Ready to Install

I had my work printed at Officeworks and it is a glossy poster AO size.  I am thrilled with the results and think it is big enough to not be lost on the wall.  I have decided to make sound the second element to my installation and will play Darth Vader breathing sounds on an ipod.  I found this video of Darth Vader breathing sounds on You Tube.  It is just Darth breathing for three minutes, which is all I need for my installation.

Now to the printers

Although Cornelius told me that probably the most boring thing I could do with this work would be to print it out, I have decided that this is exactly what I want to do, but I will print it out in a large format and look at adding another element to it like sound or lighting.

This is my final image with added prison bars.  I don't want the bars to be the focus however, so I have played around with the opacity to make them blend in a bit more by making them see through.  Now I'm off to get it printed!

Almost there!

I think I am almost there now but I now need to think about how to install this work.

Here is what I have now:

I still think that it needs something more but I'm just not sure what yet....

Oh how I envy you

Photoshop is very, very time consuming when you have had no experience with it whatsoever.  It has taken a great deal of time to get my image to this:

How I envy those with Photoshop experience right now.  Of course, the more I am using it the better I am getting at remembering short cuts etc.  It took a while to work out how to inverse the picture so that I could delete the background and not the focus of the image but I will never forget how to do this now!

Digital Artists

Looking at digital artists has been very interesting and a little mind blowing in the process too.  Besides Sonia Falcone, whom I have taken a very strong liking to, I have also been a little besotted by the work of Italian artist Daniel Gay and Aussie Justin Maller and found a fascinating piece by Frederik Pietschmann.

This work by Daniel Gay is titled "Positronic Self Portrait".

I think this work is incredibly life like and perhaps a reflection of where life is taking us?  Will we one day be part man, part machine?  Our lives are so full of electronic devices and computerised equipment that it will probably make sense to integrate them into our own bodies in the future.

Daniel Gay trained as an illustrator and now specialises in computer graphics with a great deal of works focusing on a sci-fi or fantasy theme.








This work by Frederik Pietschmann is titled "Why so happy meal?"

I just love this work.  Taking the famous Ronald character from the world's beloved fast food chain and turning it into something dark is a great idea.  We all know that too much junk food is bad for you and using the Joker with the tag line "Why so happy meal?" makes you question why kids are so happy with their little happy meal of fat!









Finally, Justin Maller's work is incredible.
Visit his website here : http://justinmaller.com/
He was asked what art provides him and what it is about looking at, making and experiencing art that he loves.  He said that he prefers not to over think it and appreciates work from a technical point of view.  He likes art that takes a lot of skill to create and art that has a part of the artist in it.  He believes that you can see and feel an artists soul in visual work.
He was also asked what he hopes to achieve and express with his own work.  Justin describes his work as stuff that makes him happy and gives him a sense of satisfaction.

                         "I want to play on my computer for a few days, give my subconscious
                         a chance to run around, my conscious mind some time to concentrate
                         and play the solitary, shallow craft I have spent a decade honing and at
                         the end of the day have something cool to show for it.  If it challenges
                         me, goes somewhere unexpected, and it looks good and when I'm done
                         with it, then I feel good about it."

I have an idea

I was looking over all the images that I had chosen that could be a part of my work and trying to work out what to do with them.  Here are some of the images I have been looking at:

 It occurred to me that I can create a scene incorporating these sorts of images, but one that doesn't totally spell out what I am trying to say.  I now see an image of a backyard with a washing line and on the line hangs the mask, the underwear and a Pinocchio puppet.  To incorporate the fridge, I think I could perhaps have the washing line attached to it.  I will have a play in Photoshop and see what happens.

If at first...

I began working on my Adamson/Pinocchio piece in class today and it took some time to navigate around Photoshop to start with and I had to ask a fellow student for a few pointers a couple of times too.  I eventually got to this stage.

Then, I had my chat with Cornelius : ), who once again enlightened me as to where I was going wrong!  It is far too obvious to simply put Peter's face on to Pinocchio's body and I should focus on the images of the ill gotten gains.  They are intriguing and I need to remember that I don't always have to spell it out.  I always seem to forget this and go straight to the point.  So it's back to the drawing board, or Photoshop screen once again and time to start over.  A bit of a frightening thought when the work is due in two weeks time and I haven't got any ideas...I'm actually feeling a little overwhelmed.

Would I lie to you?

It's late on a Sunday evening and I have come to the conclusion that I don't think I have enough time to bring my original idea to fruition, to the standard that I would like, being such a newbie to digital art and Photoshop etc.

I have once again been combing through well known images on the net when I found Pinocchio.

This got me thinking about the elections coming up in Darwin and all the lies in politics.  It also reminded me about a classic political story that eventuated when I first arrived in Darwin.
The then Mayor, Peter Adamson was accused and convicted of using council funds to purchase a refrigerator, a Darth Vader voice changer mask and some women's underwear.  I thought it quite fitting that the former "Lord Mayor" would be undone by a Darth Vader the "Dark Lord" mask!

In my head I can see Peter's face on the body of Pinnochio, trying to tell Jiminy Cricket that he hasn't done anything wrong, despite holding a Darth Vader mask and women's underwear in his hands...

How to be a digital artist

I've searched and searched the net, and found a work by Stu Nankivell called "Woomera - The People Behind The Rockets".  He won the Library Hack prize for this comedic digital art work.

Whadyaknow? How to be a digital artist - ABC North and West SA - Australian Broadcasting Corporation

This is along the lines of what I was hoping to do for my project.  I'm just not confident about getting the outcome that I want.

Assessment 1

Ok, so my first idea is to take some old well known black and white photos and 'Darwinise' them by adding a voice over that relates to Darwin.  I came up with this idea after looking at lots of old photos and finding this one of Howard Hughes:

I imagine Howard saying something like "What do you mean you couldn't get a croc pic?", since the NT News always seems to have a picture of a crocodile somewhere.
I have found many images that I think could be useful including these:

I'm just not sure about animating their mouths or making a voice over.  Of course, this is something I have never done before.  I think I need to try and find if any one has done this kind of thing before and how they went about it.