Spring Luncheon

Spring Luncheon

This is my first piece Iv'e created for submission for the Spring Luncheon competition. All of the computer graphics students are creating pieces representing Spring. Eventually they will go on an invitation for the Shorecrest Spring Luncheon. In the piece I created the sunlight, selected the large sunflower from a different image, selected the field of sunflowers, selected the sky and created multiple layer overlays and layer adjustments. I'm working on more submissions now but this is my strongest one and I hope this one wins.

Color Adjustment Layers Tutorial

Color Adjustment Layers Tutorial

This is the original image open in Adobe Photoshop 5. As you can see it is a nice image but it just needs something. I would argue that this something missing is a little bit of color adjustment. This is where the color adjustment layers come to save the day.

To find the color balance layer follow the directions: Layer --> New Adjustment Layer --> Color Balance... Once you click on Color Balance a window will open...

Click "Ok" and then a new layer will be created...

Now look above the new layer in the toolbar there should now be options to adjust the color layer...

Now, there are three different areas that can be adjusted, the shadows, the midtones and the highlights. I  like to play around with each one, one by one until I get the right combination. Start with the midtones first as they are the dominent color source. After you get the right midtones then play with the shadows and highlights, both of which shouldn't be altered too heavily as this can lead to the light source not matching up with the shadows and highlights which will in turn make the image look less real. Here is the before and after of my beach sky.

Golotology

Gelotology

This is a poster I made having to do with a project were working on this week. The objective of the project is to create a poster for a word we randomly chose from a hat. The word I chose is "gelotologist". A gelotologist is one who studies the subject of gelotology. Gelotology is the study of laughter and its effects on the human body, "gelo" the Greek word meaning laughter. So you can see now where I got the idea for this poster.

Surreal House

Surreal Room

After working on this project for so long I began to think to myself, is this really helping? Is this really helping me? Then I looked at it and thought, what have I learned? Then I realize I know how to do things I never though I would be able to understand. I now look at the toolbar at the top of the project as a bunch of recourses rather than a jumble of symbols. I understand the software so much more. So I've learned a lot but still, this project is kind of odd. Then I really thought and considered this could be something new, using an architectural software to make more art than architecture. Using architectural basics to create some things but putting it all together to create a piece of art. Now I see that this is helping and is more interesting than I thought.

Remember

Remember

This is a piece I began working on last week and I'm approaching finishing it now. The idea of the project is to combine two images to create a meaning different than both images individually. I took a picture of the skyline of New York and then a sketch on paper (which I drew in photoshop) and put it where the world trade center would be. The two images combine to create a sense of remembrance and remind people of what happened.

Scholastic Art Award

Scholastic Art Award

I recently entered these three pieces of mine in to a Scholastic Art competition and did fairly well. Each piece won an award getting a gold key, silver key and honorable mention. This is the first time I've ever received an award for my art and it's pretty sweet. The third piece was actually also entered in to the Beth El art show (sorry if the spelling is incorrect) which is again, a huge accomplishment for me and im very pleased.

Archicad

Archicad

This post also corresponds to my most recent blog having to do with my current progress in archicad. Recently, as you can see in the project, by pure serendipity I discovered how to create terrain. What I have so far represents northern Russia. The housing represents the large cities and massive population, the church (a model of Saint Basils Church) represents the strong religious devotion, the ships represent the strong naval and really just overall military force of Russia if you look closely in the air to the right of the church a satellite is there representing the devotion to the field of astronomy and of course the famous "space race".