Please note that post was created for the Mixed Media and Digital Processes class, taken at Singapore American School during the academic year 2020-2021 in the first semester (Aug 2020-Dec 2020).
September 18 2020
Interviews, Marbling Paper
After being briefed on the premise of this project, we got into pairs and began filling out the "getting to know you" document. The document had 70 questions in total and the task was to answer at least 5 of them. The questions became slightly repetitive, so I only answered 35 of them for my partner. She answered 15 which was plenty and gave me a lot of freedom to work with.
I noticed that she answered that she was a night owl, which gave me the idea for the background. I plan to make a starry night sky in the forest (she answered "nature" to the "what do you think is beautiful" question).
I was lucky and had the first "shift" with the marbling inks. I tried to swirl black, blue, and some green together to match the color palette of the Northern Lights, but it didn't turn out the way I had hoped. The teacher mentioned that the colors would be muted, giving us the opportunity to go into photoshop and play around with the saturation and tint of the colors. I think that if I were to use this piece as the background, I'd only use the top part and incorporate some green using the brush tool in photoshop.
September 22 2020
Cyanotype, Photographs, Editing
I started the class period with testing out the cyanotype paper. This was the first time I every "painted" with light on paper instead of through photography. This reminded me of light paintings I make with a flash light and a long exposure camera shoot. I made two prints, but the second one didn't turn out the way I hoped, so I decided to go with the first one since it fit with the night theme.
After the cyanotype paper, we were able to take photos of our person. I experimented with different photo techniques and wanted to go for a dramatic look (although I did experiment with an almost fully lit model). Since these were just test shots, I just wanted to use today as a chance to experiment. I feel rather confident in my ability to light and play with shadows since I have to do that regularly in my films, so the skills were easily transferrable. The high contrast look at the bottom was exactly what I was looking for, so I decided to use that photo next class for the photoshop component.
I spent a little time editing the marbleised paper that I had done last class. I saturated the colors to make them richer and saw that my first attempt of the marbleised paper (far left) came out way better than I had intended. I also liked the blue one (far right) and I think I'll try to combine them.
September 24 2020
Photoshop, Photographs, Writing
The majority of my work today was completed on photoshop. I imported the image I liked the most of my model and created a gradient, going from 60% transparency to 80% and then 100%. I then imported my black and blue marbleised paper behind the portraits, and imported the cyanotype pattern above it. I thought it looked a bit boring so I added in a new layer with the second marbelised paper, replacing the holes in the large stars with the blue marbled pattern.
I wanted to switch up portrait a little bit, so I decided to take some more photos of my model. These portraits had a lower contrast which didn't appeal to me as much as I had liked it to. I still like the photoshopped version I created, so I think I'll stick with the original photo and edit it.
... we're not gonna talk about this...
I was overly confident in my handwriting...
Anyways. I'm definitely going to reprint this and use the photoshop fonts and do some tracing using the white gel pen.
September 24 2020
Photoshop, Writing, Printing
Once I came into class, I immediately converted the text to photoshop text instead of my handwriting. After I did that and started to work on the printed copy... I noticed I had spelled "definitely" wrong. I spelled it "definately". Which did not show up a typo on photoshop. That made me reprint the copy and restart my pen-work, which was beyond irritating, but I finished it up.
The following image is the final JPEG image of this portrait project.
The following video is how it looks like on photo paper :)
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