Category: Digital Arts 1

In this weeks session on Photoshop we recapped selection tools and learnt some more advanced ones and applied these to making a digital collage.

Some classic selection tools that we revisited where the lasso tool, polygon lasso tool and magnetic lasso tool. These are useful but sometimes don’t give very precise selections. There’s also the object selection tool, quick selection tool and magic wand tool. I used a combination of these tools to help make my digital collage.

I went on Pixabay and chose this photo of an astronaut and a drawing of a bouquet of flowers. These are the 2 images I used to make the collage.

First I pasted both images into separate layers on Photoshop. I tried different classic selection tools to get the rose and butterflies that I wanted from the picture. I found that the most useful for this was the object selection tool as it gave me the cleanest edges. Once selected I copied them into new layers. The, using free transform I moved them to where I wanted them to be in relation to the astronaut. In order to make them fit properly I selected parts using the lasso tool and removed them. A new way of selecting that we leant was by going to the selection menu and choosing colour range. This allows you to select all the parts of a specific colour this will be a useful tool for future work but I didn’t need it for this collage. Another way is by using quick masks. You click the quick mask button, at the bottom of the tool bar and you’ll know it’s activated when the layer appears red. Then by using the brush tool you go over the part of the image you want to select, this is useful as it gives as softer edge to a selected object.

For each individual layer with the newly selected parts on, I added an adjustment layer and created a clipping mask. These are very useful as they allow you to non destructively add adjustments to select parts of an image. I adjusted the brightness, saturation, hue and contrast until I got the effect I wanted. For the rose I also changed the blend mode so it fit better with the helmets reflective surface.

I used the same process to add more of the bouquet to the image. Overall, I’m happy with the outcome as it used a range of different selection tool to achieve the digital collage. Each selection tool has it own purpose and properties tat make it useful. I learnt how to use quick masks, clipped masks and colour selection as well as improving my skills with the classic selection tools. I think the clipping masks will be especially helpful for future work as they will speed up the work flow in a non destructive way.

Digital collage isn’t something that I’ve experimented with before but I do like the style. In particular, I like the work of Natasha Chomko and Gary Hoang, 2 artists who specialise in digital collages. I like the aesthetic of their work and how they layer images to create their compositions.

My essay for this module comments on the differences between traditional handmade work and digital work. Collage is an art style that is very traditional art style that has recently been done digitally. While I like digital collages, I think it is limited by by the lack of texture that a handmade collage has. Digital collages are usually more refined and detailed because image sizes and layouts are easier to manipulate. I think both techniques have their benefits but I personally still prefer the aesthetic of a hand made collage.

In preparation for our second Illustrator session, I practiced what we did last week to create a portrait. I used a combination of different tools, including the shape tool, pen tool and arc tool. After creating the portrait I changed some of the line colours.

The focus of this weeks session was using the pen tool as its one of the more tricky tools to use in Illustrator. We did some practice tasks such as making simple lines, curved lines, arcs and rectangles all using the pen tool. When I became comfortable will the tool and how to manipulate it I made this simple outlined portrait design of Loki. All the lines used the pen tool, once I had draw the lines I further manipulated them by changing the stroke colour, thickness and shape. I made sure to reduce the number of anchor points to create smoother lines.

This piece is a more detailed image but used the same principles and the Loki one. I made the lines vary in thickness, colour and shape to make the portrait more interesting. The pen tool is difficult to understand and manipulate but I’m happy with the outcome of this weeks session as I’ve made progress with the tool. I’ll continue to practice with it as I an see how this software will be good for doing vector imagery which is something i’d like to explore.

Vector imagery is an art style that I enjoy and would like to create. Illustrator will be the best tool I’ve explored so far to do this style.

This week we learnt the basics of Adobe Illustrator and used it to design characters from simple shapes. In preparation for the session I watched the tutorial videos which went over the basics of the software. Similarly to the other Adobe software you first have to select the canvas size and type that you want. Once open, it has a similar user interface as Photoshop and Indesign.

These are the cherries that I made. For this task we were only using simple shapes as a way of creating objects and characters. The cherries are made of simple shapes shapes as rectangles, circles and a triangle. In order to do this I used the different shape tools.After drawing the shapes I manipulated them by using the selection and direct selection tools. Also I used the fill tool to change the colour and stroke tool to adjust the thickness. One key thing was arranging the shapes so the ones you wanted to fully see were at the front.

After doing the cherries, which where basic in their composition, I moved onto doing an otter and koala. The shapes of these animals where more complicated and required me to manipulated the shapes more. Both animals where mostly made up of rectangles and circles. I used the colour swatches panel to add colour and changed the stroke size to 0 in order to remove the outlines. I began to combine shapes using the pathfinder tool to create more complex shapes.

I’m happy with the animals I made as I think I was able to manipulate simple shapes to create characters and have become more familiar with the basics of Adobe Illustrator.

After last weeks session learning about how to paint with greyscale tones digitally we now moved onto painting with colour, specifically looking at how colours interact with light and how this can affect the mood of a piece.

These digital pieces are heavily inspired by traditional oil paintings. In my essay I compare traditional techniques to digital work. I’ve found that digital painting is a faster process than traditional painting as there are useful tool like the eyedropper tool and pre set brushes which streamline the process.

I really enjoyed this weeks session about painting digitally with colour on Photoshop. I think I was successful in this weeks session and am happy with the pieces I produced. For the most part I used the same tools and techniques and the greyscale work but found it more enjoyable to work with colour. This is a technique I will definitely continue to use as I think it’s a good way of creating colourful and striking illustrations.

In preparation for this weeks session of photoshop I watched the tutorial which talked about lighting and tone and how to paint digitally using different brushes. I then made my own digital painting on an apple using those techniques. I’m happy with the outcome as I think i was able to manipulate the brushes and shades to show the shadows ad highlights of the object. The shading wasn’t as smooth as I would have wanted so I want to learn how to achieve a glossier finish.

This week we focused on the brush tool and how to effectively use it to add tonal values to an object. In order to do this we had to use the selection tools that we learnt the previous week. I improved my understanding of the relationship between and object and a light source which will help me with my art in general as this is a key aspect of drawing. I started to get more comfortable using the brush tools and testing out the different brush options as well as settings such as hardness and opacity. After leaning about this method of shading I still prefer hand drawn shading as I feel that I have more control of shade and texture.

Photoshop week 3

In this session I further developed my skills on photoshop, with a more directed focus on composition and colouring. Prior to the lesson I watched a couple tutorial videos which helped me understand the basics. during the session, I experimented with lots of tools and techniques on different images of my work.

For this piece I selected the image using the object select tool and inverted it so I could fill just the background using the paint bucket tool. Then using the lasso selection tool I selected different parts of the eyes and filled them in with 2 different shades of red.

This weeks learning built on the basics that we did in the first session. We started to learn about layers, layer mask and the other frequently used tools such as the different selection options. I found some of the more difficult especially neatly selecting an object or part of an object but I began to get more confident with it. The tools we learnt will come in helpful when I want to edit a drawing to add new elements or experiment with colour or composition options.

Digital Skills Week 2

In this task I used Adobe Photoshop to edit and clean up my art to an industry standard so they’re ready to publish and share. I scanned my art using a scanner I had at home and this was to image I chose to edit.

This is the final image. As you can see the image looks much cleaner and more professional after the photoshop editing.

I found that using the basic tools photoshop fairly straight forward and was able to successfully clean up my sketches to a good standard. This was helpful to learn as I can use it across the modules and the work I do outside of university to help make my images look neater and more presentable.