ART 460

Portfolio for ART 460

art 460: MILESTONE 2

Now that we’re halfway through the semester, this second milestone post serves a check-in and is meant to encapsulate what I’ve learned so far in this class.

For one thing, we’ve completed two projects so far, both of them being very different from each other. Yet each project taught me a skill or two each, including designing, thinking (under pressure), software skills, and composing.

The Press Here project helped me refine my Adobe Suite skills, namely Photoshop and Illustrator. Although I didn’t learn any new techniques in Photoshop, I learned how to use filters and how to trace an image on Illustrator, as well as efficiently using the pen tool under a short amount of time.

The project also taught me how to design and compose a piece. I’ve done this before, but because the prompt of the project was very specific, I had to think both inside and outside the box, inside being that I make sure I follow the guidelines of the theme, but outside being that I make sure my piece was original and distinct from other pieces.

During the project, I learned quicker ways to illustrate and layer my colors, as suggested by a fellow classmate. Going light to dark helps create depth and pinpoint where exactly you want to place your shadows as opposed to starting with a dark color first.

Since the duration of the Press Here project was a couple weeks long, I had the time to explore my process and fix mistakes wherever needed while mastering or practicing the skills I had then.

The second project, titled “System Map” was essentially how it sounded—illustrating a cohesive map that portrayed a system that was meaningful to us. It did not necessarily have to be a structured system, rather we were told to illustrate our understanding of the system. I chose my religion, Islam, because that’s what I know best about. I decided to create a map based on the 5 pillars of Islam. Though the 5 pillars themselves aren’t a complicated, interconnected system where one pillar is broken into branches, the pillars are in a fixed order and are the foundations of the religion.

Originally, I thought we were supposed to illustrate an entire map online and in detail, which I was worried about considering we only had 2 weeks to do so. Nonetheless, I researched different types of maps as well as Islamic art, such as architecture and geometrical designs. I also looked into calligraphy in the hopes that I could either design a phrase in Arabic or at least find a font that would do it for me, considering I wanted to incorporate Arabic writing into my map.

Aside from the project, the class itself teaches me to be organized. We have a folder dedicated to the course, and in that folder, I create a folder for each project and subfolders for the references.

During the planning process, we had a speed final where we were to design a map of our theme in one hour. Since I had done my research and reference hunting before class, I had a good idea of what I wanted to start out with. However, one hour is never enough for a cohesive design, so I tried my best to make sure I incorporated the requirements, like the key legend.

The color palette used for my speed final.

Although the speed final was for practice purposes, the time crunch and pressure taught me composition under a short amount of time. I didn’t have the luxury to think anything out, I simply had to do it. I chose to draw traditionally because it was quicker by hand and I was able to take elements from different references and put them in one. By the time the speed final was over, I created a simple but solid map that included my 5 pillars/components, a basic design, and a key legend with universally recognized icons.

All in all, I think the best thing I’ve learned so far in this class were composition skills. The speed final helped me compose a piece quickly, completely from scratch with no visual representation or thinking beforehand. Though the Press Here project was more of a solid project with a final product, the System map assignment was a good way to test my thinking and designing skills, and the pressure of an hour-long deadline had my adrenaline going and taught me how to allocate my time properly. The sudden transition from a 2-week assignment to an hour-long assignment was nerve-wracking at first, but it gave me an opportunity to go out of my comfort zone, which is what I had wanted out of this class.

Project End Post: Press Here

This piece is all about tactility. In other words, it challenges me, as an artist, to create a piece of art that describes my definition of touch to the point that when viewers can feel the texture when they see it. The good thing about tactility is that it’s very versatile—texture comes in the form of many things and encourages us to use our sense of touch whenever possible. If done correctly, an artwork portraying texture can trigger a viewer’s sense of touch with one look.

One of my early inspirations for the piece—this is an illustration I’ve done in my leisure time, but when I thought of texture, I was brought back to seafoam and the flow of water.

Since there were many ways to go about it, I had to narrow it down to the first thing I thought of. When I hear the word texture, I think of water—waves in particular. Waves are designed in such a way that from a distance, they look solid and voluminous. Yet if I were to pass a hand through it, I wouldn’t necessarily feel a solid group, I’d only feel its cooling touch. The same goes for raindrops. There are countless professional shots of rain and dewdrops falling off leaves and at first, we’re inclined to think that it’s a solid matter, but in reality, it’s liquid.

Initially, I thought I’d go for a more three-dimensional route, like how I did with the illustration on the right. I thought I could work with the texture of waves and the multiple layers of water used, as well as the seafoam on top. Looking back, I was more focused on waves itself than breaking down the elements of a wave, whether that be the colors, direction, or just how I thought it felt like. Talking it over with Professor Nell showed me that I wasn’t actually aiming for texture, rather, I just wanted to draw waves instead. Professor Nell explained how I could break a wave down into physical traits, and that’s where I got a better idea.

