2. Preliminary Reflection:
a. Briefly describe the project and your personal intentions for this work.
The goal of the project was portray the metaphorical house of our minds, using different works, or rooms to represent different aspects of ourselves. In this project we used Photoshop to create final works that are carefully thought out compositions of photographs and non-photographic elements woven together. My intentions for this project were to use textures and colors that represented both the memories and experiences and the future possibilities in my mind. I like to think of the house of my mind as someplace that holds past beauty and also the potential to create new beauty. I also had the idea to present my pictures using some sort of 3D shape, and I ended up choosing to make a dodecahedron out of eat picture,
b. Reflect on the success of your final product. How well does the work convey your intentions? In what ways did your process propel the development of your work? (Are there any "Studio Habits of Mind" that would be meaningful to refer to in describing your process?) How refined is you craftsmanship? In what ways did your grow as a student of art (conceptually, formally and/or technically)?
At the beginning of this project I brainstormed basic ideas and I was inspired by those ideas and let them develop. Some of my pictures, such as the picture of the piano with different colors keys, turned out similar to how I originally pictured them, and were very successful. However, some the original ideas that I attempted did not turn out well, and I decided to do seething else instead. Some of my pictures, such as the collage of purple flower petals, street signs, and buildings, just came to me as I worked on them, taking inspiration from photographs I had previously taken. My idea of making dodecahedrons was ambitious and proved to be a tedious task, but I did it. I like the look of my dodecahedrons, but I also feels that so little of the picture is visible with them, that it undermines the hard work I did in Photoshop creating the pictures. Maybe if they had been on a larger scale the dodecahedrons would have been more successful, but I am glad that I followed through with my idea, whether or not the end product was exactly what I wanted. I think making three dimensional shapes for this project will encourage me to consider other creative presentations for future projects. I also think that this project really helped me realize and understand all the things Photoshop can do and how to use it to make composition realistic and intriguing, not cheesy or fake-looking.
