Week 15 : Links to various places

Scribd
Lulu  
Yudu- Second publishing source 

Week 14 : A Glimpse of the Magazine

 Here are a couple of my spreads from the magazine. The first page is very simple, containing only the title and my name. The first two spreads need to be switched, but I wanted to create some consistency by using a solid color block on the top of each page. For each project, I chose to use the eye dropper to copy a color from the art into the color block. I did this so the viewer can differentiate between the different works easily. I also included the artists name and project type inside the color block as well for more clarity. I also typed the table of contents out in the appropriate colors relative to the projects and page numbers. I wanted to keep my pages as simple, yet interesting to the eye as possible. I did this by using negative space to my advantage and fun fonts for the quotes and titles.

Week 13 : Three C's of the Magazine

Craft- In order to put together the magazine, the program that was used was InDesign. The first thing I did was create a master page for every spread in order to have some consistency throughout the magazine. I did that by clicking on the master spread, forming a box without outlines on the top of the pages and filling them with a color, typing which project and name that was relevant to that page. I then placed the appropriate images on each spread by again forming a box with no outlines, clicking file and place, and choosing the picture that I wanted. I then fitted the picture appropriately, copy and pasted from Blogger any text that I wanted in with that picture. I pasted the text in a text box and fitted it accordingly. Next comes the quote in which I pulled from the text, colored it an exciting color that will pop out from the page and altered the font. Lastly I created a title, and put an eye catching and exciting font to it.

Composition- I want the viewers eye to constantly be moving around the page but still having the main focus be on the art work. I want the quotes to tease the viewer into wanting to read the body text, and the same goes for the title.

Concept- I wanted the concept of  my magazine to be obviously focused on my artwork along with some other classmates artworks. I wanted to show the artwork in the making along with the final product of each project we  accomplished. I also wanted to do this is a consistent and even manner so the whole magazine will come together as a whole and not be scattered about.

Week 12 : The Start of the Magazine

 

     Here are the first two spreads of the magazine project. 

Craft- In order to create these two spreads I started on page 2 and created a box to place a picture in. I did this by selecting the box tool without the outline, formed the box at about the size and placement I was looking for, selected file and place. I got the pictures from the first project we did off of my USB drive. Once the picture was on the page, I right clicked on the image and selected "fit proportionally to frame" in order to get as much of the image inside the box as I could without misshaping it. I then logged onto this blog site and looked for relevant blogs for that particular page. Once I found the blog I wanted, I created texts boxes in the places that I thought were aesthetically pleasing and interesting and copy/pasted the blog into the appropriate text boxes making sure the font was 10pt Times. I then created a headline for the page, making it a bold and eye catching color/font, I typed a By: line after that in a less exaggerated font also. The last thing I did was create a quote. I did this by copy/pasting an interesting line from my blog and placing it in an interesting spot on the page, making it colorful and a creative font, but just enough so that it doesn't take away from the headline. I did this same process for every page. 

Composition- I wanted to create pages that are pleasing to the eye while at the same time containing all of the information that the assignment calls for. The main focus is to concentrate on the picture, headline and quote in order to draw the reader into wanting to read the body text. I thought hard about where I wanted to place everything so that the readers eye wanders around the whole page.

Concept- The concept of this project is to show the viewer everything that has been done throughout this class in detail, meaning from practice illustrations to get used to a certain program to the final product. Also, to explain the process throughout by including the blogs that have been created.

Week 11 : Notes for In-Design

     The first thing that I learned in In-Design was how to set up a new document which is as follows: File, New, Document, type in the number of pages desired ( but they must be a multiple of four), make sure "facing pages" is checked, choose to have four columns in the document and save. In-Design has pages compared to Adobe Illustrator which has layers. I think I prefer the pages because as you work on your document, you can see what the 2 page spread will look like in the "pages" box instead of only being able to see a multitude of layers that you've put together.

     I also noted that you must have three orders of text for each page. The text should contain a headline, by line, body and quote. Each order of text must be visually stimulating although, the most important items such as the headline should catch the viewers eye the most. The purpose of this is to not only draw the viewers in, but to lead the viewers eye around the page. The headline and quote should be somewhat quirky or interesting so that the viewer is compelled to read the body text. 

     The last thing I learned is how to print which is as follows: File, Print, ( rough drafts should not be on glossy), 11X17 size paper, make sure "spreads" is checked, then go into Page Setup, choose Xerox printer, Tabloid size, and relevant orientation, set up the page in the same way as in the Print screen which means 11X17 plain paper and click print. 

I look forward to playing around with In-Design and learning new tips and tricks to help me successfully organize and design a beautiful magazine.

