Photoshop project… pick a famous person and use their name with an appropriate photo. Turn the letters into a shape and do all these annoying little things to make a beautiful picture.
A few tears later because of one little step I kept getting wrong…
BTW- Willie Shoemaker is only the greatest jockey that ever lived! He is shown here on Ferdinand.
This week we not only drew more muscle pictures, we were to choose something from our life or set up a still life. Jacob told me that drawing a skull would be a great excersize, so I borrowed a “medical skull” from my osteopath.
We are becoming a bit attached to him as he sits on the side table in the livingroom! Oh… and notice the names of the books, specifically chosen from Lainey’s library.
A little timely humor always helps even the most mundane activity! It was fun!
The Advanced Photoshop class is once again, quite painful. However, this week we had an interesting activity in which we took an old photo and cleaned it up using masks, levels, brushes, etc.
I took an old photo of my Grandma’s kitchen from the 1950s. Once I had restored it, I felt a wave of nostalgia at the old items that came back to life, the colors, and even with the pixelation, the images of relatives from 50 years past. I love looking at the details of old photos… the rug crumpled up under my uncle’s chair, the ice crusher I had forgotten was mounted to the wall (right edge of the photo), the smoke on the wall above the stove, the broom hanging by the stove, the pans cooking food, the chairs. All of these things were a part of my family’s culture at a time in the past. It was all important.
The original scanned photo had problems with white speckles that don’t show up here, a scratch on Grandpa’s face, and color issues which I fixed:
The cleaned up file:
For this project we had to take our previous assignment and add 2 photos to it. That, of course, represents the real world, because you will get a design to the point that you feel it really works, then the client will change something. It was a challenge! However, I love the photo Charlotte took of Samantha and I on Sunday!
Ok, so I can’t help it that this grosses me out a bit! My teacher said I am crazy, my osteopath (who loves it) laughed but validated my feelings and says it happens, and my friends are a mix of “well done” and I think a little bit of “ewww”.
However, I felt good on the day of the test and aced it! Yes! The ol’ brain came through for me this time with a bit of Divine intervention! (I am learning I had best pray first before taking a test!) And I can’t even pronounce some of the muscle name! Brachioradialis? Latissimus Dorsi? Gastrocnemius? What was with those Latin guys anyway?
Here is the homework (the front view was labeled after the photo was taken):
Beth Remsburg gave us a fabulous first assignment for Corporate Communications! We had to find a business we had never been to before, visit, and analyze it. I opted to recruit Lainey for this project because this is right up her alley. She chose a little oyster bar in Zionsville that we had never visited before called Noah Grant’s. We had a wonderful experience as a customer! We will be going back, no question about that!
The premise for their business comes from the owner’s experience as one of 5 kids growing up in this area. She said they could never find a place to eat where everyone was happy. So she has an oysterbar with 5 star food offerings, yet you can also get a burger and fries. The prices are more reasonable for fresh fish and local Angus than if you went downtown.
As far as the branding, I think they could use a bit of help. It is pretty basic black and white, but they have a good thing going and I think they could pump it up a bit. They have a black chalboard wall in each room with writing and drawings on them. They place felt fun, friendly, and the food was to die for!
We had to put a presentation together for the class outlining different points about the brand. Here are 3 pages as an example:
Design Layout Project #1
I was tired of writing introductions of myself so I started thinking about it. Next thing you know the project took me over and became a typography exercise! However, the poem that came out of me was what I fell in love with and then it was a matter of finding a photo that would work with the text.
I tackled the 8×8 first (for reading ease, go to one of the larger examples further down):
Then the 5×11
And then my favorite: I chose a 4×16 in order to capture the words in a complimentary way (the poem sort of drove my design… making the project more difficult than it needed to be!)
First homework assignment was to draw the skeletal system. And they call this “Life” drawing? After obsessing over the first drawing and getting totally lost in a rib cage (seriously! on the second one I ended up numbering them as I went), the other 4 went suprisingly fast. Not my preferred drawing subject, and it definately made me glad I was not in the medical field; however, it was interesting learning.
There was a sort of macabre fascination at first, especially since I put the teeth in the initial skeleton and then had him grinning at me for several laborious hours. That was off-putting, to put it mildly. (I almost gave him a name, it became so personal!) However, after the first couple of hours were over, I forgot about my leering subject and became engrossed in the wonder of God’s great design. Amazing and truly beyond words. I love the works of His hands. The psalm kept running through my head, “we are fearfully and wonderfully made.” (Psalm 139:14)
Funny (not!) how I bombed the test on the bone names we were to memorize. My head didn’t come back from lunch that day! I even forgot to label the ribs. I saw the spot for it and thought “that one is easy” then forgot to fill it in. I am blaming it on the sinus migraine! This week I was battling it every day and it really makes me scatterbrained. Embarrassingly so!
[Note: Psalm 139:14 declares, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” The context of this verse is the incredible nature of our physical bodies. The human body is the most complex and unique organism in the world, and that complexity and uniqueness speaks volumes about the mind of its Creator. Every aspect of the body, down to the tiniest microscopic cell, reveals that it is fearfully and wonderfully made. From gotquestions.org]
Sorry… just had to put this on here! For the online classes students always give an introduction of themselves to be posted by Tuesday of that first week. Tuesday came and I puttered around getting life taken care of when lo and behold I approach my normally simple first post only to realize the teacher also wanted us to illustrate it in Photoshop, demonstrating what we know.
What I know? I avoid Photoshop like a plague from … well… where plagues come from! In addition, a project and discussion question were both due on Wed. and I had just filled that day full of classes. So basically… it was all due on Tuesday.
I am including the disaster to show the progress I make over the next 5 weeks, because it can only get better!!! Oh… this went along with text introducing myself.
No critiques, please. I know it is a bomb, but on the other hand, the teacher will hopefully feel fantastic about his teaching ability when my final project looks 200% better! (That was my purpose all along… I promise!)
This quarter, the first quarter of my new identity of Graphic Designer, started out slow… for about 4 hours. Monday class was a pleasure just to walk into… there sat some of my favorite students with one of the top design teachers leading it. I was planning to only take 2 ground classes and 2 online this quarter, so things were looking very easy and manageable.
However, after class Rachel and I bumped into Brad and Devon…then we 4 get to talking and decide we need to descend upon our teacher to get our assignments she still had from 2 quarters ago…and while in the teacher’s lounge, other teachers were popping in and out of our little chaotic group giving us old projects they had (these are often placed on the hallway walls for a quarter or more.) Then lo and behold Jacob Dobson asked if I was in one of his Life Drawing classes (a class I dearly need but was waiting for him to teach. I had been told he wasn’t teaching it.)
That is how things happen… fast and furious sometimes. Next thing you know I have added another ground class onto Wed. and my schedule is crammed! I dropped the online that would start in 6 weeks, but for the 1st 5.5 weeks it will feel like taking 5 classes. Then it will ease up and only be the 3 ground courses. But the initial workload through October is a bit staggering.
So… new schedule:
The teachers this quarter are steller. I will have to do a brag sheet on each of them and link to their websites. After the first Wed. night I came home with my head about to explode and the sure feeling that there is a lot to learn this quarter! Now to apply myself! >>>back to homework…
From my favorite lolcats site…
Flexing My Wings 
