"High Hopes"
Exhibition Text:
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Digital Collage:
I have always set high expectations for myself. Throughout my life at a young age, my father was always there to tell me to work hard, be honest, don’t lie, never consume drugs or alcohol, and be respectful. There was always constant talks about how there are dangerous people out in the world and that I needed to make sure that I was always prepared for the unexpected. I have always lived with my father which became difficult at times when I needed another female input and a motherly figure around.
I’m the type of person who is expressive, and shares my emotions and thoughts quite often. I have developed the mindset of why everything happens for a reason, and why not to stress over the issue because it will eventually take place. I endeavor to take a positive outlook on situations I come across.
Recently I have also been getting more interested in learning more about my religious beliefs because my family and myself believe in God but don’t really expand outside of just believing it. A lot of the time I pray to God about my morals and about life in general and what my thoughts are on the events that are occurring around me. The most preeminent place for myself to be when thinking about my religious beliefs is being outdoors, somewhere where there is prepossessing scenery. When I focus more on my religious beliefs, I connect more with myself and I put myself as the main priority. I can be quite stubborn at times and when I make myself the main priority I can put all my attention in what I’m trying to accomplish.
I continuously give myself time to focus on myself and being able to give myself alone time when it’s necessary. I always had that kind of mentality of being independent and doing tasks on my own because I think nobody can help me as much as I can myself.
Something that my father has said to me that stuck out the most was “Life is easy. Be a good person, work hard, and success is yours for the taking.” This made me evaluate on how I want my life to turn out and how I want to be someone that I am proud of.
I’m the type of person who is expressive, and shares my emotions and thoughts quite often. I have developed the mindset of why everything happens for a reason, and why not to stress over the issue because it will eventually take place. I endeavor to take a positive outlook on situations I come across.
Recently I have also been getting more interested in learning more about my religious beliefs because my family and myself believe in God but don’t really expand outside of just believing it. A lot of the time I pray to God about my morals and about life in general and what my thoughts are on the events that are occurring around me. The most preeminent place for myself to be when thinking about my religious beliefs is being outdoors, somewhere where there is prepossessing scenery. When I focus more on my religious beliefs, I connect more with myself and I put myself as the main priority. I can be quite stubborn at times and when I make myself the main priority I can put all my attention in what I’m trying to accomplish.
I continuously give myself time to focus on myself and being able to give myself alone time when it’s necessary. I always had that kind of mentality of being independent and doing tasks on my own because I think nobody can help me as much as I can myself.
Something that my father has said to me that stuck out the most was “Life is easy. Be a good person, work hard, and success is yours for the taking.” This made me evaluate on how I want my life to turn out and how I want to be someone that I am proud of.
Artistic Inspiration:
Process:
Planning Sketches: |
Creating Process: |
The first step that I did was to create three planning sketches of my ideas and what I wanted to do, with tips and side notes for myself to take into consideration when starting my piece.
Collecting Images:Then I started taking photos based off of my planning sketches and focused on how they connected to me about my essay.
Meaning:The digital collage High Hopes is about myself and how I like to be an independent person but also takes my fathers advice seriously and how I look up to him. This piece represents the connections I have with nature and how I express myself. Also it shows my religious beliefs and how close I am with my father. My father has always been there to help me through every situation that I come across. He has always tried to do his best when my brother and I were younger, only growing up with our father. In my piece that's why I have him and myself sitting in the same position, back to back because even though we don't always agree, we are always there for each other. In my piece I used one photo as the background and just duplicated and rotated it to make it look as if it was the same piece because came can view it as if I am a reflection of my father and how we have similar mind-sets. Then I added my father and myself at the end of the stone slab making us look like the center of the piece, creating more emphasis on us. The two necklaces are something that I wear everyday and was given to me by my mother and father. The tree is another addition to how I express myself when I'm outside with nature.
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When first opening Photoshop the first task that I did was creating a background canvas that was 36inx24in, and setting the resolution to about 170. Then I started off with the background of a single photo and duplicated and flipped it. Then from the tree picture I took several cropped out branches, resized and rotated the picture to make them all look different in the final photo.
Final Touches:This is where I was adding the final details and readjusting certain parts of my project, finding the best positions. I also experimented with the contrast and brightness to see how it would affect my piece.
Reflection:From this project I learned faster ways on how to crop and edit photos and use refine edging tools. Next time I would like to work on adding more photos to the foreground and background, so it does look too simple. I was also struggling on having my photos in focus/ clear because every time that I wanted to readjust the size, the photo would become somewhat blurry. I was also having difficulties with the layers of each photo and if you added a certain filter or saturation, it would affect all of the layers below the original layer that I added it to. What I liked about my piece was how I used one photo for my background and flipped and rotated the picture to make it look narrower the further the photo s were cropped together. I also liked how I have my father and I placed to where we were back to back, in which I think it adds more meaning to the photo. Overall I think I did pretty well as the first actually time working with Photoshop in which I found as a quite interesting experience.
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Research:
-Editing one layer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thEnVCpDpAc
-Rotating photos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM3qyU-2UNg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thEnVCpDpAc
-Rotating photos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM3qyU-2UNg
- This is where I explored different ways to edit and add final touches to improve my piece.
Connecting to the ACT:
1. Identify cause and effect relationships between your inspiration and your artwork.
In my piece I used the same background idea as my inspiration piece of The Son of Man by Magritte. I used the same concept of a blue background in which I used lake Michigan and had my father and myself wear black like my inspiration.
2. What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
In my piece it represent myself and the different aspects I have on life. My piece is a reflection of myself and my beliefs which connects to my inspiration because The Son of Man is a self portrait, with almost all of his face covered, hiding himself, representing something about his life.
3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
When researching my piece I discovered more about how people view things throughout there life. The way we see something and how it can hide another things that we are unable to see. Also on how we always are interested and want to view in the things we can not see.
4. What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The central idea/ theme of my piece is the views on life and how they can block other objects that we can't see. As well as my own beliefs on my life.
5. What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
While doing my research I made inferences on Rene Magritte and how his views were and how he believed on the things we are all unable to see.
In my piece I used the same background idea as my inspiration piece of The Son of Man by Magritte. I used the same concept of a blue background in which I used lake Michigan and had my father and myself wear black like my inspiration.
2. What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
In my piece it represent myself and the different aspects I have on life. My piece is a reflection of myself and my beliefs which connects to my inspiration because The Son of Man is a self portrait, with almost all of his face covered, hiding himself, representing something about his life.
3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
When researching my piece I discovered more about how people view things throughout there life. The way we see something and how it can hide another things that we are unable to see. Also on how we always are interested and want to view in the things we can not see.
4. What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The central idea/ theme of my piece is the views on life and how they can block other objects that we can't see. As well as my own beliefs on my life.
5. What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
While doing my research I made inferences on Rene Magritte and how his views were and how he believed on the things we are all unable to see.
Citations:
By Submitting the above You Agree to The Art Story Privacy Policy. "Rene Magritte Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works." The Art Story. N.p., 2016. Web. 15 Sept. 2016.