Digital Collage |
Exhibition Text |
Digital Collage Essay
My name is Kevin Sanabria, and many things have happened in my life to shape who am I today. I want to start off back in elementary and middle school where my life had a major turn, I wasn't always the kid that I am today, in middle school I was what you would consider a bad kid, I didn't care about school at all or anything. I remember I would talk back to teachers, not care to do my homework, and not cared how my actions affected myself or others, I was like that for many years, until Mr. Walt came around.
Mr. Walt had a big impact in my life, Mr. Walt was a strict but fair teacher. I ended up having him for all of my middle school years, which I am grateful for to this day. Mr. Walt had a big impact in my life because with his discipline and guidance, that helped me change for the better. After having him for all of middle school I was a new person, I cared for school, I was a hard worker and tried hard to always improve. He opened my eyes to reality and showed me want would most likely happen if I didn't change, it wasn't good. He would tell me stories from his passed students that went the wrong path. At first I didn't listen, but then it hit me when I was struggling in all my classes especially in math which he taught . He would separate me from my friends and put me all by myself, I would hate him for that, but later come to realize why he did it, so I can focus more on my studies and it worked. I started to see better math scores on tests that I took. If I struggled with something he would tutor me one on one during class and that's how I improved and build my math skills. What was different about Mr. Walt then other teachers was that he really knew how to bound with kids and earn their trust, which is what happened, he earned my trust and we bounded. I am forever grateful for having met Mr. Walt. Now, that's just one big event of my life that occurred which shaped me to who I am today.
There's a quote that I strongly believe in, the quote is, “Be the best version of yourself.” This quote was said by a fitness trainer, and what it means is to be the best at everything that you do meaning give it the best effort that you possibly could. I’ve used this quote as motivation throughout my weight loss journey and continue to use it. A little about my weight loss journey, about a little over a year ago in 2017, I was really overweight for my age and height, I was sitting at 270 pounds. At first my goal was just to lose a couple pounds like 20, but after losing those 20 pounds, I didn't want to stop, I was motivated. In a course of a year I lost over 75 pounds, my greatest achievement so far. To this day I try to live a healthy lifestyle, by eating right and exercising. I've changed a lot through my life and will continue to do so.
Mr. Walt had a big impact in my life, Mr. Walt was a strict but fair teacher. I ended up having him for all of my middle school years, which I am grateful for to this day. Mr. Walt had a big impact in my life because with his discipline and guidance, that helped me change for the better. After having him for all of middle school I was a new person, I cared for school, I was a hard worker and tried hard to always improve. He opened my eyes to reality and showed me want would most likely happen if I didn't change, it wasn't good. He would tell me stories from his passed students that went the wrong path. At first I didn't listen, but then it hit me when I was struggling in all my classes especially in math which he taught . He would separate me from my friends and put me all by myself, I would hate him for that, but later come to realize why he did it, so I can focus more on my studies and it worked. I started to see better math scores on tests that I took. If I struggled with something he would tutor me one on one during class and that's how I improved and build my math skills. What was different about Mr. Walt then other teachers was that he really knew how to bound with kids and earn their trust, which is what happened, he earned my trust and we bounded. I am forever grateful for having met Mr. Walt. Now, that's just one big event of my life that occurred which shaped me to who I am today.
There's a quote that I strongly believe in, the quote is, “Be the best version of yourself.” This quote was said by a fitness trainer, and what it means is to be the best at everything that you do meaning give it the best effort that you possibly could. I’ve used this quote as motivation throughout my weight loss journey and continue to use it. A little about my weight loss journey, about a little over a year ago in 2017, I was really overweight for my age and height, I was sitting at 270 pounds. At first my goal was just to lose a couple pounds like 20, but after losing those 20 pounds, I didn't want to stop, I was motivated. In a course of a year I lost over 75 pounds, my greatest achievement so far. To this day I try to live a healthy lifestyle, by eating right and exercising. I've changed a lot through my life and will continue to do so.
