The Invisible
Photoshop
February 20, 2015
While putting together this montage I used a variety of different Photoshop techniques such as layer blends, opacity, and selection. While I didn't really use much new techniques it was a good refresher to allow me to remember the various techniques that are capable with Photoshop such as feathering. To leave off, I did use the content aware fill option which was pretty handy and fun.
The ideas that I originally intended to use was the unknown which I hope was able to carry into this montage piece. One of the things that I wanted to do for sure was use the concept of space and the deep sea, so I'm pretty happy I got to incorporate it. I actually did add some more things to what I originally thought such as making Pandora's box the main point, as well as incorporating other pieces of art into mine such as the Mouth of Truth and the hands from The Creation of Adam.
I'm not sure if a particular artist influenced my work, I was inspired by the fact that there are so many unknown things and curiosity. Although, I guess I was influenced by some of the paintings I used such as Michelangelo's Creation of Adam, the Mouth of Truth, and Waterhouse's Pandora.
I balanced the composition by making the Pandora's box image the focal point. I was able to use the differently sized images to wrap around the page to draw the viewer's eyes. I purposely made the sides asymmetrical and used the orange and yellow colors to pop out and draw the eyes from the blue, but also enhance it at the same time. I wanted the montage to have a sort of a slow and fluid movement around the page, I wanted the things to blend together and sort of spiral towards the center towards the greatest mystery.
My personal motivation of this assignment was to fine tune and practice my photoshop skills and artistic tastes. I also really wanted to try to incorporate the unknown into the picture as a sort of fun challenge for myself. I wanted to explore using underwater and the sky in the same piece because I really want to do something with that concept.
The elements I feel are the most interesting and successful would be the kid walking to the hole or entrance like thing. I really liked how the top right turned out with the faded fractal and the colors. I was kind of surprised with how I ended up using pictures of paintings as some of the main points, but I like how it ended up. I didn't think I was going to use the hands from the Creation of Adam but I remember that the creation of man is actually one of the largest unknowns, so I rolled with it. If I had more time I'd like to fool around with each layer and experiment with the opacity and size to improve the composition