Maria's Surrounded By Design results

I tried the Surrounded by Design challenge, and this is what I got:

From a wee bit of this dress:

I got this winter scene:

And from part of this theater curtain:

I made this mossy cave:

They're really more thumbnails than finished pieces, but I just wanted to experiment with texture and color for the moment. My backgrounds are pretty abysmal, and I think either of these would be an improvement over what I've done in the past. So, success! I may have to do more of these in the future, and keep them around for environment ideas.

Design is everywhere - Sam's post

When Ang did her set of design is everywhere photo paintings, I was doing them at the same time. Here are my results. Most of these were done in less than an hour. Photos were rotated and cropped in pretty much every case!

Original Photo: Withered Shade by nexion

Original photo: Bird by Yowlot

Original photo: Cranes by SuzyTheButcher

Angela's Result: Surrounded by Design (cont.)

I did a few more tries of the Surrounded by Design exercise (where you take random photos and create characters or environments from them).  I can tell that this exercise is really striking at two weak points of mine - environments and atmospheric lighting.  It was very difficult for me to come up with interesting compositions when there weren't human figures involved and to light them accurately so there was a sense of depth.

It just goes to show that I need to start thinking of my environments like I do my characters by thinking of a narrative for them.  What is this place used for? What is its symbolic meaning?  What can I add to them that creates visual interest?  How can I arrange my environment so it has an interesting composition?  This was a really great exercise. I hope others will try it and share as well!

The original photo rotated and cropped.

The result - some kind of secret underground shrine.

The original photo  of a bird feeder turned upside down.

Bird feeder equals KILLER SPACE CANNON!

Photo of origami cranes turned upside down.

Equals alien mirror pyramids in the desert!

I think the next exercises I need to do to help my environments and lighting are studies of photos. Not so much creating environments as copying existing photos to get a better sense of lighting and color, then moving on to creating my own environments (suggested exercise of 30 thumbnails).

Angela's Result: Surrounded by Design CRIT PLZ

My result after trying out the "Surrounded by Design" art exercise.  My original photo looked like this:

flowers by ~raincitygirl98 on deviantART

The layered leaves with the color shifting areas caught my eye first.  I immediately thought of the ruffles of a dress.  The curled leaves in the top right also made me think of underwater kelp.  Dress ruffles won out, however, after arranging parts of this photo ended up with the white fronds looking like an Elizabethan collar.

Classy Cabbage Fairy by =angelasasser on deviantART

Created in Photoshop CS2 using a Cintiq 12WX.

I'm rather excited by the result!  This image went by much faster than my other digital pieces because I had a base for the texture.  It could still use some touching up, but I'm otherwise pleased with the spontaneity of coming up with ideas this way!  

CRIT PLZ:  Her arms feel bare to me. Should I add something more to them?  More filigree armbands?  Should I add more to the background or does the ambiguous patterns work?  Anything else I can do to make this more interesting, should I spruce it up for a portfolio piece?

I hope others try this exercise. It was tons of fun!  It's a bit like an artist's Rorschach test.  What do YOU see in that shape?

ART EXERCISE: Surrounded by Design

The first exercise I'm challenging myself to do is one suggested by the FZDschool of design.  The challenge is to take a shape from a random photo of an everyday object or scene and turn it into a design, either a character or a setting.

This exercise challenges your design sense to see if you can be a creative problem solver in making a design from a completely random shape.  There is inspiration all around us and we need to be able to identify it to be successful creative thinkers.

FZD posted a video example of taking a random photo and creating something cool out of it:



Time Limit: n/a

* If you do this exercise, add the tag 'Surrounded by Design' to your post.  If you desire critique, add "CRIT PLZ" to your post's title.  Good luck!