Next Thursday will be a work period for your six-page sequence, so come prepared with whatever raw materials you need (images, ideas) to use the work period profitably. A portion of your grade will be your initial proposal for the sequence, which is due at the beginning of Thursday's class – you need to have at least a basic sketch (drawn out on paper, or cobbled together in Photoshop) of your general idea for the sequence, or a one-paragraph write-up of your idea (printed out).
Here are the specs for the images in your "sequence" project -- the one we're printing up as a book through lulu.com. You should have the images you need at the start of the class, so you can just jump into it when class starts.
Dimensions for Lulu book project
You will have 6 pages to fill in an art book we're publishing through Lulu.com. One page is like an intro page for yourself and your work, which should include your name. It can be a sort of "artist's statement," or it can otherwise set the stage for the images to follow. The following five pages should be a series of images that somehow work together as a sequence.
The dimensions at which you should create the work are:
Final page size will be 8.5" x 8.5" at 300 dpi.
The pages need a 1/8" bleed all the way around, so you'll create your photoshop files at 8.75" x 8.75" (at 300 dpi, this comes out to 2625 pixels by 2625 pixels).
Keep in mind, as you're designing the sequence, that you will have three "two page spreads," where the image on the lefthand page will be facing the image on the righthand page. Think about how the images on those facing pages will affect each other, in terms of content, color, composition, and so on.
If you're still chewing through what a "sequence" is, remember that a potential starting place could be:
1. Time changes through a fixed location. What is a single place, that goes through changes as time passes, and how are those changes made visible? Think of R. Crumb's "History of America."
2. Spatial changes with a fixed subject. Is there a character, or object, that travels through different spaces?
3. Transformations of a character or object. Think of Klinger's "glove" etching. Is there a common image that goes through a variety of changes of scale, of stature, of meaning? Is there an object that can pull the images together along the thread of a visual theme?
4. Different aspects of a single thing. Think Hokusai's Mount Fuji series. Is there a thing, a person or a place that can be looked at through a variety of lenses -- the lens of history, of myth, of geology, etc?
5. Formal variation and rhythm. Remember that abstracts images can function in sequence, riffing on common formal elements throughout the multiple images.
6. Storytelling. Any sequence tells a story of some sort. Is there some sort of narrative that could occur through the five images? Think of Hogarth's "Harlot's Progess," or the comics examples I showed.
And you should "own" your artwork in this project -- you can shoot your own images, or draw your own images. You can use stock images (free or purchased).
Thursday, November 17, 2016
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
REMINDER: This Thurs (11/10), Meet at the Library!
Hi all. Don't forget, this Thursday class will meet at 10am on the third floor of Prim Library. See you there!
Thursday, October 27, 2016
Fair Use Project: Tuesday, 11/01
For Tuesday's class, come prepared with a sketch for your idea for the "fair use" project. You need to use something that's copyrighted – an image, a photo, a logo, a tagline, a story, a song lyric, whatever it may be – and you need to change it enough that you think you'd have a "fair use" case for your use of the copyrighted material.
Obviously we're creating this project for class, but I want you to imagine your fair use project being used in some other venue. The intended venue of the work could have a strong bearing on whether your work is "protected" or not -- so please imagine the artwork is intended to be shown on a T-Shirt, in a gallery, on a billboard, or what have you. For Thursday, you'll have to have a written defense of your work on fair use grounds - we'll put you "on trial" and see if you get thrown in copyright jail or not.
If you want to refresh yourself on some copyright info, there are free digital versions of a Duke Copyright Fair Use comic here:
http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics/digital.php
Again, fair use can be invoked for the following reasons:
To report on news
To make a parody
To copy for class
To criticize
To quote for scholarly purposes
For research
For the purposes of this project, you'll be leaning on either the "parody" or "criticism" angle.
There are also the "four guidelines" for fair use:
1. The Transformative Factor: The Purpose and Character of Your Use
2. The Nature of the Copyrighted Work
3. The Amount and Substantiality of the Portion Taken
4. The Effect of the Use Upon the Potential Market
More detailed info here:
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-b.html
Ultimately, you will be referring to those four guidelines to defend your "fair use"position.
Obviously we're creating this project for class, but I want you to imagine your fair use project being used in some other venue. The intended venue of the work could have a strong bearing on whether your work is "protected" or not -- so please imagine the artwork is intended to be shown on a T-Shirt, in a gallery, on a billboard, or what have you. For Thursday, you'll have to have a written defense of your work on fair use grounds - we'll put you "on trial" and see if you get thrown in copyright jail or not.