Artistic Inspirations
There were two main inspirations that I used to create my digital collage, but three different artworks. The first inspirations that I used to create my digital collage were two portraits of different people but by the same artist. The two portraits are, Portrait of Erna Schilling, and Portrait of Gerda, both by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner a German expressionist painter and print maker. I chose this two artworks as one of my inspirations because each artwork shows different emotions throughout the colors and face expressions that Kirchner uses in these artworks. Kirchner is known for expressing emotion through simple clean colors with simple forms. You can see this in each artwork as one has warm and bright colors to show a more happy and joyful setting and emotion. On the other hand the other has more cool and dark colors such as blue and purple, to represent a more sad and unhappy setting and emotion. I plan to due something similar when creating my digital collage, by having one half of my digital collage express a more sad and unhappy setting through color and face expression. The opposite with happen to the other half, it with express a more happy and joyful setting also through color and face expression but in a different way. That's what I plan to do with that inspiration.
My other inspiration comes from mid century folk pop art. What really attracted me to use this artwork or components of this artwork in my digital collage, was the form and how the artist made the piece were one half represents tragedy and the other half represents happiness. I want to do something similar in my work, were on one half of my digital collage it represents sad and unhappiness through color and face expression rather than through masks with face expression and on the other half it will represents happiness and joyfulness through color and face expression.
My other inspiration comes from mid century folk pop art. What really attracted me to use this artwork or components of this artwork in my digital collage, was the form and how the artist made the piece were one half represents tragedy and the other half represents happiness. I want to do something similar in my work, were on one half of my digital collage it represents sad and unhappiness through color and face expression rather than through masks with face expression and on the other half it will represents happiness and joyfulness through color and face expression.
Tek Communications, Inc. “Abstract Tin Pop Art Happy Tragic Expressing Portrait Copper Accent - For Sale.” Blogantiquescom RSS, www.antiques.com/classified/1134807/Antique-Mask-Tin-Art-
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Portrait of Gerda By Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
“Portrait of Gerda.” PBS LearningMedia, www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/bal41039/portrait-of-gerda-ger-bal41039/#.W4wyIExFzIU. |
Portrait of Erna Schilling By
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner “Portrait Of Erna Schilling by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: History, Analysis & Facts.” Arthive, arthive.com/artists/1692~Ernst_Ludwig_Kirchner/works/237641~Portrait_Of_Erna_Schilling. |
Planning Drawings
All of these three planning drawings have the same meaning, just show it in different ways. The first drawing shows a drawing of a person looking at a big TV, what this represents is me, the person looking at the tv, is actually looking at my past and the present, evaluating how much I've changed over the years. The second drawing shows a face split in two, with drawings next to them, one side of the face represents my past and the other side represents the present, and the pictures next to them just symbolize how my past and present look like. The last drawing is very similar to the second one, one side of the face also represents my past and the other side also represents the present, the difference in this one is that the left side is a picture of a younger version of myself and the right side is a picture of me now. The background will be filled with appropriate color. I plan on using the third drawing, but tweaking it a little, it won't look exactly the same, but very similar.
Process For Creating Digital Collage
ExperimentationI experimented with some things when creating my collage, including color and different face/face expressions. At first I was going to use a gray, blackish color for one of my backgrounds as you can see below, but I didn't like how it look so decided to use, more cool colors. Another thing that I experimented with was face/face expressions, what I mean about that, is that I original was going to use a younger version of me for my digital collage. Ones again I didn't like how it looked when experimenting with, so I just used a recent image of me, which I believe looks better.
Reflection Creating this project was very fun and I enjoyed playing around with the feature that photoshop offered. All though I had fun I did learn new skills, I learned how to edit, warp images to what I want and learned how to alter the colors and shapes of images. which before I didn't know anything about editing and photoshop what so ever. At first it was confusing to navigate through photoshop but I over came that and learned as I went. For me by just playing around with the features that photoshop offered, I discovered a lot of different modes, which I incorporated in my digital collage. If I were to recreate this project again I would add more images to my collage to make it a true collage.
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The first step that I had to take in order to start my digital collage was, I had to take the pictures. For Pictures I took pictures of the sky on a rainy day, which I will later use as my background of my digital collage. Other pictures I took, where pictures of myself, just my face, I found better lighting outside so that's were I took most of my pictures, now the pictures that took of my face had different face expressions. When I was done with all my picture taking I chose two pictures of my face, with different face expressions one unhappy and the other happy. I chose the sky as my background. The second step I had to do is upload all of my picture to Photoshop, then I can actuality began creating my digital collage.
