Semester A: Week 10
Student: Tai Ser Yeet (22064351)
Programme: BA (Hons)(SW) Digital Media Design
WEEK 10
Creating the Artwork
2/12
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| Painting Supplies |
This morning, I got started on the image for the RA poster. I specifically chose this time of day because I know it'll give me ample natural light to shoot my artwork after I get done with it. Plus, my painting supplies, such as the acrylic paint set, palette knives and paintbrushes, which I got second-hand off an app called Vinted, had arrived a few days ago. While I was preparing the paints, to my dismay, they were semi-hardened except for the black one. To salvage it, I tried mixing it with water, and it sort of worked, but was still clumpy. Using an Amazon parcel as my canvas, I did a white base coat, which came out sheer due to the high water ratio, but I continued regardless.
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| Radial Pattern With Pistachio Shells |
I wanted to share a funny moment I had with some pistachio shells. I was opening up a pistachio when I lost my grip, and both empty shells went flying and landed on my cardboard canvas. I immediately assumed that it was a Eureka moment - silly me, I couldn't have been more wrong. Anyway, I tried arranging them in a roughly circular or radiating pattern around a central point, but it didn't work out because I was stuck on what to do next. I even tried painting the shell, but the paint didn't stick.
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| Experimenting With Different Colours |
Not giving up, I started smearing small blobs of paint close to each corner of the canvas, and that's when the creative flow came. After a couple of strokes (using various palette knife techniques) and extreme effort to get the paint out of the tube, a colourful mess was made, but I couldn't be more satisfied. During the process, I made certain that each colour was somewhat distributed evenly across the canvas.
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| Painting On Windowsill |
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| Close-Up of Paint Texture (Blurry Edges) |
When it came to photographing the work, I took my mirrorless camera (Canon M50) Mark 2 out and adjusted the desired settings to the RAW + JPEG image format. Once that was done, I placed the canvas on my bedroom's white windowsill and shot it from above. I began with the 15-45mm kit lens to get a full shot. I then tried switching to the 55-200mm telephoto lens to capture the details and textures, but realised I could not focus close enough. Instead, I should have used a macro lens or a reversed kit lens for close-up detail shots.
I learned that although the second lens had higher quality, the kit lens was better at capturing the artwork without blurring the edges. The telephoto lens could have worked if the focal length were longer. This setup was still doable because the image is in RAW, which means that I could scale and crop it if needed without compromising the quality.
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| Revised Painting On Windowsill (Wide Angle) |
While photographing the artwork, I noticed a few empty spots that could be filled with colour and quickly filled them. I even mixed blue and black together to create a darker shade of blue since the one provided in the set dried up completely.
I love how this entire experiment could have gone sideways (from the dried-up paint tubes to the absence of a proper canvas). Instead of abandoning the idea, I persisted and look where it has gotten me. I wasn't like this before, but upon reading "The Creative Act" by Rick Rubin, which I've mentioned repeatedly since the start of this semester, I have completely changed the way I approach the creative process.
According to the author, an idea starts off as a seed. In the initial stages, you may want to gather seeds from different places. Once satisfied, pick 1-2 seeds that seem the most interesting to you or have the most potential, but do not be quick to categorise them. If at some point throughout the process, the seed does not provide, then it is best to try a different approach. Don't try forcing what isn't there.
Takeaway From Class
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| Colour Adjustments in Photoshop |
In class, Dean guided me on how to adjust the colours of the painting to make them pop.
What I've learned:
- Increase contrast by shooting it in directional light, which helps to accentuate the texture
- Never copy and paste an image because it compresses the quality
- The bleed is the "seam allowance" you give to a print because, in the print shop, they would print your work on a slightly bigger paper and cut it off later.
- The reason is that the ink might sometimes bleed on the side of the paper.
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| Colour Adjustments in Photoshop |
Importing the master artwork, i.e. the edited image from earlier, into Illustrator so I can add the copy in. I explored different designs by scaling the image and keeping legibility in mind.