b l o g f o u r

1.       I decided to continue with the big idea of purpose. I explored this through the themes of love, relationships, and commitment versus dispensable love, and temporariness. I wanted to portray in my diptych final what it would look like for a heart to fulfill its purpose. I believe a heart fulfills its purpose when it loves another sacrificially for a lifetime. We can see this through the concept of marriage and its necessary commitment. When our hearts follow this purpose, it lights up our lives in so many ways. We are able to experience joy, laughter, trust, and satisfaction. On the flip side of my diptych, I wanted to illustrate what it looks like to go the opposite path of what a heart's created purpose is. I explored what it may look like if love from our heart was suddenly disposable. When we view love as something very temporary and insignificant, we tend to "throw it away" easily. 
          To communicate the opposing meanings of purpose and love, my visual strategy for one side of my diptych was lighting. I wanted to illuminate the image of my parents from their hearts because they are, in my opinion, fulfilling their hearts purpose to love. The lighting of their faces in the shadowiness of the background shows that fulfilling this purpose lights up their life, and the smiles on their face show us joy.  The other side of the diptych also uses lighting and color to illustrate purpose, but with a darker light to show what is missing in the "disposable" love. The use of grey and a dim glow shows the darkness that comes with choosing not to love with commitment to one person. 
          The work that I completed may be used to create a picture for people who are reading an article about eros vs. agape love in an informational magazine. Eros love depicts a selfish love that is focused on sexual desire as compared to agape love which dictionary.reference.com defines as "unselfish love of one person for another without sexual implications; brotherly love."


2. I'm not a huge fan of mainstream pop music, however, when I came across the music video for Christina Perri's "Jar of Hearts", I was really intrigued by the use of digital media in her video. I really like the way the falling hearts in the video really bring the lyrics to life. Although it creates artificiality for me, I appreciate the direct link to her lyrics. My project will connect to this video through the theme of love and its purpose.



Martin Grohs work also inspires me because of his use of mixed media. He illustrates simple body poses through his photography and makes it surreal through his themes of supernaturality.

This woman in this picture seems normal at first, but looking closer, Grohs has given us the sense that she is from another world because she can "fly". The lighting is what i noticed because he accentuates her features well through the lighting (muscles highlighted). She appears like she is glowing.


Joonas Paloheimo sparks an interest for me because of the major contrasts in color of this work. In the picture the man pulling her is dressed in dark colors whereas the rest of the picture is neutral and the colors of the woman's ensemble is white/neutral. A lot of artists use colors for symbolism.

In this image the darkness of the male is pulling towards him the image of light and "purity". The contrast is inspiring for my project because I'm showing the contrast between the purpose of a heart and what its not meant to do.


3. In my final project, I want to incorporate lighting into my project. Often times I run into problems where I'm creating a document in photoshop in which I paste a picture into the document and the lighting does not match the background picture at all. I found a tutorial that I will use as a guide to aid me in my project. Specifically in the picture with my parents, I will incorporate lighting to make their faces glow. The original picture of my parents is a darker lighting, and the heart that I will put in to the picture will be very bright. I want to create the effect that the heart is glowing and lighting up the area around it.


Here is the example that I'm looking to for reference:

The elephant looks out of place because the lighting doesn't match. The artist creates duplicated layers and erases away appropriately so that the elephant looks like it should be there.

http://all.worth1000.com/tutorials/161386/lighting-a-giant-elephant


The second example is also from worth1000.com but more simple:

http://www.worth1000.com/tutorials/162541/lighting-a-giant-swan