Step one was to create the background for my collage. The background is going to be split down the middle with different colors on each side. In order to do this I had to create each background separately, then later put them together as one, you can see this in step one through four. For the left side of the background I used more darker colors to depict a more sad, unhappy setting. On the right side I used more warm, bright colors to depict a joyful happy setting. The next step was to add the faces to the background. I first had to work on the face that will be on the left side of the background, to do that, I took the face with the sad expression, added the same colors that I used for the background on the left side. After that , I cut the face in half, then I had to modify the lips so that the face will look sad, then lastly I used the free transform mode to enlarge the face to a reasonable fit, step 5-9 shows this. Now I had to create the other side of the face, for this side of the face I used a face with a happy, joyful expression. I added the same warm colors that I used for the background on the right side. After adding the color I cut the face out and added it to the collage and did the final step, which was attach the two face together to make one, thus completing my digital collage. CritiqueIn my digital collage "change" there were many Similarities and differences towards my inspirations. A similarity would be the colors I used, like Kirchner I used colors to express emotion in my piece. I used cool colors to express a sad, unhappy emotion and setting in one side of my collage. On the other side I used warm colors to depict a happy, joyful emotion and setting. Another Similarity would be how I split my collage into two, depicting two different face expression, like my mid century folk pop art inspiration. A difference between my piece and my inspiration is the meaning. The meaning of my piece is completely different from my inspirations. Another difference between my inspirations is the median, my piece is a digital collage and two of my inspirations are paintings and the other is a abstract Tin Pop Art.
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ACT Responses
1)Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and its effect upon your artwork.
I was inspired by two of Kirchner paintings, which both express emotion through color, which in that concept I also used color to express emotion in my digital collage. For my other inspiration, mid century folk pop art, the form and how the artist made the piece were one half represents tragedy and the other half represents happiness, that was the concept that I took, but made it my own. On the left side it represents sad and unhappiness through color and face expression rather than through masks with face expression and on the other half it represents happiness and joyfulness through color and face expression.
2)What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The over all approach for the two paintings by Kirchner is to express emotion through color and simple forms. The approach I took from my other inspiration, which it doesn't really state was emotion through face expression.
3)What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
A generalization that I discovered about my inspiration of Kirchner was the idea that through clean colors and simple forms you can really picture a setting of what emotion is being portrayed. A generalization I discovered from my other inspiration, mid century folk pop art, was that a lot of the artwork was really abstract.
4)What was the central idea or theme around your inspiration research?
The central idea around my inspiration of Kirchner was that through clean colors and simple forms you can really picture a setting of what emotion is being portrayed. For my other inspiration the idea there was mainly emotion.
5)What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
Inferences that I made while reading my research was that Kirchner main goal was to create artwork that expresses emotion, experience, with large, simple forms and clear colors. An inference that I made for my other inspiration of mid century folk pop art, was that the artwork is really abstract.
I was inspired by two of Kirchner paintings, which both express emotion through color, which in that concept I also used color to express emotion in my digital collage. For my other inspiration, mid century folk pop art, the form and how the artist made the piece were one half represents tragedy and the other half represents happiness, that was the concept that I took, but made it my own. On the left side it represents sad and unhappiness through color and face expression rather than through masks with face expression and on the other half it represents happiness and joyfulness through color and face expression.
2)What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The over all approach for the two paintings by Kirchner is to express emotion through color and simple forms. The approach I took from my other inspiration, which it doesn't really state was emotion through face expression.
3)What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
A generalization that I discovered about my inspiration of Kirchner was the idea that through clean colors and simple forms you can really picture a setting of what emotion is being portrayed. A generalization I discovered from my other inspiration, mid century folk pop art, was that a lot of the artwork was really abstract.
4)What was the central idea or theme around your inspiration research?
The central idea around my inspiration of Kirchner was that through clean colors and simple forms you can really picture a setting of what emotion is being portrayed. For my other inspiration the idea there was mainly emotion.
5)What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
Inferences that I made while reading my research was that Kirchner main goal was to create artwork that expresses emotion, experience, with large, simple forms and clear colors. An inference that I made for my other inspiration of mid century folk pop art, was that the artwork is really abstract.