DIGITAL SURREALISM
In the
past, present and the future, there was probably one moment where you hate
yourself, you think that you are worthless or you want to be someone else
because you aren’t “good enough”. Leaning towards a darker message, I decided
to focus on one main quote, “you are your own enemy” and then branch off from
the idea for my digital surrealism. I wanted to do something related to high
school so that people that see my art will be able to understand easier and
even connect with it. Looking at my digital surrealism, you can see that the
atmosphere overall is very eerie and lonely, with silhouettes of students
walking throughout the black and white hallway; the main character/focus of the
art stand out which emphasizes that you are important because there is only one
you out there. The human body is slowly fading at the end which shows that
whenever you hate yourself you feel like just disappearing in the crowd. The darker
side begin if you look closely at the image, the person is made out of crumbled
paper representing scars and hurt feelings, while the human’s expression is
blank, they aren’t thinking of anything because they feel empty. On the face,
the paper mouth is ripped and nothing is there except for darkness which
expresses how the person doesn’t like to talk because they get shy and anxious wondering
if the anyone would reply to them if they spoke. For me, the main aspect of the
body is the heart. The heart is ripped open and inside is pitch black with
subtle images of your own hands tearing and tugging on your heart, which shows
the main message, “you are your own enemy”.
At first I was going to go with a
very complicated idea which was about suicide, however I noticed that there
would be a lot of editing including and the process would take too loon so after
going through a lot more thinking and sketching I end up with this artwork. From
broken inner kid (everyone has their pure and innocent side which is what I
call inner kid side) to suicidal, to how bullies also have their problems, to
transgender and lastly, the design I went with, how “you are your own enemy” I
started off with just shoulders and the heart was being tugged and ripped by
hands coming out of the shirt however I thought it was kind of boring so as I
gave more thought to the idea more design came up. My final design was that the
human is made out of paper and is cut off halfway, slowly fading away. There
were tears in some parts and the heart being torn apart was shown through the
destroyed paper with darkness surrounding the object.
The technical part in general was
really frustrating and complicated for me. It was hard to get used to all the
hot keys and tools and there were too many techniques that I don’t even know
existed in Photoshop but after playing around for around three days, I got the
hang of it however it took too long. The paper body was no problem, I took a
photo of my friend, got a photo of a crumbled piece of paper, and then I cut
off the crumbled piece of paper leaving the body outline only, which was done
by lowering the opacity of the body so that it is transparent enough for me to
select, using the quick select tool, the unimportant stuff. After I got my base
done, I went to create a ripped effect on the mouth and heart area. Once again
using the quick select tool I deleted all the unnecessary white from the images
and just changed the darkness with the level layer. I created a mask of the
human and use the gradient tool to add a fading away type of look. The hardest
part in my perspective was combining the hands so that it looks like it was
tearing up the heart. I did the usual and delete the unwanted parts and then I
put the heart image in the area where it was supposed to be, but the hands were
out of the torn paper and the heart looks as if it was from somewhere; the two
didn’t blend well which was the main problem. Instead of being able to see the
heart and hands clearly, I made the inside look very dark using the level layer,
making sure it was enough so that people can still see the image. I was going
to just go with a trash can and finish the project but it looked weird so I
changed my plans and created a school hallway with silhouettes of students
walking since leaving just the body alone would be plain. I got rid of the
unwanted parts and added a level layer to the silhouettes I found on the
internet. I accidentally moved the level layer but that accident made the
silhouettes look better than just the colour black so I went with that
technique for my background. My ideas were shifted a lot there weren’t many
changes in my original design however there were a lot of additional ideas.
While completing this project, I was
able to absorb a lot of information about Photoshop and getting actual legal
pictures online. I’m more of a hands-on type of person so playing around with
the tools in Photoshop was the best and fastest way I learnt. Unlike my past self I actually understand a
few of the tools in Photoshop and look forward to the future learning. To be
honest I heard about legal and illegal pictures online but I never really
touched on it till now. It was kind of annoying making sure the images were
allowed by the people to use it, even though anything that goes on the internet
is already for the public but at least now I understand how to get legal
pictures. I’m never really 100% satisfied with any work I’ve done because I
always think that I could have done better and for this project it still
applies. I really like the background and the human individually but together,
they don’t blend and looks a little bit uneven. If I had known more about
Photoshop I would have had more time and somehow combine the two together.
