New Banner - Process

Before I began working on a new banner, I had to decide on an image that would reflect my work and the personality of my work and thought process.

Towards the end of August I had done a small animation to learn After Effects. The result was an animation of a bird astronaut climbing into the mouth of a human astronaut and flying the astronaut head towards a distant planet. My favorite shot that I had worked on was a close up of the bird in his helmet flying towards the surface of the planet, with the surface being reflected on his vizor as he got closer.

Knowing this was my image I brought it into Photoshop added text and began to play.




My first banner was the basic set up. Bringing in my elements to understand how they would play together.



Having converted the image to black and white, I began laying the text over the image. This resulted in the look of cutting the letters out of the bird image.



I then used the text as a cut out, removing it from the image and laying the image textured text to the right of the bird. I achieved the look I had hoped for but didn't care for the repetition of my name.



I reversed the cut out to make a mirrored image of my name, creating a more interesting interplay between the image and the text.

From Concept to Finished Product - Obstacles

If theres anything to take away from the craziness of this week's classes it's that from concept to work of art you are bound to have road blocks and obstacles. The stubborn artist muscles through to create as close a product to the concept as possible. My sculptor professor told me the true artist works his concept around that obstacle, works with it, and changes their concept. Thats the true artist, and that is a true piece of art.

If I didn't believe him right away I certainly believe him now. Both of my current projects in sculpture and print media have both had their share of obstacles and both have seen serious amounts of change from the initial concept. And the changes are for the best, it has allowed me to review my idea and make it truer than in my original idea.

Sometimes facing obstacles and making changes equals out to more time spent on a piece, but who says thats a bad thing. If you hate your idea and your work by the time you've finished it, then chances are no one else will like your work. But if you can work through from an idea to a finished product and still feel strongly about your work then it will reflect in your work and the piece will become more interesting to the viewer.