Raster Projects

Teresa Shannon - Raster Project 1 Week 9/23

My initial idea was to take photographs of women in my life or even myself and warp their bodies into supermodel stereotypes, but it became immediately apparent that my Photoshop skill are not quite up to the task.  I then began pulling images off of the Internet, the first being a beautiful woman walking on a runway. After cropping her out I adjusted her waist size to make it even smaller with the warp tool. I began searching for other photos using sexist terms such as  “a woman’s place” “person cleaning the house” “a person shopping” even “sexy costumes”. The back and white arms attached to the figure are the result of the images searches.  I had first wanted to match the color of the new arms to the figure using hue and saturation but realized that the black and white arms signified to me the Frankensteinish thing I was doing to this woman.  These are not actual pieces of her but stereotypes I was thrusting upon her, so I completely removed the color from these limbs because in essence they didn’t matter, only the things on the ends of her arms represent the necessary qualities of the perfect woman.  I added a graduation hat to show she is educated but used the line tool to draw x’s over her mouth, suggesting her quite docile personality. Lastly I inserted the completed figure into a 1950s era kitchen, cutting away the table and creating a separate layer and positioning her behind it to better integrate her into the scene.

In my first brainstorming I imagined this woman in a fantastical otherworldly scene, something majestic, magical, ethereal, god-like (Tess's idea of using many arms like the Buddhist god inspired me to add an arm)  but the more I worked with her the more I realized that she was too much.  The concept behind this photo was showing all the aspects man wants in a woman and it seemed from my research that what “they” think they want most is not a complete woman, with quirks, opinions, attitude, and courage. “They” believe they want a sex object that cooks and cleans.  Inserting her into a 1950s kitchen further promotes the idea that while the ideal body has changed since that era the responsibilities and expectations of woman as homemaker have not. I conclude that if they could have what they wanted, it might look something like this.

Krystal Aguilar - Raster Project 1- Week 9/23

My concept was inspired by identity, fashion and society - belonging to a group. The message I wanted to convey is who are we and more importantly, who are we without clothes, and where do we connect? When I sketched my concept out I included some images I thought I would include such as: broken mirrors, a man’s filled in shadow, thumbprint, and something that ties it to fashion. I deciding on the title from, “Faux-Pas,” “Runaway Runway,” or “Center Stage of I.”

For the background I found an image of a runway on the internet. I made that black and white on a black foreground. I transformed it larger as well.

I photoshot my brother and a broken mirror. I ended up using an image from the internet of a broken mirror instead, it had the right crackness. I also edited the ability to blend this image to the image in the back with adjusting the alignment and refining the image under the selection tool. I chose the mirror because it represents how we view ourself, identity and conveys despair, misdirection and more innuendos.

For the defensive “come no further” image, I stylized with a stamp filter. I magic wand tooled it and brought it to the background. I edited the color, hue, saturation, and more. I then mirrored it to frame the center and create a sense of symmetry. I added thumbprint image from the internet on to the forefinger. I fixed the opacity, size and more. The thumbprint is our skin that we “wear” and alludes to identity.

For the main image. I magic wand tooled it. I used a filter on it to make it look like a painting, kind of unsettling the reality that this was a photograph of a man. I altered the hue, saturation, color, and more. I used the dodge and burn tool to adjust the highlights, midtones and shadows. I then made copies of the layer, transformed, slightly skew and rotate. I adjusted the opacity on each layer to give an echo feel. This echo leads to the thought what do we hear or what are we when we’re empty, alone, or out of ourselves.

The last edits I inserted a shape, used the eyedropper tool and paintbucket to elongate the stage. I used the patch, spot correction, smudge and blur tool to fix the stage’s glowing perimeter.

Overall I liked the process of brainstorm, concept, design and execution. I think my concept's sketch did realize and I am satisfied with the result. I would like to see other artists work on identity. I would like to recreate a live performance of the image I made in a gallery with projectors, actors, stage, sound, banners, gray-colored glass and an empty runway.

In an ending note I learned the process from concept to design and relaying that to the viewer is not as easy as I thought. Feedback and other perspectives are integral in communicating the theme of the artwork. The connections that may seem obvious to me is not necessarily so and what others see I may not have seen.
I did do another photoshoot with a walkway and fashion sketches on a new raster project but did not have the ability to complete it since I was in an an out of town convention and had back-to-back meetings since last week.

