Week Fifteen

Here is an excerpt from my webpage:

Assignment- We had to continue improving our iWeb pages.  After the necessary work was done, we uploaded our webpages to the internet.

Craft-  We used iWeb in an attempt to finish our webpages.  iWeb allows images and text to be manipulated and changed to our liking.  We had to include past art and comic work.  On Wednesday, we added hyperlinks to our individual webpages.  On our blogs, we also added a visual image as a link to our Visual Communications websites.

Composition- My comic slideshow had an annoying reflection that distorted the bottom of my images.  It was pretty annoying, so I changed it.  I still have to incorporate my other artwork onto my website.  I also switched the order of how viewers of my website see my page; the About Me section is now first and the Visual Communications page is second.  A link at the bottom of the About Me section now has a link to my blog.

Concept- The concept for this project is to make a webpage that includes all of our artwork over the course of the semester in an easy to read style.  Our websites reflect the individuality and creativity of each person in this class.

Week Fourteen

Click here to see my work

Week Thirteen

Assignment- Using iWeb, we had to setup a webpage that so far features a Visual Communications page and an About Us page.  During class on Monday, the class critiqued each other's webpages and offered suggestions to improve them.  A photo album section was also added.

Craft- The iWeb program is what we're using to design our websites.  With this program, we are able to choose templates to fit our concept and experiment with different fonts and colors.  My webpage has two different templates so this week I will fix that mistake and have one fluid background.  I also need to include more in the About Me section.  Instead of choosing one of my two already existing templates, I plan on picking out a new one.

Composition- I included pictures of past projects that I worked on in Art class.  The templates I chose were simple with dark purple fonts.  I added pictures of myself for the About Me section and looked for images online for the Visual Communications page.

Concept- We had to choose template themes and keep our ideas consistent.  The webpages will be manipulated so they will have our own individual blueprints.  The pages are supposed to be pleasing to the eye so using pictures is a priority.  With this design concept in mind, we must also make sure our use of images and our writing is clear to viewers of our sites.

Week Twelve

Assignment- Finish up comic strip using Comic Life program.  Final touches were completed during class and printed out for Wednesday.

Craft- I continued using Photoshop for some of my images.  My severed hand picture needed some reworking so I focused mainly on making it look more decapitated and gnarled.  Also, although I want my images to appear dark (because the story is not exactly the most uplifting), many turned out darker than I had anticipated.  To fix this, I lightened them just a bit.  After I finished photoshopping, I put the images back into Comic Life to be printed out.

Composition- The images that I have are still the same ones that I photographed a few weeks ago.  I have since been using Photoshop to alter the images into comic form.  After the images are satisfactory,  I put them into Comic Life and use that program's functions (such as using different panels, backgrounds, and fonts) until my work is completed.

Concept- I wish to have a clear, readable, and understandable comic that will relay my story's message.

Week Eleven

Assignment-  We had to put our images from Photoshop into a program called Comic Life in preparation for our critiques on Monday.  We continued improving our comics with major help from classmates' observations and critiques.  Those who did not receive a 4/4 on critiques are still working to try and improve their comics.

Craft- One of the most common critiques I received was that my colors were kind of not so good ("REALLY bad" says a fellow critiquer) and so I spent most of my time trying to improve the overall clarity of the pictures while reworking the color schemes.  I followed the advice from classmates and tried my best to improve my work.

Composition- My layers were a bit mixed up.  I forgot to switch the background layer into the front, so I went back and fixed that up.  I also desaturated the images and multiplied.  The results indicated that this technique was much better than my original composition (when I did not follow these steps).  The pictures are a little darker but crisper; the extra brightness from my original images is now gone.

Concept- I tried making my images more clear so readers would understand my comic a bit better.  I hope that my newest reworking on the pictures will improve my comic in the eyes of future readers.

Week Ten

Assignment- We had to have our comics printed out on Monday.  Then we went to the art room and split into small groups for critiques.  

