Hierarchical Progression

I had the hardest time with this assignment. I am not sure if my creative juices are flowing at full force right now- perhaps because it is the nearing the end of the semester and I am stressed about all the school work I have to do which brings me to the first thing I learned... find something that calms me so I can bring forth my creativeness. That all being said I am not really that happy with my final product. I had a hard time finding some text that I wanted to turn into a hierarchical progression.

To do my project is fairly straight forward. For my first composition I just added a drop shadow to my text and created the roman numeral three in red to be behind the word three to give it a bit more depth. I also created a rectangle that I then used the twirl tool to create a small twirl in the rectangle. My thought was for it to be reminiscent of a scroll because it is a Biblical quote.

For my next two compositions I created two rectangles and blended them together. I then put the text in the white part of the composition. My thought for the placement of my text was that for faith I put in the bottom corner as though faith was something that we have to have down here on earth. I put my hope text in the top as if we were looking upwards towards heaven and hoping that all would be well.

For my next two compositions I created a heart using the brush tool and put the words love in both hearts. I kept the two compositions simpler since the greatest of the three (faith, hope and love) is love. But changed the color palette to make them slightly different.

Letterform Project

To create my letterform studies I first created a grid with each box measuring 3 by 3 inches. I then decided to use the letters that reflect my family: David, myself (Karen) and our son Elijah. For each letter I chose a different font and exaggerated it's width and height. I then made all the letters outlines so I could rotate and skew them even more. I also changed the coloring of each of the letters and assigned it a primary or secondary color. My inspiration was that it might be something you would see in a young child's room hence my 18-month old son's name being written out in the last six quadrants. I also chose to make the D&K part a little different from Elijah's name because I wanted that to represent that we were the adults. To do that I underlined our letters and made them a version of blue. I also chose a letterform that was more "grown-up". For Eli's letters I chose letterforms that were more fun and childlike. In addition, to make Elijah's name have something that connected each of the letters in his name I used the twirl tool to put a swirl in the top left part of each of his letter. (Top right in the case of the "i")

I also made a tinted black and white version of the original because that is what the assignment originally called for; however the second composition loses all the important parts of the design if the color is absent.

Contrast Studies Project- Monumental/Diminutive

For my contrast studies I chose to do monumental/diminutive compositions. I created these compositions by using the star shape tool to create a lot of stars. For the first composition I made one very large star compared to the small ones. I then gave the larger star a wider stroke then the smaller stars. I used the paint brush to give the stroke a brush stroked looked. I then filled in the stars with a gray tint and then used the Gaussian blur effect to give the stars a smooth look. For the bottom one I made one little star amongst many big ones. I also made the little star's stroke a little thicker then the larger stars.

Midterm Symbol Post

Collage Assignment

To create my collage I used a picture of some flowers that was taken about six years ago in California. I selected the flowers out of the picture using the quick selection tool. I then dragged them into my collage document. I then used the free transform tool to enlarge their size drastically. Next I used the filter gallery to apply the smudge stick effect to the flowers. I also used the blur tool to soften one of the edges of the flower. Next I used the brush tool to write out the word summer using my pen tablet. I then enlarged the word and rotated it to fit into the empty space between the flowers. Next I applied a drop shadow and an inner shadow the text. After that I used the liquefy gallery under the filter menu to give it a watery effect to the lettering.

Nothing makes me think of summer like bright flowers and happy, bright times!

Symmetrical Photo Assignment

To create my symmetrical image I used the bottom image as my base. My first step was to crop the image, next I used the quick selection tool to select the background. I then darkened the background by reducing the light level using the hue/saturation option under image adjustments. Next I inversed my selection and upped the saturation level of the pot. Finally I used the burn tool to burn the middle of the pot area that had lost color due to my camera flash.

The symmetrical photo was my hardest one because the items that I was using for my photos did not have any real symmetry except for the pots. That is why I did a close up of the top of the pot. If I had included the cactus then it would have lost it's symmetry.

Color Balance Photo Assigment

To create this color balance picture I cropped it in close to the cactus and them used the quick selection tool to select the areas not including the cactus or the pot. I then darkened the back my lowering the lighting with the hue/saturation option under photo adjusments. I then inversed my selection so I could lighten the pot and cactus. I again used the hue and saturation option to increase the saturation to make the colors jump out more. I then used the smudge tool to smudge the background and a little bit of the vase so it would create a slight frame around the cactus. I did not record the original number of the photo and that is why I did not post the original photo because it is hard to tell which one I used.

Asymmetrical Photo Assignment

To create my asymmetrical picture I cropped my original photo (which I did not post because I can't tell which one it was!) and used the quick selection tool to select the background. I then lowered the light level under the hue/saturation option under the image adjustments menu. I then inversed my selection and increased the saturation on the ornament. Next I used the smudge tool to smudge around the background and edge of the ornament.

Dominance Photo Assignment

To create my dominance image I used the bottom picture as my base. My first step in created this was straightening the picture a little bit. To do this I used the ruler tool which is found in the sub menu under the eyedropper tool. I drew a line to from one side to the other so that the vase would be straight. Next I selected the rotate canvas arbitrarily. This option is found under the image menu. I then cropped the image and used the quick selection tool to select the background. I then darkened the background using the light tool under hue/saturation option under photo adjustments. I then used the spot healing brush to get rid of the white dot on the vase that was as a result of my camera flash. I then used the burn tool to darken the cactus and the ornament. Finally I applied the cutout filter to the picture.

Repetition Photo Assignment

To create my repetition photos I used the bottom image as my base. Since I did not have multiples of anything to use in a repetition photo I had to create them. My first step in this process was to open my image and rename it and save it again. I then opened the image again and used the quick selection tool to select the cactus. I then dragged that selection over to my saved document twice. This gave me three cactus to line up in a straight line. I then merged my layers so that it would be a single image. Next I used the quick selection tool to select all three cacti. I then inversed my selection and lowered the lighting by using the hue/saturation option under photo adjustments. I then inversed the selection and increased the saturation a bit. Next I used the smudge tool to smudge the background. Next I used the burn tool to burn the cacti to a darker green. I then cropped the image to final cropping. Next I saved my final picture then applied a watercolor filter to create another final image. That is the first one you see.