Digital Collage
Exhibition Text
Reminiscence symbolizes the fuzzy feelings of nostalgia from when I compare where I was 3 years ago to where I am now. This piece is intended to share how I’ve looked back at the past through the romanticized rose-colored lenses of the future and how I’ve grown and risen above them. It’s about rediscovering the joy of childhood and ultimately overcoming what’s holding you back.
Reminiscence symbolizes the fuzzy feelings of nostalgia from when I compare where I was 3 years ago to where I am now. This piece is intended to share how I’ve looked back at the past through the romanticized rose-colored lenses of the future and how I’ve grown and risen above them. It’s about rediscovering the joy of childhood and ultimately overcoming what’s holding you back.
Planning
Inspiration
As soon as I finished writing the essay below, I knew I needed to incorporate bubbles. The color achieved in the reflections of bubbles is astounding to me because who knew soap could be so beautiful?
I was inspired by Impressionism as a whole, with its hashed brushstrokes and colors representing light and emotion, but in particular Claude Monet. Monet even painted landscapes of rivers, oceans, ponds, and lakes, further inspiring me to take photos of Lake Michigan, and made series of paintings dedicated to the changing of light. |
"Claude Oscar Monet - The Complete Works." Claude Oscar Monet - The Complete Works. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Aug. 2016.
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Planning Sketches
The short essay I wrote above uses the word “bubble” only once but it holds a lot more meaning for me. Each planning sketch involves bubbles, either from a bubble wand or someone drowning. The first sketch is closest to what I went with in the end, the idea being that someone was blowing a bubble while another was holding out a pin to pop it. In the background is Lake Michigan because it’s been my favorite part of Milwaukee ever since I was a kid.
The second sketch is a little darker in that the subject is drowning instead of bubbles. Two hands reach up to the leaves above them, small bubbles rising from the water. This was an ok sketch but I wanted something more lighthearted to symbolize how happy I am now. The third sketch is similar to the first one but instead has my eyes and no one holding a pin to pop the bubbles. The hand is actually drawn from the photo I used for the final image holding the bubble wand. |
Collecting Images
Images used for Experimentation: |
Images used for Final Product:
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My friends and I went on two photo walks for this assignment, wandering our neighborhood without any goal in particular. It got us out of the house and made us really look at the world around us. I'm fortunate that my friends were so okay with me shoving a camera in their faces, and it was a good start to a fun project.
Experimentation
My experimentation used photos from our first photo adventure to test myself before I moved on to a final product. The first two images are cutouts of images with different pictures pasted underneath after selecting the funny image of my friend squatting to look closer at the algae on the lagoon. I was then able to move the selection across other pictures.
The third image was to test out using multiple images to create a scene and observe how the layer effects affected selected images.
The fourth image was the final experiment before moving on to the actual collage and explored effects on the hue, transparency, and shape of different images. The silhouettes in front were also a test using the quick selection and fill tools.
The third image was to test out using multiple images to create a scene and observe how the layer effects affected selected images.
The fourth image was the final experiment before moving on to the actual collage and explored effects on the hue, transparency, and shape of different images. The silhouettes in front were also a test using the quick selection and fill tools.
Process
First, I copy+pasted multiple bubbles selected from the other images shown above and arranged them throughout the sky.
Then, I used a soft round eraser on a low opacity to slowly erase the middle and give them transparency. I put an overlay layer of a blue and purple gradient to make them more colorful and stand out more against the blue sky. |
Before moving on I used the clone stamp to copy+paste part of the lake and rocks to fade the arm into the water, using a soft eraser to fade it further.
Then I duplicated the hand and bubble layers and used "motion blur" at 0 degrees to give them an unfocused look before setting the layers to "multiply" and opacities of 45%. I also offset the layers down and to the right of their original respective layers to give the images a fuzzy shadow in the background. |
Meaning
As a kid, when I got grounded, my parents would take something away. As far as punishments go, this certainly wasn’t the worst, but it never got its point across. It’s supposed to be a lesson on how actions have consequences, but all it taught me was that if I liked something it would get taken away; so I learned to hide. I learned to listen for footsteps in the hall, which floorboards creaked and groaned, and how the light from my reading lamp trickled under the doorway. Everything became a secret. In some ways, I valued this privacy. I knew more about others than they knew about me, so no one could hurt me. Obviously that's not true, but it was a comfort. I was often entrusted as secret keeper because people knew I didn't have anyone else to tell. However, this caused me to isolate myself from other people, including friends and family.
