Before & After Photoshop

This week, I had a go at editing my photos on Adobe Photoshop. Being new to the program, this was a case of experimenting with the tools. My focus was on improving the images as best as I could.

Unfortunately, I did not use the layers tool within Photoshop. This meant that the changes I was making were being made to the photo itself. After saving the document, I was unable to see my previous steps in the history toolbar.

I opened the photos in camera RAW. This allowed me to make changes to the photo before making further adjustments in Photoshop. By then opening the final image in Adobe Bridge, I was able to see the adjustments I made in camera RAW.

Before
After

I lowered the contrast to give a softer feel and made the over all image brighter. I wanted to create a dream-like image, like the figure is in the clouds.

Before
After

I found the original image too dark. I didn’t like how the background was contrasted against the figurine. After adjusting the image in photoshop, the background had more texture and the colours of the Raincoat Girl popped.

Before
After

I used the quick selection tool to select the figurine in this photo. I then added contrast so that the boots were more defined. Brightening the wall in the foreground, shows more texture and made the image more interesting.

Before
After

I liked the way I composed this photo and how the figure gazes into the distance. I felt it looked too dark and gloomy. I lifted the brightness in the image. However, I would like to add more saturation to lift the colour in this image.

Before
After

I added more contrast/ shadows to define the figure’s face. I toned down the colours and softened the sharpness of the sunflower.

Before
After

The original photo contained a lot of yellow. This is due to the warm toned lights reflecting off of the material. I could turn the colour temperature down using the camera RAW program.

Before
After

This image is not in focus, so the end result is not perfect, but I wanted to try editing a coloured image like this. I increased the depth of the shadows and improved the overall colour.

Before
After

Increasing the exposure greatly improved this image, as the face became more visible. There is now more balance across the picture.

Gained in Translation

palimpsest

[ˈpalɪm(p)sɛst]

NOUN

a manuscript or piece of writing material on which later writing has been superimposed on effaced earlier writing.

something reused or altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form.

(Definition from Google.com)


The Gatekeeper’s Lodge: architectural palimpsest (thegatekeeperslodge.blogspot.com)

In the times before paper, people would use a writing surface made of wood, stone or wax. These palettes needed to be used and re-used. As a result, marks were left behind from the previous person’s writing. This is what is known as Palimpsest. Palimpsest could also apply to architecture, when it is possible to see old and new structure simultaneously. Old words or structures look ghostly, the new is often bolder.

The combination of these layers can create new meanings within a piece of artwork.

A famous, historical example of palimpsest in the last century, is the Berlin wall. The Berlin wall was a concrete structure built in 1961 to separate the people of West Berlin from East Germany and East Berlin. The Communist Bloc used the wall as a way to block out the fascist influence of the western world from the people inside West Berlin. The wall was in place from 1961 to 1989. During this time, the West side of the wall was graffitied over by people with opinions to express. The East side of the wall remained bare because people were not permitted to get close enough to this side. From the parts of the wall that still remain, it is possible to see remains of the older markings left from the past and newer graffiti layered over the old graffiti.

Dave McKean

Dave McKean is an illustrator known best for illustrating the book Coraline and comic book Sandman by Neil Gaiman. His work has a palimpsest style, as he layers up the visual elements.

He uses a computer in his process but will always draw on physical paper and create art traditionally. He then scans the images onto the computer and works with them further. Sometimes he will simply clean up the images and correct the density so that a picture is ready for print. Other times, he needs to use more digital tools, for example collaging elements together and reworking them digitally.

His favourite medium to work with is pencil and paper because of the ability to express emotions with pencil and the range of markings that can be achieved. However, he also works with paint, collage and photography. McKean will use whichever media is appropriate for a particular image.

As a young artist, he was inspired by album covers, book covers, comic books, pop culture, fantasy and science fiction. After having written his own book, he learnt the importance of words. ‘Good pictures can’t replace what isn’t in the words.’ He says, when talking about book/comic illustration.

Information sourced from: Through the comic keyhole with… Dave McKean  and

Virtual Memories #250 – Dave McKean

 on YouTube.com

Jasper Johns

Jasper Johns is an American artist. He specialises in painting, printmaking and sculpture. He is most famous for his paintings of the American flag in the 1950’s.

Racing Thoughts & Ventriloquist include the image of objects. It is interesting to see how he has combined these objects within a piece and what objects he has chosen. In both pieces, we appear to be shown the wall of his studio or a room in his house. The clues to this are paintings on the walls, ceramics and a basket furniture. In the 2 paintings, each of the objects are treated differently. There is a question of believable, we are not totally sure what we are looking at. There is an optical illusion quality to these paintings, that I think makes them particularly interesting to look at.

