Blog 5

The most significant accomplishment I had in my midterm would be the creation of the complex backgrounds I used. In both pictures, the background creates the whole feeling and tone and really makes my big idea make sense and come together. In the dark one, I used many grudge textures to overlay which made the scene rough and dark looking. I then blurred some of the sky and darkened up the clouds making it look almost stormy and very unhappy. My background in this work really brought my idea's through because of it's dark character. My bright apple in this picture was then seen as an outcast and a form of life that seemed to grow from nothing. In my other picture, the background is a "storybook." Happiness seems to always take the form of a "fairytale" and i tried to portray this by adding grass growing from the book to make it seem alive. The sky is bright and blue while the tree seems to be flourishing. Now, my rotten apple falling seems to also be out of the place as the other apple did. It could not flourish even when it seemed to have been given everything.

At first, I had the most problems with masking. I understand how to mask in which you make the background start to show when behind an image and vice versa but the hardest thing for me is masking out complex selections. I know there is a somewhat easy way to do this but this is something I do not think we covered very in depth if at all. Reading online, it seems masking selections is the best way when you don't have blatant edges to use the selection tools on such as hair or feathers for example. I feel I have picked this up and really improved my selections. I have learned that proper selections can really make or break a piece. A project with bad selections can look so amateur so this is definitely in my opinion the most important part. Although the example I am about to post is very simple from an earlier quiz, just imagine what how bad it would look if the selection around my face and hat were blotchy. It would completely ruin it.

In this class, I have definitely had a few pieces of work that had a deep meaning, both to me and possibly the audience. I also had one or two quizzes that were just a showcase of the new features we learned in order to complete the assignment. I obviously much more enjoy completing works that have a connection to myself. I put in ore time and focus into these pieces. I feel that now that this class is over I will be able to create work that shows emotion and connects to myself. I won't have to worry so much about the grade or the techniques required or even necessarily my big idea, instead I can create work with really no explanation-perhaps work that just means something to me with no explanation behind it. That's completely okay though because artists don't always have an exact definition behind their work. The image on top represents something that just showed technique and influenced me in no ways. The image on the bottom has a deeper connection and one that means something to me.