Craft- We have been using Photoshop in order to continue manipulating our images. We're still focusing on the coloring aspect to make our images appear to be more "comic-like." Using the advice from the critiques, we are still in the process of bettering our images for the final version of the comic strip.  On Wednesday, we started using the program "Comic Life."  This program allows us to create speech bubbles, lay out our images in comic form, and play around with title fonts and sizes.

Composition- Comic Life allows for us to try out new styles and techniques for our images.  One of the best features of this program is the function that allows us to drag panels anyway and any shape we want it to be.  We're also able to change background color and play around with details.  On Wednesday, we started the process of creating our comics in an actual comic program.

Concept- My comic concept remains the same, although some slight alterations in form were made.  

Week Nine

Assignment- Print 10-12 pages of our comic story on separate sheets of paper.

Craft- We had to take pictures for our comic story. The pictures had to illustrate our story and convey meaning without words.

Composition-We will be photoshopping the images soon but as of right now, all we have are digital pictures. We will be adding two to three colors to our images in Photoshop over the weekend.

Concept- We continued making our stories but had to make some adjustments in order for them to make more sense. The newest draft will be better in both composition and craft.

Special Edition: Lipstick and Dynamite

The documentary Lipstick and Dynamite by Ruth Leitman was screened at Saint Xavier on Wednesday, March 18th in the Art Gallery. The movie focused mainly on the lives of women wrestlers in the 1940's and 50's.

When I walked in to see this movie, I was not too sure what to expect. After hearing the title correctly (I thought the movie was called Lipstick and Diamonds; it was a very perplexing moment), confusion still lingered (I had no idea what the meaning was behind the title even after learning its true name). After consulting a fellow Visual Communications student, I learned a possible clue as to what the title really meant. Lipstick and Dynamite delves into the world of female brutality, sexuality and financial responsibility that society ignored back in the 40's and 50's--a world that goes largely unnoticed in today's modern culture. These wrestling women had to deal with the expectations of acting and dressing as a lady ("Lipstick") while still unleashing their aggressive and wild side in the ring ("Dynamite").

In the public eye, the wrestlers were forced to conform to standards of beauty at the time. Their hair had to be stylized at all times, their makeup sketched on, and their clothes were to be elegant. The wrestlers had to exude an image of "properness" when they wrestled and when they had down time for recreation. The sexist attitudes of the time held women to a certain physical ideal that had to be met or disparaging comments and manipulation would overtake them. These beliefs and tactics still plague our society today. Female wrestlers in the modern world have to dress and behave in ways that are believed to attract the male audience. Scantily clad female wrestlers today desperately seek attention by parading around with the intent on grabbing male viewers. Today's wrestlers (like those in the past) may feel forced by management to agree to act and dress in specific ways. Manipulation and coercion are maneuvers that management has constantly used to exploit women over the years.

This film does an excellent job of telling a story that many can relate to in modern society. Female profiteering is a problem that is still relevant today and has not gone away. By making this documentary, Leitman has brought attention to an issue that will not end unless more people are aware of it.

Week Eight

Assignment- Create a comic strip containing nine or twelve drawings/writing concepts in panel form.

Craft- Students have the option of drawing the comic strip themselves or using computer software (specifically Photoshop) to generate the images.

Composition- We took pictures for our comic strips and will be merging them together into a set of nine or twelve panels in order to relay the stories.

Concept- The stories we posted last week will be the concept for this project. We will take better pictures this week and use computer software to turn them into comic form.

Week Seven

Assignment- Write a story that will eventually become a comic.  The story has to involve one person traveling, and one person waiting.  One of these people has a package for the other.

Concept- One person waiting: Deformed face man --One person traveling: Mr. Finghand --Package: Severed hand

A man by the name of "Mr. Finghand" was riding the bus to his Chicago home one evening after a tough day at work.  Mr. Finghand works as a plastic surgeon in a very stressful environment.  He's very good at what he does and is fairly well known in the Chicagoland area.  People are not always happy with their results, however.  Mr. Finghand accepts that fate, realizing that not everybody will always be happy.