If you want to refresh yourself on some copyright info, there are free digital versions of a Duke Copyright Fair Use comic here:
http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics/digital.php
Again, fair use can be invoked for the following reasons:
To report on news
To make a parody
To copy for class
To criticize
To quote for scholarly purposes
For research
For the purposes of this project, you'll be leaning on either the "parody" or "criticism" angle.
There are also the "four guidelines" for fair use:
1. The Transformative Factor: The Purpose and Character of Your Use
2. The Nature of the Copyrighted Work
3. The Amount and Substantiality of the Portion Taken
4. The Effect of the Use Upon the Potential Market
More detailed info here:
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-b.html
Ultimately, you will be referring to those four guidelines to defend your "fair use"position.
Tuesday, October 11, 2016
Thursday Assignment, and midterm files due
Tutorial
On Thursday (10/13), you should be prepared to give the class a photoshop tutorial, on any topic or effect you'd like to research. Google something you'd like to learn, or click around in the links on the "my blog list" column on the righthand side of this page (there are lots of good tutorials on those blogs). Remember, step yourself through it BEFORE you come to class, to make sure you understand all the steps, and have all the materials you need. You should be able to make your demonstration in about ten minutes.
Don't pick something too complicated to do in ten minutes, but don't get too simple, either. If you just correct some redeye or something, or review something we've already covered in class, you're not going to get a good grade (though it might be something that builds on things we've learned in class, there should be at least some new element getting you to the end product). Try to hit that sweet spot of "moderately difficult" tutorial.
Post a link or a one-sentence description of the tutorial you'd like to do in the "comments" to this blog post, checking to make sure no one else has picked the same tutorial before you.
ALSO: I will be collecting all your project files for your midterm grade on Thursday. So please bring to class your flattened files for –
Digital self portrait (scanned items)
Text/Image project
Collage Artist Response
Composite (big thing made small, or small thing made big)
Fake News
Multiple Me
Please follow this naming convention:
You should give them filenames like this:
"(2-digit project number)-(your last name)-(project title).fileextension"
So if your name is Jane Smith, and the project was the self portrait, you would name the file:
01-smith-selfportrait.jpg
If you have more than one image for the project, append letters (A,B, C):
01-smith-selfportrait-A.jpg
01-smith-selfportrait-B.jpg
All the files should be flattened files.
And here are the project titles I'd like you to use.
1. Digital self-portrait, from three scans:
01-lastname-selfportrait
2. Text/image combo project (at least two versions)
02-lastname-textimage-A
02-lastname-textimage-B
3. The response to the collage artist
03-lastname-collageresponse
4. The "composite" project (something small made large, or something large made small)
04-lastname-composite
5. The "fake news" project
05-lastname-fakenews
6. The "multiple me" project
06-lastname-multipleme
On Thursday (10/13), you should be prepared to give the class a photoshop tutorial, on any topic or effect you'd like to research. Google something you'd like to learn, or click around in the links on the "my blog list" column on the righthand side of this page (there are lots of good tutorials on those blogs). Remember, step yourself through it BEFORE you come to class, to make sure you understand all the steps, and have all the materials you need. You should be able to make your demonstration in about ten minutes.
Don't pick something too complicated to do in ten minutes, but don't get too simple, either. If you just correct some redeye or something, or review something we've already covered in class, you're not going to get a good grade (though it might be something that builds on things we've learned in class, there should be at least some new element getting you to the end product). Try to hit that sweet spot of "moderately difficult" tutorial.
Post a link or a one-sentence description of the tutorial you'd like to do in the "comments" to this blog post, checking to make sure no one else has picked the same tutorial before you.
ALSO: I will be collecting all your project files for your midterm grade on Thursday. So please bring to class your flattened files for –
Digital self portrait (scanned items)
Text/Image project
Collage Artist Response
Composite (big thing made small, or small thing made big)
Fake News
Multiple Me
Please follow this naming convention:
You should give them filenames like this:
"(2-digit project number)-(your last name)-(project title).fileextension"
So if your name is Jane Smith, and the project was the self portrait, you would name the file:
01-smith-selfportrait.jpg
If you have more than one image for the project, append letters (A,B, C):
01-smith-selfportrait-A.jpg
01-smith-selfportrait-B.jpg
All the files should be flattened files.
And here are the project titles I'd like you to use.