I’ve always wondered what the interior of water would look like, considering water is essentially transparent. But how does transparency work? Can it be illustrated? And to narrow that further, can I illustrate transparency using opaque colors, 2d shapes, and flat coloring?

A close-up shot of water in real life, you can see the ripples of the water are similar to the ripples of a sand dune.

There’s only so much I can do with flat coloring before I’d want to resort to a more substantial method, like painting. Painting would’ve been a better way to capture the tactility of water and I’d have been able to blend colors together to mimic transparency. However, I wanted to challenge myself to use flat colors and 2d shapes. What can I do to mimic transparency without having to blend colors? Would I lower the opacity of the shapes? Or should I layer colors together? I had many questions.

This artwork by meyoco was a prime example of how I wanted to execute my piece. However, I wanted to pay closer attention to the details of water rather than just drawing it occupying a shape. However, this drawing helped me envision water molding into a certain shape without being contained.
This artwork by tofuvi is a better example of my vision. The only difference being that I wasn’t aiming for waves anymore, so I omitted the idea of seafoam and sand in my work. What I wanted to capture was essentially the layering of rich colors.

Drawing the elements of water wasn’t enough to show tactility. If anything, how would viewers associate the elements, such as colors and direction, with water? Their mind could resort to something other than water. In order to draw a closer between water and its physical traits, I decided I should illustrate the elements in the shape of something that isn’t water, and that could be a three-dimensional shape like a sphere, a cylinder, etc. It’s a similar concept as a water bottle, except the content of a water bottle is typically one color. Plus, I didn’t intend to draw a shape encasing the water. Rather, the water would encase a shape.

Using the techniques I’ve learned with alcohol ink, I did a couple of thumbnail sketches to put my ideas to paper. This was very quick and casual, almost meaningless in a way. I tried not to think too hard about it, I just wanted to see if I could layer similar inks together to achieve transparency. Since the inks are opaque and dark, transparency was a little out of reach, but the least I could do was illustrate the dimensions and depth of water.

Aside from the 3d shape idea, I wanted to include an object, or in this case, a pair of objects, that could accentuate the tactility of water. My best bet were hands. Since water can’t technically be held the way we can hold a solid object, adding hands holding the sphere of water would bring the texture out further and would could urge viewers to feel the illustration.

Very first attempt at the drawing. I wanted the hands to completely hold the sphere of water as if it were a solid ball, and then fill the empty sphere with water so that it’d look like the hands were directly holding the water instead of a clear bowl of the sort.

The problem with my first approach was that the hands were too flat and two-dimensional. There was no depth, no texture to them, and even if I were to execute the sphere of water nicely, the lifeless hands would throw them off. I don’t really have much experience with lighting and composition of body parts like hands, so I didn’t know where to add shadows. If I added shadows, what color would it be? How do I determine the color of a shadow for various skin colors? I searched up skin color palettes created by other illustrators, but to my luck, no amount of matching colors together made the drawing look good or even remotely dimensional. So I scrapped the entire drawing, even though it took up my weekend to do.

The next thing I had to do was study lighting and where it falls on hands. Though real life references and shots of my own hands could help, I wanted a digital breakdown of hands. I doubted I would be able to understand lighting through still life photography—I needed to see it through layer of colors and understand the placement.

I found many useful references that let me understand how lighting plays a role in tactility, but unfortunately, I couldn’t trace the original source of these drawings. Every reverse Google image search sourced back to a Pinterest reposter, but I’m very glad I discovered these. These references helped me layer a multitude of colors to portray lighting, and at first, it kind of looked like a gradation of different skin tones, but one of my classmates said she could see the hands in the final product were glowing, so it’s safe to say I executed lighting well.

Choosing a background color for the hands. I wanted aa pastel yellow or peach, but after drawing in the water, I thought the yellow didn’t bring out the water too well.

After studying the lighting and hand references, drawing the hands and filling in each layer of color was tedious, but not difficult. It took a few hours, only because I wanted to be accurate as possible with the shapes. I spoke to one of my classmates about the pen tool and if there was any way to color efficiently. Unfortunately, in terms of speeding up the lining process, she didn’t know if there was a feature or tool that could help. However, she told me the trace feature worked if I had a sketch or colored work handy. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a colored composition of my hands as I had already planned to complete it digitally, but I played around with the feature just to see how it worked. The trace tool essentially put a filter over an image, some filters making it look more painted, while others made it look like a colored sketch. It was definitely helpful when it came to understanding the layering and placement of my opaque colors, but it wasn’t the tool I was going for.

Now that the hands were done, it was time to tackle the water. As most artists, I didn’t have a solid plan, my approach was to just go at it and figure along the way. The only thing I had prepared were my color palettes. Even though mint is my favorite color, I rarely work with it in my compositions, so this was a first and coloring felt therapeutic. Preparing and researching color balance helped me envision which colors to use to achieve that transparency I wanted.

This piece by tofuvi played a large role in how I layered my colors. I paid attention to where the lighting was placed, where the depth was illustrated, and what colors would work best with my drawing.