Lots of movies show show parents having deep, heartfelt conversations with their kids, but our conversations rarely got much deeper than what I did at school that day. Everything from pivotal falling-outs with friends who didn’t know me to the confusing idea of identity I kept to myself. Anything that bothered me got bottled up and pushed down, but every so often they would edge to the surface, poking and prodding until I couldn’t couldn’t take it and POP-- I burst like a bubble, taking it out on people who didn’t deserve it.
Coming to RRHS was like a breath of fresh air. I was working with a clean slate; new place, new people, new opportunities. My first semester had a rocky start where I still didn’t know whether I could trust anybody; I sat next to my current best friend in art class for 3 months, and I didn’t even look at her! Then I joined stage crew, finally talked to her, and made an entire new family of friends. Everyone who knows me knows that I talk about stage crew and the theater nonstop, and that’s because it gave me a place to belong where everyone was loud and fun, and because we spent almost 5 hours a day with each other during rehearsals, we’re all pretty close. The first stage crew meeting of my junior year I literally ran down the auditorium aisles shouting, “This is where I belong”.
Overall, I’ve become a happier, more confident person.I’ve made strong relationships with openly caring people who keep me grounded-- in a good way. I’m no longer afraid of bringing up things that upset me because I know my feelings are valid and my friends only want the best for all of us.
Even though I’m now more confident, I still have a long way to go. It takes time to open up and while I’ve made great progress, I tend to isolate myself when not in school. I try my best not to bubble my thoughts up too much, but I’m still learning.
I’m learning that how I feel is not wrong.
I am not wrong.
Lots of movies show show parents having deep, heartfelt conversations with their kids, but our conversations rarely got much deeper than what I did at school that day. Everything from pivotal falling-outs with friends who didn’t know me to the confusing idea of identity I kept to myself. Anything that bothered me got bottled up and pushed down, but every so often they would edge to the surface, poking and prodding until I couldn’t couldn’t take it and POP-- I burst like a bubble, taking it out on people who didn’t deserve it.
Coming to RRHS was like a breath of fresh air. I was working with a clean slate; new place, new people, new opportunities. My first semester had a rocky start where I still didn’t know whether I could trust anybody; I sat next to my current best friend in art class for 3 months, and I didn’t even look at her! Then I joined stage crew, finally talked to her, and made an entire new family of friends. Everyone who knows me knows that I talk about stage crew and the theater nonstop, and that’s because it gave me a place to belong where everyone was loud and fun, and because we spent almost 5 hours a day with each other during rehearsals, we’re all pretty close. The first stage crew meeting of my junior year I literally ran down the auditorium aisles shouting, “This is where I belong”.
Overall, I’ve become a happier, more confident person.I’ve made strong relationships with openly caring people who keep me grounded-- in a good way. I’m no longer afraid of bringing up things that upset me because I know my feelings are valid and my friends only want the best for all of us.
Even though I’m now more confident, I still have a long way to go. It takes time to open up and while I’ve made great progress, I tend to isolate myself when not in school. I try my best not to bubble my thoughts up too much, but I’m still learning.
I’m learning that how I feel is not wrong.
I am not wrong.
Reflection
My collage turned out wonderfully and I'm absolutely in love with it. I was worried it would be too simple or overly saturated but I feel like it's meaningful and gives off the right kind of atmosphere. It was easy to create due to my 4 years of experience using Photoshop at home to draw digitally, but it was harder to connect to my theme.
Finding the right inspiration was a bit of a challenge. Impressionism fit the piece aesthetically, but Surrealism fit for the dreamlike theme of memory. I settled on Impressionism to narrow my focus because Surrealism used more reds and yellows, using the unsettlingly smooth textures to reflect how dreams feel.
After finding my inspiration there was the matter of finding what was too much and what was too little. Making a blurry vividly-saturated piece was bound to be too much and possibly hurt someone's eyes, but creating something desaturated didn't give the same message that I was trying to convey. The bubbles are also arranged to create a curve of movement across the piece, similar to Van Gogh's "Starry Night", although he was technically a Post-Impressionist, not an Impressionist.
