Jody's Fantastic Blog of Art And Such

Thursday, May 28, 2015

Teens Inspired

This piece was inspired by the two sculptures comprising Diana and Actaeon. The statues describes how Actaeon accidentally came across the Goddess while she was bathing. Diana was offended to the point that she turned his dogs against him and slew him with a bow and arrow.

In the work I saw an act of disproportionate and unjust retribution. I attempted to replicate the image parellel to racial injustice in America.

Acrylic Project

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Printmaking

Convergence

For my time project, I have composed a draft of a piece of music tentatively entitled "Convergence," holding to the concepr that music decorates time, just as visual art decorates space. In the work, the musician must choose which direction to follow the staff each time it diverges into two or more paths, until the music inevitably converges at the end. The piece mirrors time and life, the choices we make, how said choices impact our journey, and how each path converges at the same end when time runs out.

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Stoneflesh Tutorial

In this tutorial you will learn how to make this hooded woman...

...into an evil gargoyle harbinger of despair.

The primary technique that will be utilized is the application of stone textures to alter the woman's skin.
To begin, find an image of the person you wish to turn to stone. You may use the example (here) or a picture of your choice.

For my choice, I decided to lift the nose of the woman higher on her face to make room for the jaws later on. I used the clone tool to cover up the skin, as well as remove the pupils in the eyes. I then used the hue/saturation tool to make the eyes yellow and decrepit.

The next step is the addition of the jaws. You can use this image and cut out the jaw portion using the polygonal lasso tool. Then, use warp to position the jaws in accordance to the woman's mouth.You will need to use the hue/saturation tool to align the color with the woman's skin. Then, use the blur and smudge tools on the mouth's edges to blend them into the woman's skin.

Now, for the stone texture. Copy this link, and set the opacity to 50% to see the face through the stone. Warp the texture to the contours of the woman's face, erasing what you don't need. Erase the texture from the eyes and jaws as well.

Set the layer to around 80% opacity, and select Multiply from layer options. You may wish to use the sharpen tool to better define the texture.You can also use dodge and burn to apply dark and light tones in the woman's face.

Now for color. Go to Select->Load Selection to outline the texture layer, then create a new layer with the area still selected. Use the paintbrush to go over the selected area, ideally with a color close to #331e01. Deselect and change the layer selection to color. Now, you can use the elliptical marquee tool to select the eye area (feather: 100 PX) to select the stone skin and make the area darker using the hue/saturation tool.

But that's too bright of a hood for a satanic creature. select the area surrounding the face with the polygonal lasso and change the color of the robe to something more menacing with the hue/saturation tool.