MEDIA ARTS: Displacement Technique

So I experimented with a variety of pictures, including stone walls, railroad tracks, and gravel roads, among other things. My two favourites were when I displaced a picture over a white picket fence and over an assortment of keys lying on a white surface. I liked the fence so much, actually, that I did three different things with it: 1) The way described on the document 2) I took out the spaces between the fence so that the zebras were only on the fence and not on the background, as if the zebras were painted on the fence, and 3) I put the picture on a photo of a lovely house as if it was a fence there.

So it occured to me that on the tutorial you mentioned turning the car blue. I did the purple/pink car first, because I like purple/pink, and it made the car look neat, but here's the blue one if that's what you wanted. :)

MEDIA ARTS: Sunset Lake

Here is the Sunset Lake picture. I thought this was a really interesting technique! :) I will have to look up other pictures to transform...

MEDIA ARTS: The White Strawberry

This was quite honestly a pain in the bum to make. I had a ton of trial and errors. But here is the best one.

MEDIA ARTS: The Secret Side of Myself

Here is the final product of the "Alter Ego/Hidden Self" assignment. I'm quite happy with it, I think.
Reflection:
1. This picture shows many different sides of me that a lot of people don't know about. For example, the main focus of the picture is of me casting a Patronus (in my case, a fox) because I love Harry Potter, and that is one of the more important spells that they cast throughout the books and films. A Patronus is unique to each person who casts it as well, as it reflects the individual's personality. Mine being a fox represents that I am clever and independent. The airplane, earth, and Eiffel Tower represent my desire to travel around the world and learn many different languages. I want to go on exchange next year to Spain or Italy so I can learn more about the cultures in Europe and pick up a new language. The book at the top, paper, drawing, and quill are about my love for reading, writing, and drawing, but there are also deeper meanings to things, such as the quill, which has a more hidden significance. The quill symbolizes the past, and how sometimes I wish that we weren't as dependent on our electronic things as we are today. Don't get me wrong, I'm a technology freak, but sometimes things like receiving a letter are simple but mean so much more than receiving a text message. There are a few other pictures depicted on the assignment that show things I want to do or things I like, and I think that the overall image conveys that I am a bit of a dreamer with some practical future plans and some unrealistic fantasies that I keep locked up in my imagination and close to my heart, which is exactly how I am, how my 'hidden self' is.

2. I found that the image of me casting my Patronus was the most successful because I had to do a fair bit of editing to make it turn out the way it did, and I think the work paid off. In the original picture I was just holding a silvery stick, which I replaced with a wand in the final picture. Also, the smoke brushes were very useful in making it seem like I really did have something coming out of my wand, and I think that that part of the picture turned out very successfully.

3. I wish that the Eiffel tower looked more like it was connected to the earth, but because it is blocked by the fox's tail it looks more like it is simply floating in the air. I tried moving it to different locations but it never seemed to turn out right, as it was either too small, too big, too tall, or couldn't be seen. However, when I took it out of the picture entirely it looked blank in the space where it had been. I think perhaps I needed a different picture instead of the Eiffel tower there.

4. As I mentioned above, if I did the project again I would probably find another picture instead of the Eiffel tower to put on the earth, perhaps a different landmark that would be just as recognisable. I'd also add in something to do with Anime, like a picture I drew myself, because that is something I love to do and many of my binder papers have Anime doodled in the margins. I might also take out the second picture of me in the corner and find something else, because I find that the second picture takes a bit away from the first photo of myself. Perhaps that would be where my Anime picture would go....

MEDIA ARTS: More Alter Ego Ideas

So I had a brilliant idea last night for my Alter Ego picture just after I turned my computer off, so I wrote it down and now here it is:

I was going to have it so that either a) I am reading a book on the side and all of my pictures etc. are coming out of it OR b) There is a book on the top of the picture that all of my other pictures are falling out of.

MEDIA ARTS: More on the Alter Ego Thing

So my plan for my alter ego picture goes as such:

Pictures to include:
-Video games
-Something Harry Potter related
-Lined paper/pen/pencil/quill etc. that relates to writing
-Something travel related, i.e. airplane, world, passport, recognizable landmarks etc.
-An electronic-looking background
-Possibly a Harry Potter anime...(Later edit--turns out I can't do this because cartoons/drawing are copywrited)
-A window showing it raining outside
-Part of my brain is electronic-y?
-Me casting a Patronus/casting a spell
-Books!

More later perhaps...