Mr Finghand catches the 7:07 bus everyday.  Although he makes good money and could afford a car, he's a people person and enjoys meeting fresh faces all the time.  Mr. Finghand always sits in the same spot.

During this particular ride home, Mr. Finghand's feet accidentally brush against a brown box underneath his seat.

What is this? He wondered to himself.  

He picked the box up.  Curious and slightly delirious from his draining day at work, Mr. Finghand decided he would take the box home and open it up there.

When Mr. Finghand arrived at his house, he immediately entered his kitchen and ran towards a knife with package in hand.  Maybe it was the mounting exhaustion--maybe it was it was a way to release his anger against the unhappy people in his life--something caused Mr. Finghand to rip open the package with tremendous force that the knife almost bent.

This better be interesting, Mr. Finghand thought.

The mutilated box eventually opened and a severed hand appeared at the bottom.  Shocked yet slightly amused, Mr. Finghand stood in awe of the bloodied hand.  

"Disgusting!" he yelled out loud.  "But strangely fascinating!"

He was used to seeing deformed body parts, but never in this context, and never in his kitchen!  However, Mr. Finghand was a curious fellow so he allowed himself to look at the hand again.  Inside the hand, a note was attached and read: DEAR MR. FINGHAND: COME TO 101 ARM STREET AT 1:00 P.M. TOMORROW!  PLEASE.  BRING THE HAND--IT MAY COME IN HANDY! -MR. FACE

"What a strange day turn of events," Mr. Finghand said aloud to himself.  He decided he would go--why?  Well, Mr. Finghand was a curious fellow after all.  What's the worst that could happen?

After arriving at the address at the alloted time the next day, Mr. Finghand knocked on the door loudly.  "Hello?"

"Come in!" a voice from the yonder croaked.  The door was unlocked.  He walked in.

Suddenly, a man with an extremely deformed face grabbed Mr. Finghand's shoulders and dragged him further inside.  Something sharp stabbed at Mr. Finghand.  Deformed Man was holding a chainsaw!

The man maniacally yelled, " You destroyed my face!  Now, I shall destroy you!  See how you like it!"

Dazed, Mr. Finghand was not able to utter any words or move.  The chainsaw revved up as Deformed Man continued his evil laugh.

"Ahhhhhhhhh!" Mr. Finghand screamed as the chainsaw cut through flesh.  His hand fell off.

Deformed Man said, "Don't worry--I'll fix it for you!  I'll do a better job on you then you did on me.  Now, where is that old hand I sent you?  Ah--there it is!"

Mr. Finghand was lying on the floor, passed out from pain.

Deformed Man picked up the severed hand and began the strange process of attaching the traveled hand onto Mr. Finghand's arm.

THE END

Lincoln Gallery in Pilsen

Assignment- Go see the 200 Lincolns gallery in Pilsen for extra credit at the Chicago Art Department.

I arrived at the gallery at about 7:00.  There was music being played (I think it was coming from the balcony) and the room was filled with a bunch of people.  They appeared to be having a good time.  Abraham Lincoln scattered the walls everywhere!  You couldn't escape his presence.  Lincoln artwork clung to the ceiling and the sides of walls.  I think I even saw someone dressed as Lincoln walking around.

My favorite piece was a simple one.  It was a five dollar bill that was plastered to a wall with a plain frame around Lincoln's portrait.  The piece was small (the size of a $5 bill...because it was a $5 bill) and very unfussy.  I liked it because of its uncomplicated nature and modest beauty.

All the works of art were pretty awesome.  If I had to pick one that I didn't particularly like, it would have to be the one where Lincoln's profile of the right side of his face is shown.  His face was completely covered in blackness against a whiteish background.  I guess I didn't find it very interesting because there really wasn't much going on in the piece--it didn't capture my attention.  I take that back, it did catch my attention but only for a second.  Then I walked away.

