COLLAGE EDITS – PART 1 – WEEK 7
These digital collages were created using my tactile collages which were then transformed using Adobe Photoshop. Experimenting with filters such as, colour halftone, twirl, shear, lens blurs, colour burning, layering more imagery in different layer, and playing around with how the layers interact with each other; how the pictures interact and what the positioning/order is like. The first image is successful for me as the simple colour palette featuring only three colours, made my creating a trio tone document, was effective and something I will be incorporating into my work further. This is because the original image has a lot of elements going on, a lot of distorted and hidden imagery which could be seen as quite chaotic, is leveled out and brought together effectively by reducing the colour palette used so the lines, tones and shapes complement each other and have some sort of cohesive element to them while the actual details stay disordered and jumbled. Using neon was actually inspired by my previous successful collages of the imagery found in Spare Rib Magazine, which itself uses quite a lot of highly saturated colours within designs however would only feature one or two bright colours at a time, which is how I chose to organise my colours in this image, for balance. The image underneath takes the imagery of the head and doubles it, making it more prominent and therefore defining it more than it had possibly been seen previously. Filling in the background with the content aware button allowed the empty space white background, which looked quite boring, and as if I had just used a lasso tool to cut and paste a shape, it blends the foreground edges nicely into the background; creating a background that is slightly blurry and more aware that it is used to compliment something that is the focus, and not be the focus itself.
On the least successful side, the 4th collage with the slightly more intense and brighter purple with the yellow/green shade as a secondary colour was not as effective for me personally. I found that this one had too many different layers which were not as complimentary as the others. The colours don’t blend well and complement each other, they’re more of a separate focus than tying in with the image, the original collage imagery is lost to the background and bold colours placed on top, as well as the fact that the layout means that there isn’t one main focus point or journey that our eyes can go through on the screen, everything seems to be placed with little thought. However, one thing that I do like about this image is that I s=feel as if the shapes of the persons face are highlighted, and also seems like if you were to look closely, that they’re emitting some type of aura, but this is only one interpretation that I have found personally, other people might not be able to see that as clearly. Meaning that in my work in the future I need to be clear not only who my audience are, but also what they want to see and how I would like them to see it as a creator.
Researching on topics such as body image in the media, certain women’s attitudes towards their own self-image, or the representation of other women as a consumer or observer had led me to start reading texts about different concepts in the surrounding themes so I could gain some different perspectives. My main idea for these tactile collages shown below, which I then digitally altered in Adobe Photoshop was to gain imagery from magazines of people’s faces or bodes and using techniques inspired by Nigel Henderson, who visually is very influential within my current work, I took the pictures and ripped them up, used the scrap pieces of tracing paper that I had from a different section of my sketchbook and placed them down so that they were distorted. Tracing paper was used as I enjoy finding scrap pieces of material or paper to use as backgrounds for my collage; I beeline that they add an interesting textural element to my work, as well as enforcing my ideas of being sustainable and wasting less material from previous art projects/sketchbook pages/failed works. Using techniques inspired by Nigel Henderson was a decision made by me as I found his work visually intriguing; taking something that already exists or has been made and altering it slightly by ripping it and transforming it into a new composition complimented my ideas of researching into the body and self image, as I feel this technique makes the image reflect the slightly darker undertone of the concept the use of distortion; as well as visualising the abstract narrative I am trying to present.
This next collage looks far more effective once scanned in rather than having the original copy due to the messiness of the glue and lines on the paper resulting in the original looking less professional, the image is less clear to see and the paper is a bit worn but not in a way which ties the piece together, it makes it look like it has not been looked after, although once scanned in, I have used levels on Adobe Photoshop to improve the line quality and add more whiteness to the image as opposed to the off-white yellow tone of a sketchbook which normally looks nice with a scanned in sketchbook page, but instead made mine look more like a scarp piece of paper. I was using the illustration over the top that I didn’t like to create a new type of composition similar to the first one, with inspirations from Nigel Henderson, as I believe that the first collage was really successful.
The images shown below are taken from using these collages I have just made and scanning them in a way which manipulates them even further, adds a movement and character to the piece as the lines are all being pulled in a certain direction or spread across the page, using the background in a clever way as everything not part of the piece is left black from the scanner.
I have used this technique before, and also wanted to incorporate more of Nigel Henderson’s technique within my work by utilising my scanner to create more imagery from one original starting point. This also further my skills of experimentation as I set out to make these collages but wanted to go back on them and rework into them using media like scanners, Adobe Photoshop and editing software to see what works well and what does not work well to change and alter these images and keep all of my research and experimentation active and constantly developing.