1. Digital self-portrait, from three scans:
01-lastname-selfportrait
2. Text/image combo project (at least two versions)
02-lastname-textimage-A
02-lastname-textimage-B
3. The response to the collage artist
03-lastname-collageresponse
4. The "composite" project (something small made large, or something large made small)
04-lastname-composite
5. The "fake news" project
05-lastname-fakenews
6. The "multiple me" project
06-lastname-multipleme
Thursday, October 6, 2016
Assignment for Tuesday (10/11)
"Multiple You"
The next assignment is to create a picture that will have five (or more) images of yourself in one single environment. Put another way, it'll be a picture of some space -- a room, landscape, whatever -- in which there are at least five images of you, realistically inhabiting the space. There should also be some overlapping among at least three of the "yous."
Part of this assignment is technical - thinking of how you are going to best execute your idea, making sure the lighting works in the way you want it to, making sure you've staged the scene in a way that works, utilizing a tripod perhaps in stabilizng your multiple shots. The other part of the assignment is creative -- thinking through what the realtionship between your five (or more) selves might be, and what their relationship to the environment might be. It will be relatively easy to just position yourself in a room in four different poses, and just piece the four photos together. But there should be some sort of drama that is expressed in the picture.
You can dress in different costume for your five or more selves, so that the multiple yous are multiple characters. Or you could take the multiple yous as different expressions of the same central personality. Is one version of you the ego, and the other the id? Is one a voice undermining you, and is another a contrary voice of optimism and hope? What are the different faces of your personality, and what sorts of relationships or conflicts do they have with one another? How could those relationships/conflicts be expressed through action, through expression, through gesture?
This doesn't have to be heavy at all -- you can have a comical take on the problem -- but the bottom line is that there should be some psychological relationship betwen the multiple "characters." It doesn't have to be obvious or over-the-top -- there's room for ambiguity and mystery -- but it does have to be there, somewhere.
You'll need to have your photos taken before next class -- which wil be a work period for combining the photos. It might be a good strategy to pair with someone else in class; it'll be a good way of covering people who don't have access to a digital camera, and it will be far easier to compose and shoot yourself properly with someone other than you taking the pictures. We will eventually be making prints of these images, so make sure you take the photos at print resolution.
The next assignment is to create a picture that will have five (or more) images of yourself in one single environment. Put another way, it'll be a picture of some space -- a room, landscape, whatever -- in which there are at least five images of you, realistically inhabiting the space. There should also be some overlapping among at least three of the "yous."
Part of this assignment is technical - thinking of how you are going to best execute your idea, making sure the lighting works in the way you want it to, making sure you've staged the scene in a way that works, utilizing a tripod perhaps in stabilizng your multiple shots. The other part of the assignment is creative -- thinking through what the realtionship between your five (or more) selves might be, and what their relationship to the environment might be. It will be relatively easy to just position yourself in a room in four different poses, and just piece the four photos together. But there should be some sort of drama that is expressed in the picture.
You can dress in different costume for your five or more selves, so that the multiple yous are multiple characters. Or you could take the multiple yous as different expressions of the same central personality. Is one version of you the ego, and the other the id? Is one a voice undermining you, and is another a contrary voice of optimism and hope? What are the different faces of your personality, and what sorts of relationships or conflicts do they have with one another? How could those relationships/conflicts be expressed through action, through expression, through gesture?
This doesn't have to be heavy at all -- you can have a comical take on the problem -- but the bottom line is that there should be some psychological relationship betwen the multiple "characters." It doesn't have to be obvious or over-the-top -- there's room for ambiguity and mystery -- but it does have to be there, somewhere.
You'll need to have your photos taken before next class -- which wil be a work period for combining the photos. It might be a good strategy to pair with someone else in class; it'll be a good way of covering people who don't have access to a digital camera, and it will be far easier to compose and shoot yourself properly with someone other than you taking the pictures. We will eventually be making prints of these images, so make sure you take the photos at print resolution.
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
For Thursday: raw material for "fake news" assignment
The current assignment is to fake a news story. This should involve at least four images (though it can be more) you've composited, and some supporting text -- the text could be as simple as a caption or headline, or you could write a mini news article to accompany the image, if appropriate. The "fake news" could be either something plausible, or something completely absurd. Either way, strive to make the image itself as convincing as possible, and try to create the accompanying caption or story in a way that it sounds like a real news story. Thursday will be an in-class work day for this project.
Come to class Thursday with your raw materials for the project selected (or shot, if you're using any photos you plan to shoot yourself). Recommended, but not required – havethe text (for caption or story) written and printed out, and a basic sketch of your idea for the project.
Come to class Thursday with your raw materials for the project selected (or shot, if you're using any photos you plan to shoot yourself). Recommended, but not required – havethe text (for caption or story) written and printed out, and a basic sketch of your idea for the project.
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