2019-20 Photo One

E l f i n g M y s e l f After taking a picture of myself with the PhotoBooth App, I opened the image in Photoshop, cut myself out with the Pen Tool, Copied & Pasted my face into a new layer and then and filled the background layer with white.  That way I could scale and move my face around independently of the background layer. To give myself some space for an elf hat and a fanciful background, I enlarged my canvas--expanding it upward. (Image-->Canvas Size). In this case I went from 10" to 20" in height. I found  photo of an elf hat and one of an elf ear and composited them onto my head.  (To make 2 ears, I duplicated the ear layer and flipped it (Edit-->Transform-->Flip Horizontal) I selected my shirt and jacket with the Pen Tool and altered the color of each, added a few bells and slid myself to the left. I also made a few Levels adjustments (Image-->Adjust-->Levels). I located a suitable background image, and copied/pasted it into my composition. I...

2021 Pantone C.O.Y. The day has finally arrived!  The kids have been on pins and needles for weeks and the time is finally here!   The  Pantone Color Institute has announced its highly anticipated choice for the Color of The Year 2021!!   As if that weren't exciting enough (!), for only the 3rd time in the history of Pantone color forecasting, the color choice is, color choices.  Not 1, but 2 colors have won the coveted selection and the world of color is enthralled. I'm sure you will be too.  Read about it at the link below and then write a short paragraph explaining what you would choose for the  Color of the Year 2021.  https://www.cnn.com/style/article/pantone-color-of-the-year-2021/index.html

  Silhouettes Silhouettes are a traditional art form, often created by the free-hand cutting of a dark material with scissors or a razor blade.  The effect of a hand-cut silhouette can be easily replicated with the use of the pen tool in Photoshop.  http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/beautiful-handcut-paper Your next challenge will be to create a composition made entirely of silhouettes.  Choose any kind of subject or scene that you would like, but think about what your composition is communicating and how you can tell a story with just the silhouettes you create. Before you commit to a certain course of action, check out the links below: http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/beautiful-handcut-paper http://cargocollective.com/isabeltalsma/Alice-in-Wonderland http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/KaraWalker http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2012/09/paper-cut-action-silhouettes-by-david-a-reeves/ http://www.beatricecoron.com/links.html Below are some examples of studen...

 Photographing Your Fear https://www.kidzworld.com/article/31251-dear-dish-it-discusses-fears-and-phobias/ Things to consider for a successful project: 1) Make sure the fear you select is a fear you actually possess.  Everybody is afraid of something...look inside yourself and be honest with your choice. 2) Make sure that your fear isn't just a fear of a "thing"--it must be the fear of a real-life circumstance, situation, or event. 3) Rather than literally illustrating your fear, think in terms of visual metaphors.   4) Employ the connotations of color in your final design image. 5) Choose your Font style carefully...style, size, color and placement should all reinforce your concept. 6) Challenge your Photoshop skills and try something new.

  Photograph YOUR Fears   Your assignment is to capture in an image, one of your darkest fears.  The fear must be an actual psychological fear you possess.  It cannot be something like "I'm afraid of spiders, so here's a picture of a spider."     It must be the fear of something psychological, a circumstance or a situation, not just a  thing...   "I'm afraid that if I don't get good grades, I won't get into the college I want to."     "I don't like what they're doing but I'm afraid that if I don't go along with my friends they won't like me."     "I'm afraid that I won't be remembered after I'm gone."       Your challenge is conveying your fear in a single photographic image. The image can be manipulated in Photoshop (colorized, composited, etc.) or not.         You must include the name of your fear in your image.   A good place to start is here:   ht...

 Impossible Photography One of the strengths of Photoshop is its capacity for creating surreal or impossible images by using compositing tools to combine elements of different photos into a single image. An image that can appear realistic regardless of its implausibility. The work of Erik Johansson is a great example of this. You watched the short Ted Talk where he shared some of his ideas about process. You understand that his work involves shooting individual photographic elements and combining them into mind-bending scenes. The following link takes you to the gallery on his web site.  Browse through his images and think about how individual components have been put together to create the scenes he has created. https://www.erikjo.com/work Impossible Photo Project For your next project, you will be creating an Impossible Photograph with YOU as the subject. Step 1:  Decide on a concept for your Impossible Photograph. Step 2:  Take (or have someone take) multiple pho...