Week 10: Tweaks to Final Draft

Before

After 

In the new final draft, I copied the young girl, made her transparent and changed her expression from happy to sad. I also added a small tear. I did this by copying the layer of the girl and moving her to the top of the hill. I also used the bamboo pencil and pad to draw the frown and used the white pointer tool to manipulate the shape and make it even and clean. I did the same thing to the tear as well. I also changed the angle of the gradient in the sky to make the orange portion a bit less steep and to give more space for the dark blue portion of the sky. The last thing I did was create a gradient for the grass to make the color of the grass on the "happy" side a bit brighter but I'm not sure if it's less distracting or not.

I want the viewers eye to first go to the radio thats playing 88.3 then to investigate the young happy girl. The next thing I want the eye to wander to is the young sad girl in the background and the environment that goes with her. Then I would like the viewer to step back and view the piece as a whole.

I want to illustrate that the world with the radio playing 88.3 is a happy fun and bright world. I did this by adding the smile to the girl, the bright color to the illustration, and the aura around the radio by making a couple stars transparent and bright. I also wanted to illustrate that the world with the ordinary radio is dark, dull and unhappy. I did this by giving the girl a frown and a tear. I also did made the sky very dark and heavy looking with ominous clouds lurking overhead.

Week 9 : Escape from Ordinary Radio Final Draft

    

This is my final draft of Escape from Ordinary Radio. I wanted to show the young girl choosing the exciting boom box playing 88.3 over the old fashioned boring radio. The side of the old radio is dark and gloomy with the jagged music notes floating in the air. The new and exciting side is bright and sunny with lots of colors and flowers. The radio is giving off a beautiful aura with smooth music notes floating through the air. I used the transparency and gradient effects on the stars surrounding the boom box and the fill in the sky. To create the girl I used both the pen tool and the bamboo pencil. The pen tool was used on the clothing, legs, arms and face shape. The bamboo pencil was used for the hair and shoes. My intent was not only to show the concept of Escape from Ordinary Radio, but to lead the viewers eye straight to the boom box playing 88.3 by creating that bright aura around it

Week 8 : Escape from Ordinary Radio

This is the sketch I did to represent "escape". I wanted to go with a cartoon-ish feel because I can sketch in that style the best in my opinion. I mostly wanted to utilize the bag attached to the stick instead of the penguin. I wanted to make him look as if he would appeal to small children, or if he would fit into a children's book. To do that I sketched him with curved lines and ovals to soften his shape and made him sort of young and pudgy looking.  

This is my sketch for "ordinary". Again, as you can see this is a cartoon style sketch. I wanted to represent a sort of plane Jane type of girl. I used straight, angular lines for her dress to exaggerate the shape. I also made her hair sort of messy and her glasses with thick black frames. I wanted to make her look as if she was young and in that awkward stage of her life. 

This is obviously to represent "radio". I sketched an old fashioned radio because I love antiques and think they have excellent details. I also like the curvature of the speakers against the angular shape of the radio. I went light on the small details of the radio because I wanted to keep it simple to exemplify both "ordinary" and "radio" in one. 

Here is a compilation of all three images. The bag in the penguin sketch is absent, but will be added next to the young girl to show that she's traveling. The angles and depth of the sketch needs to be tweaked, but my purpose is to show the old fashioned "ordinary radio" at one end of the path and the new, trendy fun radio at the other end accompanied by the girl and her bag. The space around the old fashioned radio will be filled with dark ominous colors and the new radio will be surrounded by bright happy colors and sunny skies. The purpose is to show the young girl making the transition from the "ordinary radio" to the new and exciting radio. 

Art Institute Field Trip : Classical Portion

 This is a Van Gogh piece made in 1887. It's a little less on the classical side but I added it to this blog because it's a good play on the typical still life of fruit. As you can see, Van Gogh used contemporary colors throughout the whole work and wide brushstrokes to form the table cloth. This placement and angle of each brushstroke for the table cloth gives great motion to the painting. He also used thicker, more pronounced white paint to give a shine to the fruit. When viewing this piece, the first thing you see is the fruit. The tablecloth is sort of a blur behind the vibrantly colored food. Once the eye hits the background, it follows all the little lines that surround the painting. I love this painting because it's a play on your typical "bowl of fruit" painting. Although it does not look like the real thing, as most classical paintings do, it gives a fresh approach to the concept.