Overall, I really enjoyed seeing Lincoln in so many different settings.  All of the pieces that I saw were interesting (even the profile piece)!

Week Six

First draft

Assignment- Turn in first draft of second concept and continue working on it

Craft- We are still using photoshop for this project.  New techniques are being used along the way, such as the magic wand tool.  We're learning how to utilize preproduction to make postproduction (photoshop) much easier to do.  There is a strong focus on backgrounds.

Composition- I used Saint Xavier's racquetball court as the setting for this mashup.  I wanted a room that was clear of distractions, and the white walls offered that.  I asked my friend to try several different poses in the corner of the room to see which worked best.  I eventually picked out one where she looked depressed and went with it.  After that picture was chosen, I asked her to stand outside and pose like she was yelling.

Concept- The concept I was going for involved someone trying to get a message cross but different obstacles appear to get in the way.  Another reason that the racquetball court was useful, was the fact that it had a clear glass wall window stretched across.  I used the window as a barrier between the two people (who happen to be the same person) in the picture.  One version of her is on the outside looking in, while the other is on the inside-- she's oblivious to what's going on outside.  The one on the outside is yelling; the one on the inside looks lost.  The outside version is just trying to tell the inside version but to no avail.

Week Five

Assignment- Take 25 pictures for a new mashup. This mashup will include our second go at photoshop.

Craft- We will be using photoshop for our two pictures. The techniques and strategies we learned during our Abraham Lincoln mashup process will be incorporated into this new mashup project. New methods will potentially be used as well.

Composition- I was thinking of using the these two pictures because of the easy going nature that both of them display.  Perhaps I could play around with a cloning like effect.  We'll see where these pictures take me.  I hope they work out.

Concept- I'm not entirely sure I will use these two pictures, but so far they're what I'm going with.  Both of the pictures contain so much energy.  I want to show the different levels of enthusiasm that humans are able to portray.  She's just so happy in both of them!

Week Four

Assignment- Finalize Lincoln photoshop mash-up.  Results will be printed out on glossy paper and hung in a gallery.

Craft- One of the main critiques that I have received so far through this process was that my photoshopped Lincoln looks like a painting.  Instead of starting from scratch, I decided to continue working on trying to make Lincoln look more realistic.  I brightened the shadows around his eyes, gave his forehead and cheeks a white glare, and played around with the different coloring techniques.  I also tried to make him smile by liquifying the corners of his lips.

Composition- After the image was flattened, I tested out different coloring options for the entire picture.  I especially considered going the black and white route, but ultimately decided to go color.  My final attempt, I hope, looks better than my previous ones.  At least Lincoln isn't giving a complete death glare this time around.

Concept- Changing Lincoln's death glare into a semi-smile redirected my concept a bit.  This slight change indicates that although Lincoln is all for challenging society's norms (or in this case, television personalities' norms--notice Lincoln's the only one not showing teeth), he still is willing to compromise and keep the peace.  He knows how to pick his battles.

Week Three

Assignment- We had to pick one picture from the 25 photos that we took ourselves, and one picture from the 25 photos from the Lincoln era. We then had to create a mash-up of these images.

Craft- Using Photoshop, I combined Lincoln's head onto my background (the ABC7 news team). Ron Majors' body type and suit seemed to be passable as Lincoln-like, so I pasted Lincoln's head over Majors'. After aligning the head properly, I noticed that Lincoln looked like a corpse. His pale black and white face next to Kathy Brock's tan face seemed a little out of place. I desaturated the entire image and started playing with the hue/saturation and brightness/contrast levels to try and make his face look darker. Seeing a bunch of tan newscasters loaded with makeup in a black and white setting didn't seem right. I decided that the image would look much more realistic if it were color. I gave the image back its color, then began to attempt to make Lincoln's head look more colorful. During this process, I used the paintbrush (changing its opacity), smudge tool (to get rid of the imperfections of the old photograph and as an attempt to make him fit in with his unblemished counterparts), and the color balance (to match the skin type of the rest). As a result, the Lincoln photoshop kind of looked like a painting.

