Final Thoughts

Dear Mrs. Robinson,

         I would just like to say thank you for being such a great teacher this year. I took both Digital Arts 1 & 2 this year and also was your TA. I learned so much this year about how to create art in programs like Photoshop, Painter, Flash, Illustrator and Final Cut. This semester I learned how to create a portrait by building up a face, create animations in flash, have participated in an anti-bullying art movement and created my own t-shirt design. With your help I have created pieces of art I could truly be proud of. I feel that this class has taught me how to be a better artist. Before this class, I had some familiarity with Photoshop because my mom is a photographer and uses it frequently. However, I only ever used it to manipulate images for fun.  I wasn’t very confident in my ability to create art with it. Now I feel confident in my abilities a as digital artist and in finding my way around in  other programs. I will miss this class and having you as a teacher. Hopefully I will be able to take similar classes in college. Never lose your enthusiasm for teaching!
         Sincerely,
                       Austin Peterson

Portrait

This is my portrait assignment. In this assignment I learned how to use painter 12 and the new creativity workspace. I used the new brushes and and learned how to create my own. I took snapshots of my work along the way to show the progression. 

Threadless Tshirt Design

This is my threadless t-shirt contest submission. I combined different pictures I found online with my own drawings. I used the stroke effect and paint bucket to give it a cartoon feel. I submitted to the standard and threadless political themes.

Vector Tutorial

This is a vector I made in adobe illustrator. This is my shoe

Type Tutorial

This assignment taught was to me Carlos Moran because I was sick at the beginning of the semester. I learned how to make type follow a path, create shapes and
 edit it's appearance.

Animation

This is my flash talking heads video. I used flash to create the characters and animate their faces. I then recorded sound with Audrey Nix and my brother in garageband. I edited and finished the video in FinalCut. I then posted it to youtube! 

Anti-Bullying Poster

This is my Anti-bullying poster. I wanted to create a poster with cool graphic effects that conveyed a serious message. I used an online poster tutorial to create the text effects and background and used vectors in illustrator to create the man. 0

Final Thoughts/Reflections

I really enjoyed my time here in Digital Arts this semester. I learned so much about creating art on a computer. Before this class, I had some familiarity with Photoshop because my mom is a photographer and uses it frequently. However, I only ever used it to manipulate images for fun.  I wasn’t very confident in my ability to create art with it. Since then, I have learned a lot. I now feel confident finding my way around in Photoshop and know how to create basic line art in Flash. I now understand how to use depth and lighting to create better looking images. I was surprised at how easy some of the assignments were and how nicely they turned out. I also enjoyed learning about different kind of art and art movements such as Surrealism and DADA. I feel that this class has taught me how to be a better artist. I look for forward to expanding my knowledge next semester in Digital Arts 2!

Favorite Images

These are my top 3 favorite images that I created this semester.

 

#3: This was my very first picture I made in this class and one of my favorites. I think that the planets, nebula, lighting and lens flare all worked very well together to create a realistic and aesthetically pleasing picture.

#2: This is my second favorite picture I made in this class. I was very happy with the trace I did of my face face and the patterns on my jacket and eyes.

#1: My squid-guitar beast was my absolute favorite piece of work from this semester. I loved using different guitars and the clone stamp tool to create each unique, individual squid.

Pop Art

In this assignment, I created my own pop art. I had never realized how prevalent pop art is in our culture today. This was one of my favorite projects. I created one image in Photoshop and the other in Flash.

This was my first pop art piece that I created. In this assignment, learned how to use paths to create a a image in Photoshop. This was  my favorite image out  of the two, so I decided to color it. I was particularly happy with how the patterns on the jacket and the eyes. It was a challenge to do the details on the jacket because the original image was very dark. I used the stain glass effect to achieve the look I wanted for the jacket. The only thing I was unhappy with in this picture was the skin color. I originally intended to colorize the skin but I could not find a color that looked natural.

This was my second pop art piece. I used Adobe Flash to create this image. It was my first time using Flash and I was surprised by how easy it was. The only thing that was frustrating to me, though, was that the size of the brush would change when I zoomed in or out. This made it hard for me to keep the size consistent. I also struggled with the hair on this image, because it was so dark, but after some help from Mrs. Thompson, I was pretty happy with how it looked.

Mythical Beast

Our next assignment was the Mythical Beast project. This was my favorite assignment of the semester because I love animals and mythical creatures. I used the clone stamp tool extensively in this assignment to create my animals.

On this picture  I learned how to use transplant my eye onto a mango and turn it into a animal. I learned how to use the color replacement tool and how to colorize my eyes. I chose a wolf and a rabbit as my animals. I used a raving rabbid to create the mouth for my rabbit creature.

On this picture, I used the clone stamp tool and three different guitar pictures to create a guitar-squid hybrid creature. I reused my eyes from the previous picture on these squids. I was very happy with with how the squids came out but I was never really satisfied with the background. I was not able to figure out how to create the underwater look I wanted.    

Landscapes

My next project was the landscape assignment. In this assignment we first watched the movie The Fellowship of Ring to get inspiration for our landscapes. I then began working on the landscapes

This was a quick painting I made in painter, while watching Lord of the Rings.  I tried to give it a blurry snowy look but I never really perfected it.

This was my Surrealism landscape. I learned that Surrealism was a cultural movement in the early 1920s that involved the element of surprise and objects that didn't seem to make sense together.  I tried to incorporate this style into my landscape.  I learned how to use advanced image search to find high-resolution images and distort them in photoshop to create a background and foreground. I used cotton candy for the clouds and coffee beans for the ground. I learned how to use the clone-stamp tool in this assignment to create the trees and mountains. The trees are a combination cat fur and strawberries. of  I also learned how to cast shadows in photoshop.  

In this landscape, I learned how to create clouds and grass in photoshop. I used the brush creator and the impressionist brush to create grass. I tried to create an African Savannah in this landscape and I was pretty happy with how it came out. I also used it to create the two images below. 

On this picture, I learned how to use the water rake tool to make my landscape look like a painting.

On this picture, I attempted to use the auto van-gogh tool. I had a hard time getting this assignment to work and I was never really happy with it. I thoght it ended up looking too grainy and it not look very aesthetically pleasing. 

Color Wheel

On this assignment I created my own personal color wheel. This was probably my least favorite assignment we did this semester. However, I did enjoy learning about Complementary and Analogous colors.  I later used this knowledge to create my landscapes.

Spacescapes

The first assignment I completed in this class was the Spacescapes. In this assignment I learned how to use the circle shape tool and Seurat brush to create planets. I used the fairydust brush to create stars and the glow brush to create a nebula. I learned about how to use size and positioning to create depth which was a new concept for me. I also learned how to use the burn and dodge tool to create lighting and shade the picture.

In this picture, I used my own face to create a planet. I was extremely happy with how I did the lighting in this picture. I thought the lens flare and the lighting on the rings worked very well together.

On this assignment, I learned how to create that followed a path.

This was a project I did for fun using what I learned on the previous spacescapes. I took the faces of babies and turned them into planets. I made two variations of this picture, one with text rings and the other with different colors and ring styles.

This was my favorite spacescape that I made. I thought It looked the most natural and was the compelling of all the spacescapes. I learned how to use the turbulence tool to create the gaseous flames coming off of the planets. I was particularly happy with the nebula I created in this picture.