"Perplexity"
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Starting Process
Beginning with the project was rather difficult. When it was first introduced, I began to panic since I never used photoshop in my life. Not only that, but I had artist's block; not a single idea ran through my head of what I wanted to do. I started to look at different artists that I could base my collage's style from. In addition, I also looked at examples of students that already did the project so that I could have an idea of what to do. After pondering for about one week, I finally came up with a theme for my digital collage which was cultural roots. Being a young child, moving into a new environment and forgetting where you used to live plays a big role in the confusion of my cultural roots. As I grew, my memories of where and who I was began to fade as I adapted into American culture. Although I grew up in the United States and was born in Mexico, I do not consider myself American or Mexican. The reason for this is due to the fact that my relatives from Mexico consider me as an American, while living in the US, I am considered Mexican. This situation gave me the idea of creating my digital collage in which depicts the confusion that contributes to my cultural roots. The first idea that ran through my mind was to show only me with two heads stretching into opposite directions. Another idea was about getting my head in the center and getting it deformed.
Artistic Inspiration
In the beginning, it was told to base our digital collage of one of the artists that was studied in our sophomore year. I already had my artist which made it easier for me to come up with ideas of the style for my digital collage. In this piece my inspiration came from Francis Bacon. He was an Irish figurative painter who created paintings that made a big impact in post-war art. Out of all the paintings, the one that gave me the final idea of my product was 'Self Portrait ' (1971). Since his paintings gave the viewer strong emotions, this one spoke to me the most out of all the paintings. I liked the dark aura of the piece and the use of color and texture. In my opinion this represented confusion really well, which resulted in my final product.
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Process (Continued) |
Sketches |
To resume with my process, I started to focus on the things I wanted to put in my digital collage. The head was the main thing I wanted to include. I first began with sketches of my head and adding some notes to the things I wanted to change or make better. After this process, I started taking pictures of my head that served as portrayal of my mind. There were several pictures of different poses in which I wanted to The expression in my face was not to convey happiness, but rather seriousness and confusion. My first photos consisted of two heads coming out of one neck that stretched in opposite directions. It was very difficult to create a perfect picture in which my head would stretch out perfectly the way I wanted it to, so at the end I ended up taking pictures of just my head faced forward as if I was taking a mugshot. I then chose took the picture that I liked the best, opened it in Photoshop CS6, and began experimenting with it. I knew that I wanted to use cold and dark colors, so I chose the filters in Photoshop that could make my picture nearly the same as a paintings of Francis Bacon.
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I then went to my picture and clicked in quick select in order to cut my face in a fast manner instead of trying to cut it piece by piece. Then, I copied my selection and pasted it on my background and started to tweak with the selection a bit. At the bottom of my selection (my face), I used the liquifying tool in order to accomplish that melting feature in my photo. Finally I made final adjustments and was soon finished because I had nothing else to do in the digital collage.
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Reflection
Through the time that I was working in order to finish my digital collage, I gained some knowledge/experience of how to use Photoshop CS6. Before that, I never knew how to work with it because it never occurred in my mind that I would be using it in any project. However, it inspired me to create digital art and step out of my comfort zone because the thought of creating digital art when you're not even good at it or know nothing about it, made me scared. I'm not particularly a fan of creating digital art, pencil and paper is much better, but this project showed me a new way to experiment with different art supplies. I know that this is a preview of how college, if I'll be studying in the art department, would be like.
My successes in this project is that I did create a piece in which met my expectations. Also, it created the colors that I wanted to include. However, I failed to liquify my face the way I planned it in my head. I wasn't that pleased with the form of my face. If I were to do this project again, I would plan out better on how I want to convey my message through the art piece, but other than that in my opinion the digital collage was a success.
My successes in this project is that I did create a piece in which met my expectations. Also, it created the colors that I wanted to include. However, I failed to liquify my face the way I planned it in my head. I wasn't that pleased with the form of my face. If I were to do this project again, I would plan out better on how I want to convey my message through the art piece, but other than that in my opinion the digital collage was a success.