Let’s first look at Ventriloquist:

This oil painting features pots floating in space on the left side of the image.

The image of flag paintings taped on top of the pots, do not make sense logically. Because of the object’s lack of interaction with the background, we must assume that they are not existing in the same place at the same time. Maybe they belong to 2 different times, like the graffiti on the Berlin wall, the background maybe simply be a memory of what was on the wall before.

The 2-dimensional impression of the vase on the right-hand side is an example that even within the same painting, the ceramics are treated differently. The objects on the left have form.

Placing the image of the hinge suggests a door or cupboard, even if the surface it is placed on has no illusion of depth. We make mental associations to objects. Hinges are only useful in connection to another object and have no use on their own.

Racing Thoughts:

The wall on the left is quite textured but the basket in the foreground looks more flat, for example.

The yellow trousers hanging up, lack detail. This makes them appear unimportant compared to their surroundings, due to how the artist has treated them.

The paint drips of the red wall, unrealistically drip onto the basket in the foreground. This makes the painting appear like a painting, but the poster of the Mona Lisa looks more realistic in comparison and confuses the viewer by the contrasting effect.

In this piece, Johns used ‘Encaustic, screen print and wax crayon on collaged cotton and linen’. The use of different techniques helped to create the contradictory treatment of the different elements within the piece. (Encaustic is a technique where pigment is mixed with hot wax)

In Souvenir, the 3 objects: torch, mirror and plate serve only to guide our eye around the painting. This happens because we know the function of each object. We expect light to pour from the torch and we expect a mirror to reflect this light. These associations are what help us to read the image. The plate can never be used to eat from, but it is instead decorative.

All Jasper Johns images from Jasper Johns: “Take an object. Do something to it. Do something else to it.” | Blog | Royal Academy of Arts

Drawing Exercises

Within this week’s workshop, we completed a drawing exercise, working in pairs. We were asked to describe our object to a classmate, without looking at our object. Sitting back-to-back also meant that we couldn’t use our hands to describe the object. We then swapped over. I found it easier to draw from a description compared to having to explain an object that I couldn’t see.

The next task was to draw my own object from memory. I found the proportions difficult to capture.

The next task was to draw our own object, this time was able to view my object. I used a pencil for this task. I then needed to draw my classmate’s object over carbon paper over my first drawing. This meant that the second drawing was super-imposed over the top of the first drawing and the images combined together. I felt that both objects were an interesting match because there is a feminine character and a male character . The nutcracker is reminiscent of a toy soldier from previous centuries, and my object is also old-fashioned. They have this in common. I thought immediately of the fairytale by Hans Christian Anderson, called The Steadfast Tin Soldier, where a toy soldier falls in love with a paper ballerina.

I then wanted to extend this exercise further. I combined the image of my figurine with the image of an umbrella, using the same piece of carbon paper to transfer the umbrella drawing.

I drew the figurine again with pencil, as I liked the soft quality of the image.

I drew the umbrella onto paper so I could see what I was drawing. I could have drawn straight onto the carbon paper, but this would have made it hard to see the lines against the black of the paper.

There was an element of spontaneity, because I did not plan where the umbrella would be placed. I like the image of both an open and close umbrella in the image.
For this drawing, I used a red fine liner pen to first draw the face of my figurine.

I also used the red fine liner pen to draw the arm and umbrella , as I wanted to see how a fine liner pen would create markings through the carbon paper. The resulting drawing was sharper than using the paper for the copy.

Inspired by the markings on the Berlin Wall, I wanted to experiment with words.

I wrote the words with a pencil on paper and made sure I was using a soft book cover to lean the paper on. This meant that my markings would create an impression in the paper. I layered the word ‘Unbreakable’ onto the page.

I then rubbed out this layer of words and wrote over the top.

I repeated this process until I had a busy surface of text. I then used a pen to create bolder markings over the top. For the last step, I took the carbon paper and rubbed it over the surface of the paper. This helped the letters to show up more clearly.

Even when I turned the paper over, I could still see visible markings of the text. The pen markings had bled through and the pencil markings were embossed on the surface of the paper.

Photo book Artist Research

Workshop #4 Editor as Author- Designing with photographs

In week 4 we have been introduced to photobooks. Photobooks use mainly images and sometimes text to convey a message across the book. We discussed the importance of the editor of a newspaper and the way they shape the publication as much as an author. The way images are chosen, presented, edited and the sequence they appear in all have an effect on the overall narrative or message. The images can carry the stories.

