Final...

This final had to tell a story of our choosing and for me i love the Mad Hater so i went with an Alice theme. This piece was one of my favorites to do by far. I was able to figure out most of the things i wanted to do with out too much trouble...All the images in the piece are from my own collection. I only used 2 pictures from the net and the rest are from my camera. I really tried to make it an organized chaos. i wanted everyone to have to follow the picture around finding all the items in the picture.

Luck...

This weeks Assignment was based on Fortune and Lottery...I did some research on Fortune and one thing i found that was interesting was that the Native Americans used the "swastika" before it became the "swastika" to them it was a Symbol of Life, Love, Luck, and Light. the idea for the piece came right in my head. The idea that something that stood for something nice and peaceful could be ruined forever. In the top half of the picture i used various Indian items including a picture i scanned from a book of a chief. I placed the Swastika in the middle but in the position of Indian design. I placed the Horseshoe and heart close and used four leaf clovers and gold coins. I wanted to give the feeling of warmth in the top half of the picture. in the bottom half i used images from the other side of the coin. I used a picture from the Holocaust statue and a star of David that was worn during the period. I included flames and a few sinister figures and a Nazi symbol.
I hope this piece doesn't offend anyone because it was not intended to be offensive!

The Second Piece is about lottery and in doing research i found tons of images of old Italian lottery games and on each of these was  pictures of Snakes, clowns, barrels, death, Rosters, Crowns etc....they were all in 9 blocked off mini portraits so i went with that theme. I know this pieces is a bit messy however, i really spent a ton of time on this learning the smudge, Blur, tools and other tools that i hadn't used up to this point. I was able to make some real nice effects i like in this photo and others not so much.

Landscapes

This Project was to make to a couple of landscapes. I choose to make my landscapes "family" themed. I did this for a few reasons but one was to show my wife that I'm not completely sick and demented. For the first landscape i choose a picture from Hawaii. it is off a ledge with the Ocean. I have added a bench that is in french lick and then added a picture of a flower that was taken from the house. I made the flowers form a staircase down to a sign that reads "Family one of God's Greatest Masterpieces" In the upper corner i placed another flower and made it look like it was the light source for the picture.

The second picture is of the Chicago Skyline i cut off the bottom of the buildings and the foreground of the picture and added an ocean picture. I then added about four rock formations to act as a transition between the ocean and the buildings. I then used children's blocks to spell out my childrens names and place them on the faces of the sky scrapers. I then linked all the letters of the names and made copies then flipped the copy to look like reflections on the water. I used perspective, skew, distortion to make the reflections look like they were from the moon that i added from a camping trip.

The Noble and the Wretched

The two words i used are the Noble and the Wretched. for the these two pieces i was trying to show how the two view each other. So for the noble picture i have the "wretched" in the center and he is bieng looked at with eyes that want to save him.

there are eyes in the bottom layer transparent, it is actually one eye duplicated and flipped...I have the "wretched" in the middle with a halo over his head and standing on a pile of skulls. On each side i have two angels looking up. I put light behind the center figure and also from his feet and head. I have two pictures with two different types of color and lighting. one darker and one lighter.

For the second piece i did the view of the noble from the eyes of the Wretched. In this one the noble is zesus and the Wretched view him with hate and want to kill him. in the background is a blacked out tree behind that is a sky that is greyed out i put the light source behind the tree and gave it a glow effect. I took a large grim reaper and removed his reaper...i wanted them to look like they were in battle and that there was some type of deflected magic...

Fortune cookies

This was our Second Project and we had to do it based off  of a random Fortune cookie. I recieved the Fortune "Your Words inspire Others". Those words took me straight to coaching. Coaching has changed my life and to be honest if it wasnt for me walking out on the football field i wouldnt be in the class room today.

In the Picture is some players in different posses...I made them shadows and added about 5 players. I have also added our Football logo and mascot a Dragon. The Dragon is a picture from a sculpture i have at home and the pictures are from this season. the two people in the picture are my son nathan and myself. I have all of the pictures sitting on a space background that i resized to make the brightest part to look like fire from the dragons mouth.

My first Project

Here is my first picture i will add comments later..
Our first project was getting us use to using layers and how to blend images together. I prefer darker type art myself so I went with 4 layers total on this picture. The first layer is of some sinister looking Trees with a gate and a dark feel to it. I then added a tortured Soul in the middle of the gate. This is were I made some mistakes because I believe I had the picture blended nice but then I added the big skull in the center and it made the tortured soul very hard to see. My mistake came in when I flattened the soul into the background too soon. So in order to make the center stand out like I wanted I lost more than I wanted with the tortured figure in the skulls mouth. I added two other skulls into each corner. I cut these out from a skull I have at home and blended them into the back ground.

The Background is from old wallpaper I have had for years. The tortured soul and skulls came from items I took pictures of with my camera.

My First night...

This is my first night in the class and we are setting up our blog pages. This is just a test post to get things started....more to follow.