During the in class photography
assignment I spent a lot of time getting reacquainted with my camera. Having
gone to photography camp for a few summers, I did not want to let myself settle
for the automatic settings on the camera and wanted to push myself to set
everything up myself. I knew this would be more challenging, but ultimately
would result in a better image and be more rewarding. It took me a few minutes
to remember where and how to adjust every setting that needed to be on the
camera and how to do so correctly. This left me with little opportunity to take
as many images as I would have liked to. The image I chose to show in class was
a photograph of a mural on the wall in the basement of Teachers College. When thinking
about the reasons why I found this image interesting I realized it was because
I had photographed a section of a piece of art. I was interested in choices of
shape, line and color that the artist used. I didn’t want to use this image for
the homework assignment because I felt it wasn’t right to be using someone
else’s artistic creation. So I decided to go around after class and shoot
images of things that caught my eye like we were assigned to do in class.
The image I
chose to use is of the leg of a vibrantly colored table. The leg of the table
has an interesting shape to it that I found intriguing. Also, the bright blue
color really caught my eye and demanded my intention. The way the table sort of
curves or waves into the leg was aesthetically pleasing to me, so I felt this
would be a good image to work with. When thinking about what kind of creative
response I could make to this photograph the two mediums that came to mind were
digital painting and photography. I am very interested in digital painting
after the assignment we did last week and have been actively seeking
opportunities to implement it into my artistic practice. Photography used to be
one of my main forms of artistic expression but over the years I ventured more
into the realm of painting. I have been meaning to get back into photography
and felt responding to this assignment with more photography would be a good
way to do so. The ideas I came up with are described below.
Idea One: Digital Painting
Using the
image as a jumping off point, I would like to create a digital painting that incorporates
the formal qualities of the table. I would like to create something entirely
new based on the table leg so that it is unrecognizable what the image
originated from but still consists of the formal elements of shape and color.
Idea Two: Digital Photography
The shape
and color of the table leg really stood out to me. I would like to use
photography to capture images of more objects with similar qualities (vibrant
color, interesting shapes). Through editing and combining the images in
Photoshop, I would like to create an abstract work based on the different
colors and shapes.
Feedback:
When
explaining the two ideas to my sister, Erin, she was very interested in the
digital painting approach. Erin said that she knew about photography but didn’t
know anything about digital painting and is intrigued by it. She was interested
in how I could use this photographic image as a source of inspiration/starting
point for a digital artwork and was curious what the outcome for this would be.
After getting Erin’s feedback I decided to go with the digital painting
approach. I was interested in what the outcome would be myself, since I really
had no plan for what I was going to create, while with the photography approach,
I had a general idea of what the end result would look like. Digital painting
felt like a more adventurous approach that I could really have fun playing
around with different ideas.
Image taken in class of mural 
Image of table leg used for assignment
When beginning to think of how I could create a digital painting based off of this photograph I thought about the formal qualities of the image. The shape of the table leg, its blue color, as well as the brown background, I wanted to have somehow incorporated in the final piece. The shape of the leg and the vertical lines within it reminded me of a waterfall rushing down. I then got the idea that the surrounding brown background could be the color of mountains. This is how I came up with my creative response. I tried to keep the shape and colors of the leg as well as the central placement in the composition to mimic that of the original photograph.
Video Time Lapse of Process
Final Piece
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