composition.

My last recreation of my initial cropping was a small paint were like the big painting, was done in acrylic paint. However I found the change in canvas size to negatively impact the end result, because I am not fond of such a small work space. I for one and more fond with a larger canvas, more room for expression as I see it.

There were several things in this painting that I changed from the large scale painting. Firstly I changed my line thickness so that all line were thin, clean and purposeful. I also tried to add more energy into this version, so I purposeful roughed up my lines (unclean) to add in that feeling of expressionism, while still being realistic. Secondly I played with the actual form of the lines to try and change the feel of my subject's facial expression, especially near the mouth ( I tried to make a smirk). Lastly, although it is almost non existent in the photograph, I added in a really light yellow in the whites of the eyes to simply change up the face so that it more closely resembles the original cropping. I feel as though the changes I made from the larger painting to this one emphasized the composition more.

These are the three pieces which I created from my small little cropping, and I am extremely happy with all three pieces. The fact that all of these were done within the first two weeks of the course, I am extremely happy with not only the quality of all three pieces but the simple fact that I created all of these within such a short time frame, I feel, portrays my level of improvement from last year.