MEDIA ARTS: Brainstorming for my Alter Ego Picture

Some little-known facts about me:

1.) I am an absolute Harry Potter freak
2.) I'm really good at video games, even the 'boyish' ones that involve racing cars and shooting aliens.
3.) I loved all sorts of bees until a hornet stung me. Now I don't like hornets but I love the fuzzy bumble bees!
4.) I'm not scared of heights but I don't like the idea of falling from them i.e. I can stand at the top of the CN tower no problem, but if someone wanted me to jump from a 13-meter high bridge into the water, that scares me a bit (but not enough not to try it!)
5.) I love writing, especially fanfiction. I've been planning a series of novels for a long time and have a secret fear of screwing it up when I actually write it. I've got almost three notebooks full of notes for the series.
6.) I stay inside a lot because the things I like to do never really require me to be outside i.e. reading, writing, video games, computers, etc.
7.) I like rain because I can stay indoors without my parents bugging me to go outside.
8.) I hate following people. Even tour guides. I like to know where I'm going and how to get there. I always want to be leading the group and not following it.
9.) Most of the music on my iPod was found through my sister--I never listen to the radio anymore and she just finds it for me, so why bother?
10.) Anyone that knows me knows I'm the go-to for most electronics-related problems (even my parents)



My  biggest goals/dreams for the future:

1.) I'd like to go skydiving someday.
2.) I want to travel around Europe and go sightseeing.
3.) I want to learn to speak at least three different languages fluently. I love learning new languages. This is why I want to travel to Europe, partly!
4.) Go to the Harry Potter Theme park in Orlando and buy tons of souvenirs!
5.) Go scuba diving
6.) Get J.K. Rowling to sign my Harry Potter books
7.) Go to a Harry Potter fans convention


I'm mostly a dork who would happily play in my imagination for days on end. I love video games, electronics, and the Harry Potter books, and I dream of travelling the world and speaking a lot of different languages.

MEDIA ARTS: Paintbrushes Assignment

This is definitely the picture I am most proud of to date. It turned out fantastically (in my opinion) and I'm really happy with it. I love how it looks and I love especially that I did not edit a picture or anything because I made it entirely myself :) It makes it special to me.

MEDIA ARTS: Plants in the City Eraser Project

This is, in fact, not Paris. It is Las Vegas, but it has Paris-like buildings in it, yes.  The scene behind it that you can see through some of the erased bits is a river with very lush green trees surrounding it. It was pretty neat making this, and I'm especially proud of how the one car turned out!

MEDIA ARTS: Process of Making my Paintbrush Experiment

I'm going to document how I'm doing this before I actually post the entire picture (sort of like a journal of how I made it) so that I don't forget. You don't necessarily have to mark this but it could be useful to know, which is why I marked it with the title as it is.

1.) Put a dark green block at the bottom of my page and coloured the background orange.
2.) Interspersed dark green grass paintbrush patterns with a lighter green grass colour so that it had some grassy texture.
3.) Put blocks (squares) of colour (from orange to yellow in the middle, then branching out to pinks and purples) along the orange bit (my sky).
4.) Put a yellow circle in the centre of my orange-yellow squares and added lighter yellow circles inside of it until the center circle was white.
5.) Used the 'glass' filter on just the sky and blurred everything.
6.) Used the Gaussian blur technique and blended my sky's colours together. Note: I blended the sun and the sky separately (in different layers).
[6.5) See #14]
7.) Used a wire fence brush in black and put it on the picture. Added the barbed wire at the top with another brush.
8.) Put a large brown square next to the fence. Used a square brush at around half opacity and very high 'scatter' setting and proceeded to spread squares in varying shades of brown all over the rectangle so that it looked like it was a brick wall. I would've just used a brick wall pattern but I'm having trouble uploading the patterns so I had to make my own.
9.) Added in 'shadow' rectangles at the bottom of the fence and the building. They were a darker green and I applied a Gaussian blur to both so it would blend with the rest of the grass. Put more grass patterns on the ground.
10.) Put some 'vines' up the sides of the fence.
11.) Added some graffiti to the brick wall with a lot of brushes.
12.) Went into the Filter Gallery>Texture>Texturizer>Brick and changed the scaling to 200% and the relief to 7. The light came from the bottom left. I applied this to only the square rectangle (my 'brick wall') and it made it appear as though my wall had bricks.
13.) Selected the fence with the magic wand tool (I should have done this before I put the fence down, but since I didn't I made do) and copied and pasted it into another layer. Used a cloud paintbrush and put clouds in my sky underneath the fence layer.
14.) Used a white paintbrush of a girl's silhouette and put her by the wall. Made another of the same silhouette in yellow and put it slightly to the left of the white one. Put a black silhouette in between the two coloured silhouettes so that it looked like the sun was reflecting off of her and so that you could see her outline better.
15.) Added some more grass with a paintbrush and gave the girl a shadow like I did the fence and the building.