 Now, this is your typical Classical painting. The details are extraordinary along with the use of color, light and shadow. The brushwork is small and meticulous in order to create a smooth appearance to the work. The orange shirt of the male pops out nicely against the somewhat earth-like tones that take up the rest of the painting. The muscles of the animals are pronounced, same with the feathers of the swan. If you step up very close to this painting even more detail and characters come out at you. Under the table there are cats peering out at you. From far away you are unable to see them because they blend in with the shadowing. This is unbelievable craftsmanship. When viewing this painting I personally start at the swan because it's brighter than the rest and work my way across the table of animals. I then come back and notice the man; it's after this that I can take in the whole piece at once. I predict that the man is either a hunter or a salesman selling food for the people.

This is an even earlier Classical painting yet once again the attempt to recreate reality is wonderful. The colors are very saturated and rich which gives this piece a very upscale feel to it. The folds in the clothing with the hints of lightened value to reflect light are beautiful. The baby's skin looks soft and smooth, you can almost picture feeling his pudgy body. When viewing this painting, the eye goes straight for the woman and baby. The characters in the back are somewhat faded out which gives intentional focus to the mother and child in front. The eye wanders around the folds of the clothing and shadows beneath the neck until it reaches the soft skin of the child. I believe this is a religious piece, the characters in the back seem to be holding a bible and praying together. If I am seeing correctly, the man and young child to the left have halos above their heads as well.

Week 7 : Radios

 

I chose these 7 picture of radios because I liked the antiquity of them. Also, I love the shapes that they have as well. Each of them has something unique that really gives them character. The bottom picture is just a quick drawing of the second radio using Adobe Illustrator. I used the writing pad and stylus to sketch this. With the stylus I selected the paintbrush tool and opened the picture of the radio so half my screen was AI and half was the picture. After everything was set up I just sketched with the stylus on the writing pad and this is the end product. I wanted to make it sort of messy because I like the quick sketch sort of look.

 

Week 6 : Before and After

         Before :

         After :
I forgot to make a screen capture after the shading was done, so I had to open the illustration in Adobe Reader and transfer it to paint to crop it. That's why it looks different from the top. I added shading under the doll's hair and cheeks. I also added the slight shine to her cheek bones that the flash created. I did this by adding a layer under her hair, choosing a color that fit and making it slightly transparent. I think I'll have to play will the lowest part of the shadow a little more because something doesn't seem to look right to me. I added the shadows under her cheeks by adding a sublayer to her face, tracing the shadowing on the original picture, choosing the same color for the previous shadowing and a radial gradient. I played around with the gradient and shape of the shadowing until it looked right. I did this same process with the shine on the cheeks and the shape of her nose. Finally, I created a layer on top of her lips for a shadow in between her upper and lower lip. I chose the correct color for this and played around with the transparency until I was happy with the results.

Art Institute Field Trip

Here is a picture of the beautiful architecture inside the Art Institute of Chicago.

This is my teach, Professor Peck acting spastic. Just kidding, don't lower my grade.



Contemporary:

Out of all of the things we viewed at the Art Institute, this would have to be one of the works that most inspired me. This is a Jackson Pollock painting. Pollock was famous for laying his canvases down on the floor allowing him to splash different forms of paint onto them. He also included random items such as cigarette butts, shards of glass etc. This is inspiring to me because it allows you to use your imagination and interpret the work as you please. It's more enjoyable to look at then a painting that recreates reality in my opinion because instead of just staring and thinking "Yeah, that looks like the real thing all right" you get to work your imagination. When viewing his paintings I don't seem to find one definite focal point, and this is another reason why I love Pollock so much. Your eyes just can't seem to focus on one thing, they tend to follow the different splash marks and colors throughout the whole canvas. There are so many details to look at you can spend an hour viewing one of this paintings. 

Another painting we viewed that inspired me was Mark Rothko's Untitled (Purple, White and Red). I've loved Mark Rothko long before this field trip but have never gotten a chance to see any of his paintings. Let me tell you, I didn't want to walk away from it. I love how he lets the paint and colors speak for themselves. Unfortunately, this photograph doesn't come close to doing the painting justice. It's a simple work, but when you view it in person you are able to see the brush strokes, the heavier areas of paint and lighter layers of paint as well. Again, the eyes don't have one set focal point to pay attention to. The white center balances out the darker top and bottom colors. It is one of my goals and dreams to visit a Rothko gallery; I believe I could spend all day there. 

      This is a piece called "Ice, 1,2,3,4" made in 1989. The craft of this piece is much like a Jackson Pollock except I don't this these canvases we're laid on the floor like a Pollock work. The artist obviously used a ton of paint to get a thick consistency on the canvas. You can see smears fading into another color. There are also very vibrant colors on top of a background consisting of blacks grays and whites. This type of background makes the colors really pop out at you. When viewing this piece you eye has no place to rest, much like a Jackson Pollock. I personally enjoy getting up close and really seeing the smears and thick portions of paint on the canvas. The viewer can just let their eye wonder over these pieces without a central focus. The concept I believe would be letting the paint speak for itself. There are obviously no renderings of an object, just paint. This is why I love contemporary works, because you can be free to think and see anything in the canvas as opposed to classical where all you see is a rendering of reality. Sure there is amazing accuracy and use of colors, but your imagination has no room to be free.