Dieter Roth

Some artists have created photobooks based on news stories. One example is Dieter Roth, who is known for making miniature books. In 1961 he made The Daily Mirror Book, using snippets from The Daily Mirror newspaper. In this way, the artist is maybe consciously or subconsciously interpreting the news and showing us the parts he is most drawn to.

By using one small area of a photo or a piece of text, we are more aware of how the image looks visually. The meaning becomes ambiguous, and this leads the viewer to guess what they are looking at. Is this snippet from a story about something positive or negative for example. By showing half of a sentence, our minds try to fill in the gaps of the area we are not seeing. The artists choice of images shows us something about his personality. For example, some of the images are quirky and humorous when taken out of context.

Daily Mirror Book

In a way, he is reconstructing the book by forming a new book made from the old book. He is giving the newspaper a new life and making it more meaningful to people. A newspaper is an object that is thrown away after use (a transient object) By constructing The Daily Mirror Book, he is creating an object that has value. If someone handed me a newspaper, I may or may not read it but it would soon go into the bin. If someone handed me a tiny book they had spent time and effort into creating, I would likely keep it.(it has become a durable object)

Dieter Roth, Daily Mirror Book

Images from

Artists’ Books and Multiples: Dieter Roth | Daily Mirror (artistsbooksandmultiples.blogspot.com)

Visual Media Center News: Book Art Resources (dusaahvmc.blogspot.com)

From Idea Generation by Neil Leonard and Gavin Ambrose

To make a Dadaist Poem is a set of instructions written by Tristan Tzara in 1920. Dadaists and other artists and writers, such as William Burroughs of the Beat Generation in the 1960s, would use similar techniques when coming up with inspiration for their work. To make a Dadaist Poem encourages spontaneity in the creative process.

By juxtaposing ideas, the artist is making something new. The unpredictability of these methods means the artist is open to inspiration and the outcome is interesting and unusual.

2-page layout of Tristan Tzara’s Dada Manifesto, printed in Dada 3 (December 1918)

The poet Tristan Tzara was a strong advocate of the international Dada movement, but his Dada Manifesto of 1918 appears to be complete nonsense. It is, in fact, just that — but in a really interesting way that perfectly serves the goals of the Dada movement


Dada Manifesto – Smarthistory

Tzara, gave the following instructions on how “To make a Dadaist Poem” (1920):

Take a newspaper.
Take some scissors.
Choose from this paper an article the length you want to make your poem.
Cut out the article.
Next carefully cut out each of the words that make up this article and put them all in a bag.
Shake gently.
Next take out each cutting one after the other.
Copy conscientiously in the order in which they left the bag.
The poem will resemble you.
And there you are—an infinitely original author of charming sensibility, even though unappreciated by the vulgar herd.

To Make a Dadaist Poem | Modernist Commons


‘Piece from The Third Mind by William Burroughs and Brion Gysin’ from
Project 0: Introduction /Automatism (Cut-up Technique) (projectzero-john.blogspot.com)
William Burroughs

William Burroughs would use cut up techniques for writing ideas. Several of his books were written this way. He used a similar method where he would take a page of text, draw lines on it. He would cut up and invert the sections. This would produce interesting narratives. He was also a visual artist as well as poet and novelist. He put together scrapbooks and painted.

Third Mind Collage, 1965
Burroughs in London – RealityStudio
Pedro Ramos

Inspired by Madeira, his birthplace, Ramos created the Black scabbard research centre. This photo book is made up of pictures from friends and pictures from the newspaper, all within Madeira. In this way, he is painting a picture of the region, made up of the many stories within it. I like that even though some pictures may not look like they have any connection to the picture on the next page, they are linked by their association with the place. Every picture seems out of context. Words are not needing because of the strength of the images.

MOTTO DISTRIBUTION » Blog Archive » Black Scabbard Research Centre, Pedro Ramos.

Luke Fowler- Two frame films. (2006-2012)

In this photo book, he is juxtaposing 2 separate images – from 2 far apart moments. By placing the images together, the viewer makes up a narrative that could be possible between the 2 or 4 images.

Luke Fowler – Two-Frame Films – Perimeter Distribution

Two-Frame Films (2006-2012) Luke Fowler – MACK (mackbooks.co.uk)

Luke Fowler- Two frame films. (2006-2012)
Luke Fowler- Two frame films. (2006-2012)