Seminar Photoshop & Indesign

My last week of the seminar month will be occupied with learning to work with Photoshop. At school the Macs are installed with Adobe Photoshop CS5; pretty fancy stuff.

We will also concentrate on the software called Indesign which is used by professionals who edit magazines, newspapers, etc.

In just two days we've already mastered a few skills and tools. It's fun to work with layers, brightness/contrast, transform and the magic wand. But it is also difficult.

At day 1 we got explanation of how to make pictures free of the environment and to use layers. The picture below shows that I can free two people from a coloured setting and place them in a new background.

Kendoka's meet Rome

Day 2 we had to experiment with the layers and set our previously made products in a new setting. It's hard to create a truthworthy image since the all the pictures have a different kind of lighting and perspective.

Afterwards I noticed that a setting with water can make it difficult to place objects in it, since it would not look realistic...

My Products in a Japanese Garden

The 3rd day for the first time in my life I opened the  programme Indesign to  play with the layout of a document. How to make columns, frame pictures with text, changing the background colours, etc. Sine I am used to the Word software, it was a little hard to control the new shortcutkeys on a Mac.

Classmate Clones

Seminar Ceramics

The first month of the new year brings us 4 weeks of seminars. These seminars are about technical and theoretical improvement and they give us the opportunity to try something that is not in our subject package. Since this is a collaboration program between teachers of all departments, students from all departments can participate together in mixed classes. A few examples of the offered seminars for the 1st year students of the Product Design department are: pouring synthetic or plastic materials, bending metal, making a short animated movie, photoshop course, binding books, making paint from pigments, clay, ceramics.

Ceramics is a nice 3D exorcise and since making a reservation for using the ovens at school takes at least one month, I figured it would be nice to try something of which I would probably not take the initiative of doing it. The seminar ceramics started at the second week and it has ended at the end of the third week (yesterday).

The assignment we got was: make a sculpture of a (part of a) fruit or vegetable and add a contrasting form to it. Minimun size: 60 x 60 x 40 cm. Get inspiration of your studying department (in my case Product Design) and/or background/roots. Rough Chamotte Clay weight and cost: 1 pack = 10kg = 10 euro's.
The teacher explained to us that actually everything can be a contrasting form, but she said there were good ones and bad ones. The bad ones don't have any relationship between ech other and don't look interesting or funny. The good ones instead activate you to think about the relationship between the (two) forms and can sometimes even be ridiculous or bizarre. But opinions can differ always...
Another important thing: we had to build our fruits or vegies  as if it was an architectural building. The other teacher (there were two) learned us how to make supporting beams like archs and flying buttresses. Using this method the sculptures wouldn't get too heavy and easier to transport.

Oxheart Cabbage

Construction side 1

Construction 1

Construction side 2

Relief of Oxheart Cabbage

Almost finished Oxheart Cabbage

Finished Oxheart Cabbage front

Finished Oxheart Cabbage back

Finally my Oxheart Cabbage bacame 30 x 50 x 80 cm, needed 4 packs of clay and weighted 40kg.
At the end of the assignment it appeared that the teacher wanted us to make the whole fruit or vegetable and add a cliche contrasting form to it, which was a little disappointing.
But altogether it was a very exciting seminar where we learned how to treat and dry the clay.

First deviation!

Here's my first deviation!
Please check the new page on the right of my blog for further information.

http://organ153dcha05.deviantart.com/#/d4m3q4n

Progress sep - dec 2011

What did I learn during the first months of my study?

Blok 1 sep - oct

MAT: experiment a  lot with materials. Try to create big series with one or two great pieces at the end of the experiment. Quantity does count, at this point maybe even more than quality.

ABO: if you're good at something, don't play it safe and create what commonly correct is. If you have the technique, try to expand your creativity by experimenting with unusual compositions, colours, etc.

PO: Do not fixate on one idea/object. Try a lot of other things: experiment! Simplicity can be succesful, so try not to overcomplicate things. When presentating your work, only show the most important things and keep unnecessary sketches for yourself.

Blok 2 nov - dec

MAT: do not create what you think the teachers want to see. Do whatever you like! Even if you're just making tests, you need to take in account every aspect of it. Because everything has a meaning and can cause a different state of the object.

ABO: an intervention is good one when it has completely changed the way people look at an object even after the intervention has been removed. Photographs of a making process is not interesting, but it is of a thinking/choosing process.

PO: if you're doing research (to shape) and experiments, do not only make one test, but create whole series, gather a lot of images and print them out.

RE: always take in account the way people look at your work. The artist may have all the information and have a finished idea in its head, but the spectator only sees what is being presented. The way of presenting is important. If you hang it on a wall, it will look like a painting. If you frame it, people will only see the inside of it.

Schouw 1, work of sep - dec, 2011

At the end of december, my class had a Schouw. This is a sort of evaluation where the main teachers have a look at the presentation of all of your artwork. It's important to show them what you've learned and that you have a process (research, experiments, etc) before a final product. They judge on behalve of your creativity and on your ability to adjust to the school's methods. Which in my understanding are: be yourself and do what you like.

Here are some of the assignments we had during the period of september to december 2011.

ABO - Algemene Beeldende Ontwikkeling - General Expressive Development.

Assignment 1: photograph yourself in two boxes, one with a landscape and the other with a fantasy world.

Landscape

Fantasy World

Assignment 2: photograph two urban interventions created by yourself.

Candy Cane

English Liquorish

PO - Product Ontwerp - Product Design

Assignment: Design a product or a piece of furniture existing of two identical pieces in which the links must be hidden.

  

Double Rocking Chair 1

Double Rocking Chair 2

 MAT - Materiaal - Material

Assignment: play with materials and do with it whatever you like.
Please watch: Slideshow MAT blok 1 + blok 2.