Week 5 : Composition

     For this project, I wanted to include the essence of the doll while stylizing and tweaking her features just a bit. I believe when viewing this illustration the viewers eye either goes for the hair because it's the biggest and darkest element or the eyes because they are the central feature, we are naturally drawn to make eye contact and they are also dark in color. I wanted to enlarge the eyes just a bit to emphasize them. I chose the plain background because the background in the original photograph was non specific and I wanted to make the doll as much of the main focus as I could. I chose the light gray color because I think it compliments the colors of the dress without being to much of a contrast. In the original picture, the bow is off center. I kept this the same because it compliments the heavy bang on the left side of the dolls hair. One other reason I kept the bow off center is because I think it gives some character to the doll. The essence that it has been used or played with and possibly tattered up a bit. 

      As you can see here, the only changes that I've made were adding the lips. I made them a hot pink color to give contrast to the dull colors of the clothing and background. I also feel that it brings more attention to the face and ties everything together. I wanted to make the facial features brightly colored and nicely shaped to make this the main focal point of the illustration.

Week 4 : Before and After

     I chose this picture to illustrate because I thought it had many layers to it which I could utilize in my illustrating process. I fell in love with the deep blue of the dolls eyes along with their large round shape. I was excited to illustrate them and possibly exaggerate them a bit. Although this is an unfinished product, I would like to try and add some texture to the lace and the straw hat. I think this will give some depth and personality to the picture.

     I started this project by first taking photographs of different angles of the doll. I chose the one that I thought had the most visual appeal and that could be illustrated creatively. After downloading it into illustrator I started making my layers. Because the background of the picture has no visual appeal, my first layer is the outer layer of lace on the dolls hat. Then came the inner pink portion of the hat. After this, I outlined the outside of the lace on her shirt with the pen tool and filled it with the same color as the lace on the hat. Then came the inner, pink portion of her clothes. Finally the ribbon and pearl will complete her clothing. I purposely made the ribbon crooked, as it was in the original picture because I felt it gave more character to the piece and also balanced with the heavy portion of her hair being on the left side. The next most important element I thought was the face shape because this will overlap the hat. Next came the hair, in which I warped and manipulated as much I could to get the curved lines. The eyebrows were next followed by the whites of the eyes. I outlined the eyes with the pen tool for their shape and warped them to smooth them out and make them more rounded. I did the same for the irises and the pupils are dots simply made with one click of the paint brush set at a large size.

Week 3 : Reshoot

Craft- I took this picture by placing the doll next to a semi bright lamp to get better lighting and more shadows. I enjoy this photo because of the texture seen in the hat, lace, and hair. Also, I love the deep blue coloring of the eyes.

Concept- With this picture, I am trying to portray a semi creepy look to the doll. In my opinion the lack of eye contact adds to this.

Composition- This picture is a little farther away from the first photo shoot. I did this because I wanted to capture more of the texture of the hat and hair. Although her eyes are focused downward, they are the central and darkest point to the photo making the viewers eye go their first.

Week 2 : Photoshoot

     For this task, I chose to photograph the eyes. I wanted to capture more than just a regular, human eye. How boring is that, right? So my thought was to take it a step farther and capture eyes of all different varieties while at the same time adding some sort of creative spin to it. I took many test shots and played around with lighting, angles and colors before I decided on a picture to keep.

      For the composition of this photo I wanted to make the light slightly dim because I think it adds to the antiquity of the doll. So I chose a spot in my home that is relatively dim and took multiple test shots until I got the lighting I wanted. This is one of my favorite photographs that I took for this assignment because I love the delicate, feminine lace under the dolls chin and light skin against those big dark blue eyes. In my opinion her bold eyes are a great contrast to her delicate features.

     I wanted this photograph to appear slightly eerie yet sweet and innocent at the same time. The viewers eyes go directly to the dolls face, following the arched eyebrows down to her eyes which is the main focal point.

Week 1 : Introduction

Hello all,

My name is Nichole Wallace but prefer to be called Nicky. I just finished my Associates degree at Joliet Junior College in December and the spring 2011 semester at SXU is my first. My major is art history and now that I'm at SXU I am excited to dive in and obtain my Bachelors. Unfortunately SXU doesn't provide a Masters degree in art history so I will have to transfer, but nonetheless I look forward to my time here.