Project 7: Mapping

Artist Statement:

            This project focused on creating compositions that utilized Google Earth and the conception of maps/mapping. A secondary component was to focus on where we are (first composition), where we’ve been (second composition) , and we’re we want to go (third composition). In the first composition I wanted to incorporate landmarks from the EWU campus as well as Spokane but to make indistinct.  I chose the brides downtown, an aerial view of downtown, as well as a chunk of Eastern’s square.  I also created a layered background of Northern Idaho, which had a lot of texture and seemed to capture a sense of the outdoors and rural living juxtaposed against the bridges and urban structures.

            In the second composition I wanted to create a ancient looking map so I used pale colors for the background and pixilated greens and blues that look warn. I also choose port towns that I had traveled to including Istanbul, NYC, and Venice. This fit my nautical theme and created an interesting experience of these foreign places being moved close together.

            The third piece focuses on Northern Idaho and my hopes of getting a cabin on Priest Lake sometime in the near future. I choose to play with exposure and different hues. These are found in the squares that focus on a close up of the lake itself. I chose to pair the natural background with the geometric shapes to try and get the viewer to e confused.

            He final two compositions involved combining different parts of the world together. In the 4 piece I wanted to play with size and proportion so I have the ocean in the background then  a stack of Antarctica, North America, and Africa. I also tried to create interesting colors using the hue/saturation filter. The last composition combined different aerial views of deserts from different parts of the world focusing on the textures that different geographical areas display through their finely crushed rocks. I also tried to pull clouds from Google Earth and make them look realistic.

Project 6: Fantasy

Artist Statement:

Creating fantasy compositions that could pass as being real was difficult. In my first composition I wanted to create a fantastic theater scene bringing in a dragon and knight. This focus quickly changed to a focus on light and textures. I learned how to individually manipulate each layer's brightness and contrast which allowed me to bring out the texture of its scales. I enjoyed the happy accident of creating a reflection of two dancers i the grand piano.
The last two compositions have more of an urban focus. In the second composition I focused on making the water ripple as if the fish had actually jumped out of the water. I also tried to make the water look as if it was naturally reacting to other items such as the pilings, etc. I used the smudge tool. In the last composition I primarily focused on shadow and the effect of light coming through the branches of the tree in the center.

Project Five: Landscape and Urban

Artistic Statement:

Part 1 (Top 3 compositions): While constructing the landscape pieces I was immediately drawn to water and wanted to incorporate the substance's ability to capture light and the textures that it creates. Not wanting to over use this element I also choose to use a mountain scene as well as a prairie environment. In these pieces I tried to create a sensation of vastness or depth so in the mountain landscape I tried to show the mountains vanishing off in the distance. I altered the size of the hay bales in the second composition to show that the prairie was expansive. I wanted to use a different focus of natural landscape for each piece so one focuses on minutia's, the other of openness of flat territory and the third focuses on water and the limited space of a canyon. 

Part 2 (Bottom 3 compositions): My first urban composition focused on making online photographs of different streets in NYC that were also taken from different angles work together. I played with the vanishing point within the piece moving it to different places to attempt to make a seamless cohesion. I also attempted to add my own graffiti and posters to the walls of the apartment buildings to create a more interesting environment.
In the second piece I wanted to incorporate as many people into the urban environment as possible and at the same time place these people in the most natural environment of a city, a park. The hope was to create awareness that even though people flock to the cities, a part of them wants to remain rooted in the country, etc. This composition was also a study on shadow and how to insert characters from different photographs into the composition and fit them in based off of light and dark shading. I choose to use the black and white filter because the colors of the shadows didn't work together as well as the black and white version. In the end I feel that the women feeding the pigeons is to dark, but this masks the other woman on the bench which I inserted into the piece and would also have to much contrast to the rest of the composition.

Project 4: TEXT

Artist Statement:

     Concerning the assignment of turning text into a surreal composition I choose to work with fonts scanned from a magazine in a couple of the pieces (2 and 3). The magazine I choose, ESQUIRE, has an interesting and bubbly font that I thought would translate into a cool look after being warped.

     In the compositions I attempted to stay out of the center of the piece with a focused item, etc. The goal of this was to use perspective and blur effects ignorer to create a sense of movement and to force the eye to move throughout the piece and not stay in one spot for to long. I also played with the concept of making some of the text unrecognizable as letters. This really added to the surreal effect but may have gone to far losing the impact of presenting the alphabet to the observer.

     Each composition was created separately and not intentionally built off any of the others. Even though this was the case I seemed to have primarily chosen lighter pastel influenced colors and the complimentary colors of red/green as well as purple and yellow. I like the combination and the colors probably aligned with my mood during the time of creation.