The good thing about water is that it does’t have a fixed shape, and since it’s dynamic, I could go about it any way and it would still resemble water. Which is why I wasn’t too concerned about having accurate, defined shapes. I figured the more abstract my shapes were, the more cohesive the bigger picture would look. The distorted, abstract structure of the shapes would illustrate the fluidity of water better. And I realized that it wasn’t necessary to lower the opacity of the shapes after I was done. If I layered the colors and placed them accordingly, it would slowly build on the ‘transparent’ element.

A close-up of my layering. I went light to dark, meaning I’d create light shapes first then shadow it in with darker colors. That was easier to keep track of, and I was able to pinpoint where exactly I wanted to add depth.

As per my classmate’s suggestion, I colored light to dark for both the hands and the water. One pro of this was even if I colored an entire shape light (when it’s not meant to be entirely light) I can easily add another layer of a darker color over and it would show through. Had I done dark to light, it would’ve been a little inconvenient as I’d constantly have to bring the specific shape forward, using CMD + shift + [.

Coloring the QR code in via Photoshop

For the QR code, changing it was pretty simple. I changed it a couple of times, but settled for a peach in my first draft. I set the QR image under a transparent layer and deleted the white background before coloring the black in. The reason I colored it peach was because I wanted the QR code to act as a tattoo on the wrist of the right hand.

The original placement of the QR code was at the wrist.

The first version of this piece is a little than the current, official one. For one thing, there’s a lot of unoccupied white space, cause the water to be less of a focus and more of the background. Due to the large space, the water wasn’t emphasized enough and viewers couldn’t necessarily zero in on the water. Secondly, the placement of the QR code was forced, and I wasn’t satisfied with it when I first submitted the piece. Thankfully, I had time to fix it and place it in a more subtle way, one that doesn’t fit with the narrative of the story.

Version 1 of Press Here.

After the critique, the adjustments I made were as followed:

  • Cropping the piece enough where the focal point is the sphere of water, and not anywhere else. That also includes sacrificing a bit of the hands, but cropping them will also let viewers see more details of the hands as well.
  • Fix the QR code, whether it be changing the color and also the placement. It doesn’t have to fit the narrative or work with the theme I’m going for. As long as it complements the work and serves its purpose, it can be on its own.
  • Fixing the dimensions so that it’s exactly at 11 x 17 in. with a dpi of 300.
Final version of my Press Here project.

After cropping and zeroing in on the details of both the water and the hands, making sure to capture the droplets as well (they play a role in recognizing that this is indeed a liquid matter) and revamping the QR code into a two-tone pattern, it’s safe to say this is my final product. I made sure to resize it accordingly so that it still fits the required dimensions.

I prefer the current version more than the first one because I can actually see the emphasis on the water and the texture of the hands. The layering is easily seen and can be appreciated more. The reduction of white space brings the viewers closer.

Overall, I had a great time working on this. It challenged my boundaries, I was able. todo the unthinkable (at lest, I thought it was unthinkable) and I worked with objects, lighting, and colors I don’t normally work with. I was able to learn lighting and composition better just through reference photos and I practiced layering opaque colors to build an optical illusion, while working with concepts like refraction and dynamics. The word I’d use to describe this piece is dynamic, after all.

art 460: MILESTONE 1

This is a subdomain dedicated to ART 460, a course that I’m taking this semester. The subdomain contains the messy space of my work, including reference photos, ideas, and a lot of images. The posts in that category are mostly casual, as it’s a safe space where I can dump reference photos for future use or reference. The second part of this subdomains will contain detailed process logs of my final work, including future milestones. These process logs will include images and screenshots of my works in progress, thoughts and insight during the process, and a final piece. The final process logs will then be transferred to my main digital portfolio and a gallery I am working on in my personal time.

The reason why I’m taking ART 460 is that I am very interested in digital design, whether it be in the form of graphic design or digital art. In a modern era full of technology, digital design and digital skills are very crucial and with these skills that I’ve developed in these past art courses, I’m able to use them for personal use, such as photography and art, but also apply them in my business classes, internships, marketing, as well as my job as a CDVL tutor. Art 460 is an independent, paced course where I create assignments that will portray the skills I’ve developed. I enjoy having creative freedom in an assignment and I find that it really brings the best out of my creativity and helps me gain new skills in the process.

What I expect or hope to achieve by the end of this course are new skills, ones that are different from my current skillset, so that I can apply them as a tutor and for future use. I know a good amount of Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, but I’m wondering if I can push those further and get out of my comfort zone. There’s so much to Illustrator I’m not aware of that I’d love to tackle, whether it be through an assignment or a class. I also expect to create artwork I can show on my professional digital portfolio, including a gallery of my artwork during my years at college. Though art is a hobby of mine, it’s a huge part of my identity that I want to show to future employers and potentially use them in a future internship.

Brainstorming: Reference Photo Dump

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