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.