1st Semester Review

"Nature Man"

   This project was one of the first Photoshop Projects I did in my Graphic Design class. This project was to Photoshop a man, image was provided, into anything we wanted. The rules were the face had to be visible and use adjustment layers. I don't remember how long this project took me to complete, but longer than I thought. Some challenges for this project were deciding what I wanted to do. Originally, I was going to do a horror type edit, but decided to do a galaxy/alien edit instead. I had a a difficult time gettin the suit right, but figured it out in the end. I learned how to use adjustment layers and opacity as well as the quick select tool. Some feedback I got was the lack of blending modes. I didn't use any, in fact, due to my nonexistent experience with blending modes. To this day, I do think this edit is one of my best. 

Photoshop Challenge 2

 This project was to find 5 photos or more, use a photoshop filter, adjustment layer, and a layer mask to create this edit. It took me a couple days, from what I remember, to complete it. I learned to use color balance/adjustment and how to layer photos together. Some challenges I faced were trying to make the gravestones look natural, getting the fox's orange color to stand out, but blend it, and for the statue/ghost thing in the background to be faint but noticeable. Some feedback I got was the gravestones looked a little distorted and the fox would look better if it had a shadow underneath it. I didn't make any changes to it since I turned it on to my teacher due to my satisfaction with my work. This project isn't my best work, but i do like the aesthetic it has. It's interesting.  

Pop Art 

 The last project will mention is my pop art project. It didn't take me that long to complete, but i did have a difficult time getting the subject's hair blue due to all the little strays that were too small to color. I learned how to change backgrounds and change the color of a specific object. The feedback was it looked a little choppy, and I have to agree. I had a difficult time with the quick select tool in this project. Also, I could have used a better color scheme. I finished the main part of the project and didn't know what to do for the background, so I just guessed as to what to do and hoped it looked good.  I already knew what I wanted to do when I put the photo in photoshop, but I was still learning the ropes of everything, and ended up with a decent piece of work. In my opinion, it's not bad, but not one of greater works. 

Time

 When I would finish a project, i would work on photoshopping celebrities into random characters from popular media. I stopped after awhile due to how bored i got after awhile. I then moved on to editing characters from the same movie on one photoshop document. I did do some more serious work as well, mostly doing edits for my parents. One was editing photos from their trip to Eureka Springs into a panorama collage like my Paris one. Another project was to put a photo label that my dad sent me to put on one of his friend's shirt in a photo. I think over time, the more serious the project, the better I performed and my skills improved as the year went on. Outside of class, i started an arts and crafts project where I used photoshop to create images of my friends' favorite tv/movie character or celebrity with their favorite quote. I did this for eight of my friends and will glue each image to a piece of watercolor paper with their favorite color painted onto the watercolor paper.  

One of the edits I made for my friend.
She loves video games!

This is another edit I made for a friend.
She and I are in marching band!

Eureka Springs. This is one of my better edits

Stand By Me is one of my favorite movies,
so I created this panama. 

Strengths and Weaknesses

 I have strong time and project management skills as well as communication. However I lack in leaderships skills. Graphics Design doesn't have a lot of the traditional "leadership" roles, so it's been a bit of an adaptation. However, I always ask other for advice, and ask the teacher for help when I can't figure out a solution to a problem. I do turn in projects on time and make sure I am doing what is necessary to be on track. 

Summary

 What I love most about Graphic Design is the projects and how many we do. However, back to blending modes, I'd do a project where it was just blending modes as the main focus. Overall, the takeaway I had of this semester is to enjoy the projects and to do it how you feel like doing it while completing all the requirements. A goal for next semester is to continue side projects as well as keep up with schoolwork, which wasn't a problem this semester. Overall, I had good projects and poor projects, but none of them were terribly bad.

Behance

Below is a link to my Behance where you can check out more projects I have done as well as some other cool projects done by others:
https://www.behance.net/katiebarry8d65

Watercolor Transfer Printing Process and Experience

This project was based on a printing process we learned earlier in graphic design class where you transfer an image to a different piece of material. This process is called a Transfer Print.

     1. For this, we used watercolor paper, used watercolors on the paper similar to the colors in the image we chose and let it dry.

     2. Then, we used Mod Podge on the image we chose and put it on the watercolor paper with the paint already dry.

     3. Next was using a Squeegee, which is a tool used to get rid of air bubbles in the image when glued onto the watercolor paper.

     4. After gluing, we let the image dry to the watercolor paper.

     5. After everything was dry, we used water to get rid of the excess paper on the image to reveal the ink from the image. The image was still present, but it looked as though it was printed onto the watercolor paper.

The project was easy and fun. Although, there were some days where I would forget to stop working on my Adobe Illustrator project and work on the Printing Process project. I think I did a good job, this being my first time. I did do two of them because my teacher said if we decided to do two, the best one would be graded. I also did two because the two images I chose I thought were the best-photoshopped projects I've done.

One thing I will do better next time is making sure I don't rub too hard on the image because, as it is obvious, some of the ink was rubbed away during the water process (step 5). I think Alien Man was better compared to my fox/forest one because less ink is missing and is cleaner. I would also recolor the watercolor part due to how faded the background looks.

I would use the sane images if I did this project again just because I think they're my best work and I really like them compared to my other projects.