Composition- I was walking along a street downtown when I saw a bus stop with ABC7's news team plastered above a bench. I suddenly had the image in my head of Lincoln standing in the middle of them. I decided to use that picture, after I nixed a few other suggestions. It wasn't too hard finding a picture where Lincoln wasn't smiling. After I began working with the images, I noticed that it was really difficult trying to make Lincoln's head and neck match the rest of the image's color. I'm still working on ways to make Lincoln look less painted on. Because of this difficulty, the thought of desaturating the entire image instead of trying to make it color has come up time and time again.

Concept- Well, Lincoln was not too big on smiling in many of his portraits. He had such a death stare. It feels like he's staring into your soul when you see pictures of him. I wanted to capture this glare and contrast it with modern day society's representation of media members. People in the media are usually layered with makeup while carrying large grins across their faces to portray an image of togetherness. By having Lincoln and his death stare thrown in the middle of these personalities, I'm trying to rebel against society's idea of what it means to truly be "together." What better man of his era to do it than Lincoln?

Week Two

Assignment- We had to collect 25 pictures of Lincoln or anyone from the Lincoln era and use 25 modern pictures that we took ourselves.

Craft- I resorted to the internet to find pictures.  At first, I solely looked for photos of Lincoln, but eventually expanded my search to include important figures of his era.  The difficulty didn't lie in finding photos of Lincoln, but in finding him in a variety of poses.  He didn't like to smile much, it appears in the pictures that I found.  After collecting 25 pictures of Lincoln and company, I started taking pictures that I thought would mesh well with my original 25.  I also included older pictures that I took in the past.  Finding and taking modern pictures was the hardest part of this assignment.

Composition- Lincoln photo: I chose this picture of Lincoln because when I found it, I made a story up in my head about why he looks the way he does.  In this story, Lincoln stayed up all night worrying about the portrait that would be taken of him the next morning.  When he got our of bed, he had a bad case of bed hair that he was not able to control.  As a result, he refused to allow the right side of his face to be shown and would not smile for the camera.  He didn't mind having his tuxedo to be shown, though.

Modern day photo: The reason why I picked this photo was because I love the atmosphere surrounding the subject.  The shadows that the trees are casting appear dark and foreboding, yet the girl riding her bike has a huge smile on her face as she pedals away.  The mixed blue sky in the background presents a nice compliment between the luscious green grass.  Ah--the promise of summer.  Perhaps this dreadful winter is another reason why I chose to pi

ck a promising picture for what lies ahead.

Concept- The picture of Lincoln with his two fingers pointed in the shape of a gun reminded me of a picture I took a few years ago.  Although his fingers looking like a gun was most likely unintentional, it still humors me that the photographer's actual goal was to have his hands shaped like that.  The face Lincoln is showcasing is not one to be reckoned with.

I chose to use the picture of the girl with the gun mostly because the look of sheer intensity on her face.  That, and the fact that she's holding a gun in her hand.  She's ready to take Lincoln on.

 

Week One

Assignment- Set up blog

Craft- I logged onto Facebook to search for a picture to put in my profile. Apparently, we need a gmail email address to be able to get a Blogger.com account. "It's bullcrap," says Professor Peck in regards to Google owning Blogger.com and the need for a gmail account. Luckily, I already had a gmail email address so I was able to establish my blog without too much trouble. The sudden influx of students trying to create a gmail account caused the system to think we were all spambots. After my blog was set up, I chose a nice shade of kelly green as my background. I am now posting this as my first entry.

Composition-Why this photo? Why this template? I must have snow on the brain; all this snow must be messing with me! No--I love snow. It allows me to maintain my inner child as I toss snowballs at unsuspecting friends. By now, I'm sure they expect it. I could play in snow for as long as my frostbitten hands permit me to. I chose this template because I love the color green. The background is simple and to the point.

Concept-If you had a soapbox and could yell anything, what would you yell? "Can't we all just get along? Why so much hate?"