Life Drawing

 

Photoshop Editing

This week, we have been taking part in a Mac workshop, where we have been exploring Photoshop. We learnt about basic editing skills the first day; how to crop images and change the colour. On the second day, we did a photographic project. We worked in pairs and had to go out and take certain pictures. Included were different perspectives - take a picture close up and then far away, in a lift, and in a busy place. We then had to edit some, exploring different techniques that we have learnt. Here are my before and after photographs. 

Before 
I took this photograph because I found it fascinating looking up at these towering trees, and I think it fits well under the perspective category. 

  After 
  The first thing I did to the     image was rotate it. I think this new perspective definitely makes the picture look a lot more interesting, and it feels as if the tree is really intimidating. I chose to convert it to black and white, because it makes the image a lot more effective, and the contrast between the dark trunk and branches and the lighter leaves works really well. 

                  Before                                                                    After  

I wanted my partner to look quite domineering, so I took this picture looking up at her. I love the backdrop to this photo, and how it isn't taken looking straight infront. The expression on her face is quite peaceful, so I thought about converting it to sepia. To do this, I went on hue/saturation, and then ticked the colourize box. This works really well I think, and the lighter jacket makes her stand out from the background. 

Before 

After 

I've done a lot of photography of flowers before, and i've found that when you can't see the flowers stem, it's quite nice to really enhance the flower, making it appear as if it is jumping out off the page. I decided to colour spot this image, and to do that I cut around the flower, and copied it as a new layer. I converted the background layer to black and white, which meant that the flower was still in colour. To boost the tones, I used hue/saturation. I'm very pleased with this photograph. 

Constructed Drawing

Our first task for the constructed drawing project was to observe and record information from the river. I made a few sketches of different areas, making sure they weren't neat and detailed, which is the way I normally work. I drew the outlines and added some tone, so I'd be able to know where the shadows were. 

Because I had never done a constructed drawing before, I wanted to research different artist's techniques and medias. I chose to study Anselm Kiefer, Daniela Gullotta and John Virtue. I gathered information about their work and how they produced it, which definitely helped me. Here are my artists investigation pages. 

I then went on to experiment with different media and techniques. The whole point of this project was to be quite expressive, and to change the way we normally work. I tried out different ways of applying paint and ink to a page, and also ways of using carboard and paper. 

MY CONSTRUCTED DRAWING

It took me just over two days to complete my constructed drawing. I built up several layers, working from the background to the foreground. I am really pleased with how it turned out, and I think the drawing is very successful. 

The Big Jumper Project

We were required to bring in a large
jumper or cardigan and a camera
for a big jumper project. We were put into
groups and one member brought in a
duvet cover. We tried to attach it suitably
around the person, and used elastic bands.
It didn't turn out as well as we hoped, as
you couldn't move around properly,
so we moved onto another idea. 

Here, we borrowed a large 'sock', which
was a lot better  as  movement wasn't
restricted. Various poses were tried, and we
achieved lots of interesting shapes. However,
we wanted to incorporate something else intoour final image (below). 

This is our final image. We had the idea after looking for objects and finding
an umbrella to create a lightbulb. We draped material over the umbrella and enclosed
a torch inside, which would be the top of the lightbulb. The stripey sock was the
base, and we used a photography lamp to light it from behind when the torch
didn't show up properly. It was very hard at the beginning because the light wouldn't
show up, however when we turned the studio lights off, it was too dark. Also, by
turning off the flash, the images were not as sharp as they could be. With a little bit
of editing though, we managed to get a good end photograph.