Digital Collage:
"Earliest Memory"
50cm x 76cm
Digital photo-manipulation
March 18, 2020
Exhibition Text:
The piece "Earliest Memory" is inspired by a personal memory of mine, when I was a child I remember visibly inviting my entire first grade class to my 5 birthday party (I was a year ahead of school) and no one showing up. This piece was heavily inspired by A Friend in Need by Coolidge famous poker dog painting, but also slightly inspired The Birth of Venus by Bottcelli in a glitched out fashion. This represents the phobia of being alone, which is Autophobia.
Digital photo-manipulation
March 18, 2020
Exhibition Text:
The piece "Earliest Memory" is inspired by a personal memory of mine, when I was a child I remember visibly inviting my entire first grade class to my 5 birthday party (I was a year ahead of school) and no one showing up. This piece was heavily inspired by A Friend in Need by Coolidge famous poker dog painting, but also slightly inspired The Birth of Venus by Bottcelli in a glitched out fashion. This represents the phobia of being alone, which is Autophobia.
Planning:
Inspiration:
For this project, I wanted to look more into the paintings that were recreated several times in cartoony aspects or just for laughs. Studying this piece last year in my art history class always sparked an interest for me, mainly because of how famous the piece is and how many different recreations there are of it. I thought that the famous dog painting "A Friend In Need" by Coolidge would be a good reference considering the pose each dog is in within the painting. I want my digital manipulation piece to have some more things to look around to, rather than focusing on one thing in the photo. For my Piece, I wanted to incorporate the body positioning of each of the dogs in the photo, also carrying the volume of the theme in the piece as well. |
"The Birth of Venus" by Botticelli was slightly my targeted inspiration as well as "A Friend In Need" by Coolidge. Before trying to make this piece of artwork geared towards a cartoony joke, I wanted the poses in this painting to be similar to how the poses are in the final piece. I originally thought of making a slightly nude photoshoot, but I decided that it would be unnecessary and that I could have similar body angles and head angles, while carry the same amount of importance in the "A Friend In Need" dog painting by Coolidge and "The Birth of Venus" by Botticelli.
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Here I was considering adding a glitch affect to my Digital Collage to resemble how old the memory it was and how foggy it is in my memory. The glitchy aspect also represents a false sense of reality, how what seems to be in front of us isn't always the case (what we see isn't always true). I thought that this addition would help add more value to the piece itself, but also giving off a "virus" effect.
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Since this is an old memory, I thought of maybe giving off an old VHS effect and having the typical play button at the top right hand corner of the piece. This will make it look like a flashback starting to play back up again in my head. This also adds on to the old aesthetic like the glitch effect from before. The distorted coloring and misplacement of pieces adds to the effect.
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Since I couldn't find a picture of my five year old birthday party cake, I decided to substitute for a stock photo of cake with five candles on it from the internet. I thought that this cake seems simple and has a pretty design to use for my digital collage (it's not too flashy or over complex to digitally manipulate).
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Sketches:
Sketch 2:
The second sketch, I wanted more than one of me in the digital collage, so I thought of me just standing in the background, while the other self is sitting down in a chair. I wanted both of the figures to be distorted, but I don't want the images to be in black and white. I was sure of having multiple figures in the digital collage, but I wasn't sure of how it would be set up. |
Process:
*Click to enlarge slideshow process*
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Process of the photo shoot:
For this photo shoot, I didn't know as much where to place my phone to take the pictures. I tried to prop it up against a book, but it would fall down easily. I then tried propping it against my chromebook, and eventually at the right angle it stood still. I set the timer of my phone's camera to 3 seconds to give me enough time to get ready and pose for the picture. I opened the blinds towards each window to bring more natural light in the photos, and I placed myself next to a white background as I would stand out of the photo more (this would improve the quality with each photo). The first photo I was successfully happy with took longer than expected, considering some of the files corrupted when trying to upload them to Photopea. I decided to wear different outfits for each to add more contrast when each photo becomes merged together. The second photo was the easiest for me to take a picture of since the chairs were close together making it look slightly realistic on it's own. Nothing changed to dramatically which is good my case. This would help me in the future and made the editing process on Photopea go by much faster as there wasn't much work to clean up. The third photo on the other had took a bit to look slightly presentable. The third photo was aggravating considering the light outside was going away and it was getting dark. This made me resort to using my kitchen light buffered the quality of the photo tremendously. My face turned out darker than the other photos, which made the contrast to different. I tried to clean up the photo and make the image lighter, but it turned out blurry and would ruin the overall features of the face, so I reluctantly decided to keep it the same. |
