Catherine Pickle's Digital Imaging

 

 I was considering making this project a series, but for now aim for trying all different kinds of ideas to see what sticks.  This composition feels far more interesting, I tried to sharpen that abstract shape I had going in some of the earlier compositions and create more of a clear focal point. This picture speaks less to a deeper meaning and more to a literal meaning; showing dried oats, water and finished oatmeal, which are bits and pieces of the steps in the cycle of beginning to end (for a bowl of oatmeal.) I additionally feel like this image has good texture but needs improvement with the edges of the stamp tool oatmeal pattern (zigzag edges along the bowl) Here it is cleaned up: Plus I added an extra empty bowl about to be filled in trying to make this piece feel more like a cycle.  I added a packet of oatmeal pouring into the second bowl to really drive in that repetitive cycle. I went between my ipad and computer to clean up the bowl and add oats! I tried adding...

 After feeling lost in terms of purpose/meaning behind this assignment, I decided to really dig deeper with the concept "ground-hog day"; waking up to a new day everyday, making this consistent bowl of oatmeal.  With this photo, I added (and masked) an image of some oats overtop of the bowl of instant oatmeal to symbolize how small we really are in the world; all of the other grains represent the many other lives and mornings, and how this image is just a peek into one persons day. I also masked, copied and scaled the spoon to make it larger; I felt that made the image more interesting. I tried adding clouds in this image, to make it appear foggy to give off a "groggy unsettling deja vu" feeling but didn't like it. These are two iterations of trying to convey the same concept but with water; still very unsure with how to achieve an unsettling "we've been here before" look.

  This is an additional iteration- I am beginning to think it would be easier to take new images or think of a new theme- It is hard to incorporate purpose and new themes to the cycle of the beginning and end of an instant oatmeal packet. 

 I'm not totally clear on how I am supposed to alter these images, so here is my current interpretation! I grabbed these images:  I used the masking tool to cut out the oatmeal packets and the pouring water, and then I layered the images in this order with these effects: Layer 1 (top): Boiling water image (blending mode: lighter color) Layer 2: Masked pouring water image (blending mode: soft light) Layer 3: Masked oatmeal packets (blending mode: lighten) Layer 4: Oatmeal bowl (normal) To create this:  I wanted to combine some of the stages of the cycle into one image; I feel like I incorporated some fun textures, shape and movement into this image. I intend to experiment with different images, using different effects to make a variety of iterations.

 I couldn't get the pictures to be organized, but here they are!! I took pictures of the cyclical nature of the beginning of the day- the process of making breakfast. I thought it was a healthy cycle to capture, a repetitive one that only changes with your choice of food. 

 

 Loading the image of the Afghan girl into my fourth iteration artboard, I decided to use the effects "color halftone" and "fragment." I then used these image as a picture to blend into the original. Photoshop crashed multiple times when I was trying to content-aware fill both images (I was only able to get the underwater image to save), so I took a section out of the middle of the clouds and turned it into a stamp! The underwater and stamped cloud layer was blended on lighten. I imported another image of the afghan girl, using the pointilize effect, and blended it on top of the other images using saturation. This is the result of those steps: I created a new layer and filled it with one of photoshops "water" stamps, blending it into all the preexisting layers with the blending mode "darker color" to create this final image!

 At this point I have created two out of four solid iterations. In working on my third, I used photoshop's stylize filter to create an oil paint and "embossed" look  From here, I used the pattern stamp tool and played around with different patterns (I copied her eye, then took the Afghan symbol from the Afghan flag, and began to play with that.) I liked the Afghan flag look, so I painted the figure of the Afghan girl with this pattern.  I used blending modes to blend the flag into the images, adding another image of the Afghan girl on top of the blended/meshed images, using a crystallized pixelated effect (on the second Afghan girl image) before using another blending mode. **layer one- oil paint & embossed effect, normal blending mode **layer two: painted stamps with linear light blending mode  **layer three: crystallized pixelated effect, difference blending mode And honestly? I think its worth mentioning that hiding layers and seeing the way some layers intera...

New Images added to Afghan Girl on a new artboard: I additionally used the underwater image from the first artboard. This is how it started to look playing with blending modes! The colors are definitely a pleasant surprise! I only wonder if the image is "destroyed" enough from the original... Will continue to work with it!  

Here are some fun variations of blending modes I was playing with! Might try something new with my image with completely different images to try to incorporate more meaning into my project. I added the Afghan flag to these!