FINAL PROJECT- GOOD MORNING

FINAL PROJECT PROPOSAL

"GOOD MORNING"
For my final project, ( titled "good morning") I will be creating a series of four or five "kitchen art" posters. With all that is going on in the world right now, I think we need to start our days with some energizing cheer and centering inspiration. At least we could maybe start the day smiling. My concept is t photograph a series of still lifes that I will set up and import them into Adobe Bridge.
I will then use both photoshop to crop , etc, and illustrator to draw , using the original as a" loose" template layer. I will do abstracted, fun, stylized images. The images will be colorful , loose and painterly. The finished works will be in fun colors-not necessarily realistic. I may leave some photographic image pieces in the finished compositions. This would create a mixed media "collage" effect. I am not sure if that will work visually- but I will try. Lastly, a word or phrase will be added to the composition in a top layer. My sketches here are for general look. I won't know the exact layouts until I lay out actual objects and photograph the set ups.

FINAL DESIGN- WHERE WE LIVE- 6 PHOTO SERIES

This is the Final series of six "Poster" style images. They are all my own original digital photos taken in Croton on Hudson, and Yonkers near the Hudson River Museum. This first slide is a photo of my backyard as it joins with a patchwork of other suburban home yards. My neighbors and my family all live within the 10 mile radius of Indian Point. The nuclear disaster in Japan inspired this series.

MY DESIGN CHALLENGE IS IN REVERSE ORDER

My project here is a series of five images. I wasn't aware that posting them in sequence would result in reverse order. Please view beginning with "Berlin " and the accompanying text.
Thanks
Hillary

PHOTO 5

PHOTO 4

PHOTO 3

PHOTO 2

THE COMPETITION- BERLIN PROJECT

I have decided to do the Berlin project as it is sort of an open ended , expressive, personal, art statement. My medium is my own digital photography, edited and arranged with words, in Photoshop. The following image series is made by selecting from my own photos. I have been documenting photographically where I live at this moment in time. I have literally 100's of photos of Croton and the river towns. Portraits of the suburbs, the Hudson River in all kinds of weather, and life in these Hudson River towns at the turn of the milenium. Additionally, I have been closely watching the news coverage of the Nuclear Disaster in Japan. It is all so sad, so frightening, and still ongoing. My thoughts and prayers are with the people there. It resonates deeply. I am keenly aware that the town I live in and the neighboring Rivertowns are also the neighbors of the Indian Point Nuclear Facility. My neighborhood is within a few miles of the plant. The series here is about those feelings and thoughts. The opening photo, for instance , is my literal backyard.

GREEN DAY ALBUM COVER VARIATIONS

More Neighborhood Photoshop Experiments

These are three versions of the same altered photo. I took the photo with my digital camera, and cropped it for composition. The top image is the "solarize" effect which reverses color and posterizes the image, the second is actually "palette knife". The palette knife made it like a pop art poster look by simplifying the image. the third image was done in layers. First I copied the image and used the charcoal and chalk effect, playing with the light and darks. The next layer is a gradient masking layer using aqua color at 50 % transparent.

photoshop effects in illustrator

These are an original and
three effect versions

Lockwood De Forest- Hudson River School Painter

Lockwood DeForest is a Hudson River School Painter that is not very well known. Although he studied with Frederick Church, he later moved to California and became a craft importer. He continued to paint small landscapes as a hobby. The family did not release his paintings for public viewing until recently. See above " Fiery Moon" an oil painting . Although he painted it in the 1800's, it looks very contemporary. Above it, it you will see my illustrator exercise based on the colors and flow of his painting. As you can see, although experimenting madly- I am not mastering digital yet. I may reinstall illustrator. I can't seem to get the hang of it. I am fine and then it doesn't seem to work .
May have a glitch or two.

Watercolor

I did some plein air watercolors this past Fall. This is one.

My first Illustrator post

Paintings

Personal Statement

I love to paint. I viscerally enjoy applying the color and the feeling of paint sliding under a brush or palette knife. My paintings tell a narrative of life experiences, emotions, and places I have traveled to. My primary subject has been the landscape- even as a starting point for abstract and collage work, I am inspired by nature. I am obsessed with the golden color of afternoon light, color juxtapositions, the emotionally evocative quality of textured surfaces, and the poetic of rhythmic repetition of shapes and patterns. My painting technique freely integrates the accidental forms that emerge as ambiguous familiar objects. The viewer can then project their own meaning and history upon these mysterious, abstract, composite areas. My goal is to create paintings where you feel that the more you look –the more you see; not boring.  Each time you see the work, something new can be noticed; even with the same elements a new interpretation can be made, as the eye and brain instinctively make order out of chaos.

I like to choose a color story to begin a painting. I find that working with a limited palette organizes the surface creating color harmony. I then play with the materials. If it is an oil painting, I mix lots of color variations, loosening up and seeing what grabs me. If it is mixed media work, I select, sort ,experiment, and manipulate lots of different rice and handmade papers, personal photography, found objects , maps, sheet music, beads, leaves, fabrics, self made trinkets, paint ,graphite, India ink and textured acrylic gels and mediums.

I work in layers, building subtle complexity and richness to the work. Most paintings are worked on over many sessions. I review and react to the new composition every time I start another layer. For oil painting I use brushes and palette knives, as well as credit cards, rags, silicon color shapers, and paper towels to add and remove paint. The subtractive painting is my favorite part of that process, be it carving in with color shapers, or wiping back to “find the image” with a rag.

I feel I have barely scratched the surface of painting and printing. I wake up every day eager to get back to the colors and play. I look forward to my M.F.A. program to expand and learn much more about myself and art.  After graduating, I want to teach art and painting to post secondary students in addition to continuing to grow as an artist.