*Click to enlarge slideshow process*
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Process of editing on Photoshop:
This was the longest part of my project besides the photo shoot. First, I made a document title "Digital Collage" for storing wise, then I set the image to the right width and height. After I made sure the measurements were correct, I started opening my images I was going to use for the project. First I opened up the first photo I saved from the photo shoot, and I set that as my background for the piece. Second, I opened up the second photo from the photo shoot, and I placed it in a separate layer. In that layer, I used the tool "rectangle select and I selected only the part of the photo where my face and body is. I dragged the entire selection into where the other layer is and I dropped it off. I used the eraser tool to clean up around the edges and got rid of the different colored backgrounds contrasting with the other. I did the same process for both dragging in the cake and the third photo of me into the same layer, eventually duplicating and separating them. To add more of an oldish effect, I found the VHS font tool for text, and typed out the typical "play" aspect of a regular VHS tape. I also went into the shape section of tools, and turned the triangle around until the front point was facing the letter "p" in play. Towards the end, I found a glitchy TV screen aspect I could use as an overlay for the background. I enlarged the photo so it covered every image then set the image into overlay so it wouldn't cover the picture as a whole and give off a transparent effect. I erased the overlay effect in the photo of me in a black sweater, but let everything else the same. Finally, I used the rectangle select to grab small bits of my photo and push them off to the side or onto another part of the picture. I did this for both photo two, three, and the birthday to give off a distorted illusion. I saved my progress in a Photoshop file, and save the image as a JPEG so it could be uploaded to print out. |
Experimentation:
I wanted to experiment with creating a glitchy effect in this project. Although I am not heavily experienced in the manner, I thought that looking towards online tutorials will help guide me through the process. At first, I looked at several artworks of glitchy effects for reference examples. I was taking small notes towards what colors I should use or what the final product should turn out to be. The second thing I did was looking up a small walk-through on a webpage. Unfortunately, the walk-through specified through the media Photoshop instead of Photopea, which is the one I used. So I had to use small parts of the tutorial and make do with what worked. I also found a video on the internet page that went through everything explained in the article step by step but in video format. I researched other videos on the same subject but sadly they were either restricted, unavailable, or didn't contain the information I was looking for. This was slightly helpful, although again it contained materials only found on Photoshop, not Photopea. |
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Reflection:
Critique:
Overall, I believe this is the most challenging project I dealt with so far. I'm not well experienced in the arts of Photoshop, especially with the free downgrade of Photopea. I felt as though several of the images were sloppily copied and pasted onto layers. For future reference, I feel as though I should clean the edges better and shape the outside of the image (and use the eraser tool more efficiently). For the glitch effect however I thought I did it thoroughly well. I exceeded my expectations for it, considering I had to redo some of the layers because certain tools or effects wouldn't load. In the end, I was both happy with the final product, but completely frustrated with the process it took to create it.
Overall, I believe this is the most challenging project I dealt with so far. I'm not well experienced in the arts of Photoshop, especially with the free downgrade of Photopea. I felt as though several of the images were sloppily copied and pasted onto layers. For future reference, I feel as though I should clean the edges better and shape the outside of the image (and use the eraser tool more efficiently). For the glitch effect however I thought I did it thoroughly well. I exceeded my expectations for it, considering I had to redo some of the layers because certain tools or effects wouldn't load. In the end, I was both happy with the final product, but completely frustrated with the process it took to create it.
Compare & Contrast
Compare:
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ACT Responses:
Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork?
The piece "A Friend In Need" by Coolidge and "The Birth of Venus" by Botticelli inspires "Earliest Memory" by the placement positioning of the dogs compared to me in the photo and body positioning, and the glitch pattern VHS old aesthetic is related to the piece also by the effects it carries as well.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The creator Coolidge created the painting A Friend in Need to show the value of friendship in the piece, as the bulldog is handing his dog friend an ace under the table, while Botticelli analyzed as the goddess in the middle of the painting symbolizes perfection, as it is the exact opposite for this piece since there are glitch patterns.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc, while you researched your inspiration?
From several art critics, Coolidge's work wasn't considered to be "real art", so it can be inferred that cubism or realism paintings styles more adored rather than animal's taking form of human activities.