Tess McDonald - Raster Project - September 25

What You See and What You Don't

This piece was inspired by mental illnesses and the reality-altering affects they can have on one's mind. I wanted to focus on how a person sees themselves while suffering from a mental illness, how others perceive them, and the differences between these two views. I was also inspired by the idea of people having an "animalistic" side and a "human" side, thus the animal imagery.
To start my piece, I took photos of myself using a tripod and lamp to get a nice shadow. This took many tries because the lighting had to be fairly dark and I couldn't use flash. After putting the image in photoshop, I used the cloning stamp, patch, and bandaid tools to put some animal ears on the shadow. To make the shadow look more realistic I selected it with the polygonal lasso tool and duplicated it onto another layer, then moved it slightly up and to the left and lowered the opacity to give it that double shadow look. I had a difficult time figuring out a background, but eventually I thought of the book Where the Wild Things Are because the shadow reminded me of Max's wolf suit. Although this association is rather playful, I feel that the complexity of the art and the reference to being wild goes well with my original ideas. The image I chose from the book shows the main character Max right behind my shoulder and the moon is centered in the shadow, which I feel ties in perfectly with my other background image of a sunny day. There were several versions of the background with several different images, but I feel that these two fit the best with my theme. When all three images were together the way I liked it, I desaturated everything. I then added a warm filter to myself and the shadow.
I very much enjoy the way this came out, especially the contrast of my two background images. I like that my body and the shadow don't exactly fit in either of the backgrounds, mimicking the confusing nature of mental illness.

C H E Q U A M E G O N   B O L L I N G E R
Unit 1 - Vision + Reality Raster Project

The Celebrity Spirit Animal card started as a clear image in my mind.  The imagery needed to be layered with varied opacities to create an ethereal, supernatural feeling. I started by shooting sunset images at the Desert Botanical Gardens. There, I found alien-like plants and landscapes. The cacti quickly became a piece of insignia for the celebrity spirit animal, which was still unknown. Once I determined these icons, I found the appropriate imagery on the internet. My main technique was layering the images to find the correct order for each element. Using the opacity, I distinguished the elements that should be predominant. Using adjustment layers and levels gave me the opportunity to choose the desired color palette. I also added a hand drawn element which outlines the Oprah lioness mane. I scanned my hand drawing at 300dpi and worked in levels to make the artwork two colors. Once it was simplified, I was able to use the magic erase tool to delete my white background. I then used a levels adjustment layer to change the red color profile in the shadows.

My concept came from a personal fascination with cultural hierarchy. Through history society has found its set of figure heads and role models. Pharaohs, monarchs, religious figures, dictators, and current day celebrities are all examples. This need for guidance and idealism seems to be embedded in our nature. We look to these figures for guidance in our everyday lives. What should I think, read, eat, and wear? How do I emotionally process my feelings and relationships?  No matter how ridiculous the advice or behavior, we follow these figures and their symbolism, always looking for new answers. The Celebrity Spirit Animal Card gives the viewer their desired role model but also connects them to subconscious symbolism and historic tropes. Oprah is the most powerful celebrity to date, and her guidance conglomerate influences millions every day. Here she is depicted with the Lion spirit animal to communicate that power. This is also meant to inspire the inner strength and power of the viewer, sharing the Oprah lioness secrets, and spiritual guidance we crave.

Kristina Ricci - Raster Project 1 Week 9/23

I wanted to address societies generalization of women and how we are molded into the ideal woman.  I started by placing men’s jackets in a field of flowers using the flowers as heads. I then superimposed women’s legs to the men’s torsos to make complete human beings.  The men’s jackets are supposed to represent power and oftentimes in our society any women with power gets scrutinized for their actions or their looks, which is where the flirtatious legs come in because you can’t have power without scrutiny as a women.  The main tool I used was the magnetic lasso tool to cut out the images I wanted. I then made duplicates and transformed the sizes to show receding perspective as well as reinforce the repetitive nature of cookie cutter women creatures.  

 As I went through the process of building my images, one visual decision lead to another which lead to different ways of telling the story.  I started out with a flower field to describe the process of growing an individual to help reinforce the gender rolls that start as early as childhood.   I then added backhoes to fill the uncapped bodies with ideals of beauty that came from Barbie dolls.  After that addition I switched the background to a factory setting, which helps describe it as more of a cultural issue rather than a natural occurring issue.