I'm especially fond of the pink-to-blue gradient overlaid over the entire piece because I feel it connects all aspects of the work further. Looking back at my sketches I realize that they were all symmetrically balanced, and this is reflected in my final work. For my next project I'd like to experiment with asymmetrical balance and creating more interest for the viewer's eye to follow.
This project also gave me some nice exercise walking around my neighborhood with my friends and actually helped me move on from the past. I always say I've moved on but all it takes is one memory to bring it all back. 8th grade issues may seem trivial now, but at the time they were the most pressing thing in the universe, and I’m glad I live a happier life now.
Finding the right inspiration was a bit of a challenge. Impressionism fit the piece aesthetically, but Surrealism fit for the dreamlike theme of memory. I settled on Impressionism to narrow my focus because Surrealism used more reds and yellows, using the unsettlingly smooth textures to reflect how dreams feel.
After finding my inspiration there was the matter of finding what was too much and what was too little. Making a blurry vividly-saturated piece was bound to be too much and possibly hurt someone's eyes, but creating something desaturated didn't give the same message that I was trying to convey. The bubbles are also arranged to create a curve of movement across the piece, similar to Van Gogh's "Starry Night", although he was technically a Post-Impressionist, not an Impressionist.
I'm especially fond of the pink-to-blue gradient overlaid over the entire piece because I feel it connects all aspects of the work further. Looking back at my sketches I realize that they were all symmetrically balanced, and this is reflected in my final work. For my next project I'd like to experiment with asymmetrical balance and creating more interest for the viewer's eye to follow.
This project also gave me some nice exercise walking around my neighborhood with my friends and actually helped me move on from the past. I always say I've moved on but all it takes is one memory to bring it all back. 8th grade issues may seem trivial now, but at the time they were the most pressing thing in the universe, and I’m glad I live a happier life now.
ACT Responses
Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and its effect upon your artwork:
My inspiration had a profound effect on the color and subject of my artwork because Monet painted many water features and my favorite water feature of Milwaukee is Lake Michigan. Monet also used a variety blues, pinks, and purples, which felt soft and colorful enough to use in my work.
What is the overall approach (pov) the author (from research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The author is presenting the information from an objective standpoint on art history and highlights his most influential works and important milestones. They do not, unfortunately, go into deeper analysis on his works
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
My research wasn't really focused on the cultural aspects of Monet's work, as I'd already studied Impressionism the previous year and knew most of it from prior knowledge, but I did find that while a critic deemed his work "impressionism" as an insult, Impressionist artists adopted it as their own instead. This is an interesting example of turning something cynical into something beautiful, and really captures the spirit of Impressionism as a whole.
What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The central theme around my work was emotion, specifically nostalgia, represented through the fuzzy quality reminiscent of memories we’re fond of.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
I inferred through my research that Monet’s work was not truly valued until after his death, as he tried to commit suicide over financial difficulties most likely arisen from people not buying his artworks.
My inspiration had a profound effect on the color and subject of my artwork because Monet painted many water features and my favorite water feature of Milwaukee is Lake Michigan. Monet also used a variety blues, pinks, and purples, which felt soft and colorful enough to use in my work.
What is the overall approach (pov) the author (from research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The author is presenting the information from an objective standpoint on art history and highlights his most influential works and important milestones. They do not, unfortunately, go into deeper analysis on his works
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
My research wasn't really focused on the cultural aspects of Monet's work, as I'd already studied Impressionism the previous year and knew most of it from prior knowledge, but I did find that while a critic deemed his work "impressionism" as an insult, Impressionist artists adopted it as their own instead. This is an interesting example of turning something cynical into something beautiful, and really captures the spirit of Impressionism as a whole.
What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The central theme around my work was emotion, specifically nostalgia, represented through the fuzzy quality reminiscent of memories we’re fond of.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
I inferred through my research that Monet’s work was not truly valued until after his death, as he tried to commit suicide over financial difficulties most likely arisen from people not buying his artworks.
Bibliography
"Claude Oscar Monet - The Complete Works." Claude Oscar Monet - The Complete Works. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Aug. 2016.
<http://www.claudemonetgallery.org/>
"Claude Oscar Monet - The Complete Works." Claude Oscar Monet - The Complete Works. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Aug. 2016.
<http://www.claudemonetgallery.org/>