Graffiti

And this is a picture that I had fun making when we were trying out all the different brushes we downloaded. It's not up for marking, but I wanted to post it because I thought it turned out well.

And the misleading "midnight brushes" or something is also a brush, you know, the ones they add in because that's who created the brushes. I made this picture. Guaranteed. ;)

MEDIA ARTS: Nine of Me Assignment

This is my second version, which I posted on the 14th. The reason I made a new one is because I felt that two of the heads looked too similar and I changed it a little. I didn't intentionally make the faces the same way--they simply turned out similar even though I used two different techniques to achieve the look. I'd prefer it if you marked this one, however, if I'm past due date etc., then don't worry about it.

This is my original picture, which I posted on the 13th.


Here's my faces edit. It's a picture of Nina Dobrev, who stars in the TV series 'Vampire Diaries'. The two main things i want to draw your attention to would be on picture number four, (take a closer look at the lips) and on the last picture, where there is a different edit on the eyes and mouth than her skin and hair.

MEDIA ARTS: Mosaic Picture

Here is my mosaic picture. Looking at everyone else's, I think I did mine a bit differently, but this is the result so tadaa! And I didn't bother mosaic-ing the shirt because it was so dark, and the hair took up most of my time so I figure it made up for it.

Blog update: What Entries to Read

Alrighty, since I kinda like writing in this blog and I was told I don't have to write in it every day, I decided I'm going to write in it every (well, most) day(s) anyway and simply title the ones that Ms George-Easton will need to mark with MEDIA ARTS at the beginning of the title i.e. MEDIA ARTS: Mosaic Picture will probably be the title of my mosaic picture.

In any case, about the mosaic picture...I was an idiot and left it at school :( I have a folder in my 'U:/' file called "Media Arts" as well as a folder on my USB called "Media Arts". Naturally I was stupid and didn't check that I was saving it onto my USB and not my U:/ drive. I just assumed I was since every other thing I had been working on that day was saved onto my USB that this would be, too. And I got a fair bit of mosaic work done this period. I had the whole face done and I was working on the hair. So I've opened up the same picture and I'm mosaic-ing her neck and some of her hair so that when I get to school I can hopefully put them together and they'll look decent...then again, I've got the whole weekend so I could probably just do the face all over again if I had to. Grr, why did I not check? Hmph. Lucky I've got Photoshop Elements at home.

Photoshop Tutorial

"The Engraved Phoenix" - First Photoshop of this class

The original phoenix picture. Yes, I love phoenixes.

We went through a Photoshop tutorial today. I knew most of the things except how to work the "clone" tool and I hadn't yet experimented with all the different filters, so that was interesting. I made a picture (the blue one) called "Engraved Phoenix" (because that's what it looks like to me) out of another one, which I've also included.

Now the assignment is to make a mosaic out of a face. I picked Emma Watson since anyone who knows me knows I love Harry Potter. :) I took home my picture on my USB but I totally forgot to save the PDF file of instructions on it, (*fail*) so I came to a standstill. :( I also need to ask if (when we're done) the picture is supposed to still look like the person and how that's to be achieved, since so far what I've been doing is making triangles on the picture and using the eyedropper tool to match colours then filling in the triangle with that colour. I couldn't really tell from the picture with the PDF (which I can't even see from at home, anyway...) if that was the goal or if we were just supposed to make triangle OUTLINES and fill in the triangle itself with an effect. Now that I'm talking about it here, that seems to be the logical solution. Ah, well, maybe it was fate I forgot the instructions. That's definitely something I must ask about tomorrow...

Media Arts: Began my blog!

So for media arts I began my first blog :) I tried to be creative enough with the title, because I didn't want it to be too boring sounding. I'm excited for this class because I really like Photoshop and I like computers a lot as well. I also like art :D

I spent a while toggling the design option and figured out for the first time what a "Favicon" is. Previously I had no idea but it turns out it's the icon that shows up in your "Favourites" next to a particular site name i.e. Facebook has the familiar "f" logo, and Google has a "g". I changed mine to a fire flame but I have yet to see it show up...