Memories in my skin reflection

Memories in my Skin Reflection

Stephanie Brighton

Photoshop.

Monday, February 23, 2015

Technical

There were various techniques new to me that I used. This includes altering the hue and saturation of images, altering the opacity of images as well as their layer blends. I used various layer blends on almost every image so that they looked like they belonged and playing around with the opacity helped with the layering.

Idea or Concept

Originally I didn’t really have a concrete idea; I had a memory and ideas of pictures I wanted to use. However it took me a long time to actually come up with an idea on how to combine the two elements I already had. Working on this piece was basically a big game of trial and error for me. The one design idea I actually thought I did have, which was a background, was the aspect I actually had to change because it was too busy and that none of my pictures went with it. Once I had a simpler background to work with then I felt like I had more space to work with without worrying that my piece would be too crowded. I also found it easier to work once I had collected a bunch of images and then started to play around with them instead of “perfecting” an image then searching for more.

Influences

I had no particular influence from other artists for this piece. This piece is focused around my own memory and I therefore felt that because it is personal that I should design it the way I would and not the way someone else would.

Composition

I tried to balance this composition by having similar structures offset from each other; for example, the birds flying at the top and the footprints in the sand at the bottom. Each structure isn’t just one big picture, but is a combination of many little images. These small images keep moving one after the other and helps with the movement as well. I also offset the more powerful pictures in my piece so that attention would be focused on each side instead of one side being overwhelming.

There are various ways that one’s eye can move around my picture. There are a couple pictures that are focus points in my picture but a good point to start at are the hands holding the sunset because it is quite prominent. From there, the eye follows both the curved birds and rounded pool of water which lead to another prominent picture, the earth. The pieces of the deteriorating earth falling brings the eye downward and the way the way the earth is almost grabbing at the picture of the person brings the eye to the left. This is continued by both the footprints in the sand and the rounded bottom of the pool of water. The eye then travels up with the grey butterfly morphing into one that is more colorful flying back up to the sun. I find that the eye can easily move around because there are structures on both the top and bottom that are rounded which gives the piece a smoother transition from picture to picture or side to side. Each picture has emphasis because of what it’s paired with. For example, the colored butterfly has emphasis because of

Motivation

My motivation for this piece was that I wanted to express my feelings in a new way and to have images that really connected to me personally. I’m so used to expressing myself with words and music that to express myself with pictures seemed like an intriguing challenge. I wanted to really dig deep and focus on how my memory of Nicaragua truly made me feel and I feel I was successful with that.

Critical Assessment

My favorite element of this piece is the man walking towards the keyhole within the deteriorating earth. To me, this feels like one of the most powerful parts of the piece and really communicates how I feel about my memory. This part feels like a real portal to another world. It expresses that we as humans are the key to a better tomorrow and are the only ones who are capable of rebuilding the earth which is slowly falling apart. I’m proud of this particular part because I feel like it is really profound. I’m also proud because it makes me feel like I succeeded in understanding the true meaning of a mission’s trip.

The most surprising thing about creating this piece, for me, would be how long it actually took me to come up with an idea. I had thought that because it was my own memory that I would know exactly how I would want the layout to be; the part of the process was actually rather time consuming. I also found it difficult to fill the center of my background without having just one picture that would be focused on in the middle. It also surprised me how much time had to be put into this piece; because I’m not much of an art student I’m unfamiliar with things such as how much time a piece takes to create. Overall, if I had more time I think I would try to acquire and layer my pictures more and maybe even be a bit more adventurous with my ideas.