So much fun making the raw footage in Vegas, but even more fun to play with the video and see what I could come up with that made sense out of the madness that was captured. Each project in this class created a challenge by introducing another piece of software that could just as easily been an alien child that I had to learn how to keep alive. While it was thoroughly frustrating to learn what I could while trying to create something different and interesting within each application, I’ll leave introduction to digital art with a sense of confidence in my ability to grab a new digital tool and run clumsily in the dark toward a result. Whether the final result is what I had in mind when I started, or if it completely changes before the project is completed is symbolic of the creative cycle when learning how to use a new tool.
Whoa! First experience with Dreamweaver, not that I am making excuses, but this tool is definitely not the most user friendly program I’ve ever dealt with. The project was to build a virtual landscape website using Dreamweaver that linked to other places and things. To provide an interactive environment I put some feelers out there to my friends, and total strangers, on myspace and facebook to send me links to the weird stuff that they check out on the web and built those links into my page. The links are not easily visible and the landscape itself not readily identifiable, this was intentional. One of the things that I really enjoyed about “The Matrix” movie was the concept of the digital landscape represented by the matrix itself. Those who looked at the digital stream that made up the matrix for long enough, were able to see the artificial reality that was created by that digital stream. Okay enough explanation… beauty is in the eye of the beer holder right? Here it is. Dig it.
Creating a favicon is sooooooooooooooooooo easy. Simply go to favicon.cc and sign up for free, get creative in the box provided, when you are happy with your design click on publish under an open license or download. Once that is done follow the directions, cut and paste the provided html code between the head tags on your website and you’ve built your first favicon!
Now you can get really crazy and build another one but this time animate it. Simply create the first one just like you did your initial icon, select animate at the bottom of the digital canvas, click Append New Frame, and build your second image, repeat until satisfied, download publish and enjoy!
I cannot take credit for putting together this little collection of vids, nor for making the horrible song choice (although I guess it is fitting) a couple of these are a little difficult to watch… ENJOY!
This is the first tattoo that I’ve done on living breathing skin. Out of concern for my learning curve I did this one on myself. It took me awhile to decide what I wanted to do for the design, but because I wanted to practice some shading techniques, and wasn’t really sure how different fruit and dried animal skins were going to be from the real thing, I chose a tribal design. Simple clean straight lines inside which I practiced shading then covered up my practice work with solid black. That way I got twice the practice on one piece of skin! Before I started I wanted to get a picture of the stencil, then the finished outline, and the completed piece, but I guess I got a little nervous and spaced it until I was about halfway done. Tattooing yourself is a pretty screwy process because when you hit a tender spot you have an instinctual tendency to want to pull away from whatever is causing the pain, but a minor jerk equals permanent evidence of a mistake. On one side of the fence you are causing the pain, on the other you are recieving it. I never thought of myself as much of a massochist and this first self imposed splatter eliminated any doubts I may have had.
Okay, I’m just putting this out there. When I initially read the poster project I was pretty stoked and intended to utilize the time on this project to create a groovy tattoo logo that could hopefully be used for letterhead, window painting or signage, and advertising someday. When we discussed the project in class however our outstanding professor pointed out that the poster should have some political connotations, and that this was a reasonable opportunity to get a little sick wit it. The professor also happened to use me as an example during that class suggesting that I “might create a poster that took one stand or another on abortion”. That reminded me of a sculpture that I did about 18 years ago and gave me ample mental imagery to create this little bundle of love. I am by no means blaming said unnamed professor for the content of, or suggesting that his viewpoints are in any way aligned with those expressed herein, just that this image could have been a beaudacious pinup girl instead of an angry fetus! Original image (in word format)
What makes an ad successful? The essence of an advertisement is to leave a memorable impression in the mind of the viewer that using the product or service will make your life better, easier, or just make you a better person.
How does the ad utilize formal elements to convey meaning? There is a rhythm and flow to the repeated forms of the duplicated and similar forms of the tools used to compose the human figure. The eye is naturally drawn to faces and human figures so this grabs the viewers attention immediately. The fact that the figure is composed entirely of craftsman tools lends creedence to the idea that there is, in fact, a craftsman in each of us.
How is color used? The use of Craftsman red bodies of the individual tools and cold hard steel is quite effective in drawing the eye but placing it on a black backdrop really makes the image pop off the page.
How does the information flow? The message is pretty clear and is followed by what the viewer may have already assessed with the tagline on the bottom of the page. The use of the website url in the ad may get the craftsman in the viewer ready to log on and order that handy little tool they need to complete the next project they’ve got in mind.
How are you visually led through the image? Because the image is composed of similar elements but creates a relatively believable human form the eye naturally wanders around the image to complete elements that aren’t completely there. Also the different size and shapes within the figure make you inspect it a little more closely to identify what kind of tool was used to make up the femur, fibula or forehead. After the image is inspected the viewer is still wondering why and the tag line defines it.
This was a sleek and professional ad, but I found some that were quite entertaining while I was searching for this one, you can check those out here: ads1
As promised here is some tattoo’d fruit from my early escapades. I kinda fell off with taking pictures because they just don’t photograph well. The natural wax of the fruit prevents you from putting a nice stencil down as you would with a real tat so this needle work is done freehand. That wax also creates these killer glares when you take pics, so now I Ink ‘em then I eat ‘em! Vitamin C is good for you so EAT SOME!
This is the first tattoo that I’ve done on living breathing skin. Out of concern for my learning curve I did this one on myself. It took me awhile to decide what I wanted to do for the design, but because I wanted to practice some shading techniques, and wasn’t really sure how different fruit and dried animal skins were going to be from the real thing, I chose a tribal design. Simple clean straight lines inside which I practiced shading then covered up my practice work with solid black. That way I got twice the practice on one piece of skin! Before I started I wanted to get a picture of the stencil, then the finished outline, and the completed piece, but I guess I got a little nervous and spaced it until I was about halfway done. Tattooing yourself is a pretty screwy process because when you hit a tender spot you have an instinctual tendency to want to pull away from whatever is causing the pain, but a minor jerk equals permanent evidence of a mistake. On one side of the fence you are causing the pain, on the other you are recieving it. I never thought of myself as much of a massochist and this first self imposed splatter eliminated any doubts I may have had.