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The central theme around phobias, specifically Autophobia which is the fear of being alone.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
I can infer that animal art in human roles can resemble a deep symbolism with small connections of the animal's similarities compared to our own.
The piece "A Friend In Need" by Coolidge and "The Birth of Venus" by Botticelli inspires "Earliest Memory" by the placement positioning of the dogs compared to me in the photo and body positioning, and the glitch pattern VHS old aesthetic is related to the piece also by the effects it carries as well.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The creator Coolidge created the painting A Friend in Need to show the value of friendship in the piece, as the bulldog is handing his dog friend an ace under the table, while Botticelli analyzed as the goddess in the middle of the painting symbolizes perfection, as it is the exact opposite for this piece since there are glitch patterns.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc, while you researched your inspiration?
From several art critics, Coolidge's work wasn't considered to be "real art", so it can be inferred that cubism or realism paintings styles more adored rather than animal's taking form of human activities.
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The central theme around phobias, specifically Autophobia which is the fear of being alone.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
I can infer that animal art in human roles can resemble a deep symbolism with small connections of the animal's similarities compared to our own.
Bibliography:
Anderson, Kelli, and Shovava. “The Story Behind the Iconic 'Dogs Playing Poker' Paintings.” My Modern Met, 12 Dec. 2019, mymodernmet.com/dogs-playing-poker-painting/.
Ivan, et al. “How to Create VHS Glitch Art in Adobe Photoshop.” Design & Illustration Envato Tuts , 17 Dec. 2019, design.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-make-your-photo-looks-like-a-frame-from-vhs-tape--cms-26562.
Chattyfeet, and Shovava. “The Story Behind the Iconic 'Dogs Playing Poker' Paintings.” My Modern Met, 12 Dec. 2019, mymodernmet.com/dogs-playing-poker-painting/.
“Critical Thinking And Reflection 1: Cognition, Reflection, Interpretation, & Artistic Intent - Lessons - Tes Teach.” Tes Teach with Blendspace, www.tes.com/lessons/B3O-3IlPJehwGw/critical-thinking-and-reflection-1-cognition-reflection-interpretation-artistic-intent.
Dodson, Nathaniel. “How to Create 5 Amazing Glitch Effects in Photoshop! (Free Glitch Action Download).” Tutvid.com, 12 Dec. 2018, tutvid.com/photoshop-tutorials/create-5-amazing-glitch-effects-photoshop-free-glitch-action-download/.
Knebel, Norma, et al. “Ibottaversary: Celebrate with Bonus Cash.” The Ibotta Blog, 12 Feb. 2018, liferewarded.com/2017/10/19/ibottas-5-year-ibottaversary/comment-page-4/.
“The Birth of Venus - Sandro Botticelli - Google Arts & Culture.” Google, Google, artsandculture.google.com/asset/the-birth-of-venus/MQEeq50LABEBVg?hl=en&avm=2.
Ivan, et al. “How to Create VHS Glitch Art in Adobe Photoshop.” Design & Illustration Envato Tuts , 17 Dec. 2019, design.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-make-your-photo-looks-like-a-frame-from-vhs-tape--cms-26562.
Chattyfeet, and Shovava. “The Story Behind the Iconic 'Dogs Playing Poker' Paintings.” My Modern Met, 12 Dec. 2019, mymodernmet.com/dogs-playing-poker-painting/.
“Critical Thinking And Reflection 1: Cognition, Reflection, Interpretation, & Artistic Intent - Lessons - Tes Teach.” Tes Teach with Blendspace, www.tes.com/lessons/B3O-3IlPJehwGw/critical-thinking-and-reflection-1-cognition-reflection-interpretation-artistic-intent.
Dodson, Nathaniel. “How to Create 5 Amazing Glitch Effects in Photoshop! (Free Glitch Action Download).” Tutvid.com, 12 Dec. 2018, tutvid.com/photoshop-tutorials/create-5-amazing-glitch-effects-photoshop-free-glitch-action-download/.
Knebel, Norma, et al. “Ibottaversary: Celebrate with Bonus Cash.” The Ibotta Blog, 12 Feb. 2018, liferewarded.com/2017/10/19/ibottas-5-year-ibottaversary/comment-page-4/.
“The Birth of Venus - Sandro Botticelli - Google Arts & Culture.” Google, Google, artsandculture.google.com/asset/the-birth-of-venus/MQEeq50LABEBVg?hl=en&avm=2.