Overview
Title: Forever with me Size: 60.96 cm x 91.44 cm Medium: Photopea Date of completion: October 2022 Exhibition Text: My digital collage is about how I lost three family members in the span of five years. I am showing how even though they are no longer here, I will always hold onto the memories. The images in the collage were taken by me and family members, making this piece very personal to me. My piece was inspired by the works of Edwards Mason Eggleston, a painter. I was inspired by how the stance of the subject shows emotion. I used this in my piece to show desperation and emotion. |
Essay
For my digital collage, I created a piece that shows a time in my life that had a heavy impact on me and changed me. When thinking of different times in my life that impacted me, I knew exactly what time of my life would inspire my piece. The events that changed me occurred over the five year period from October of 2015 to September of 2020. During this time period, I lost three members of my family. In October of 2015 my great grandmother, on my mother’s side, passed away and in November of 2016 I lost my grandmother, on my father’s side. In september of 2020, I lost my great grandfather, on my mom's side. After all of their passings, I experienced great sadness and grief that impacted me both emotionally and physically. Not only was I greatly impacted, but my whole family was because one death occurred on each side of the family. Seeing my other family members grieving also had an effect on me. This period of time has taught me some valuable life lessons that I live by to this day. One of those life lessons is that life is too short. I know now not to take time for granted. I cherish the time that I still have with many of my family members, whether I see them often or not. Since this time, I have grown closer to my family and try to spend as much time as I can with them. Because of how young I was at the time, I also became very sensitive. With these events in mind, the creation of the digital collage will show I was affected and the emotions I felt. In the digital collage, I am standing in the middle reaching up in the sky. You can see the desperation in my stance as I am reaching. I am reaching for balloons that have the faces of the family members I lost. This will depict that I am reaching to have them back in my life but they are out of reach from me because I can not get them back. The other balloons in my hand will contain memories I have with my grandma, great grandma, and great grandpa. This will show that even though they are no longer with me I will always have memories of them with me. They will never be forgotten. This entire piece will depict the works of Edward Mason Eggleston, an art deco painter. I was inspired by his works because they often feature women reaching in the air, which is exactly how my piece will look. I was inspired by the stances of the women and how they help to show the emotions of the women featured in the painting. I used that in my piece because I want my stance in the center of the digital collage to represent the emotions that I was feeling after those years of grief. I will also be reaching in my photo just like the women in Eggleston works. That is the whole meaning of why I am creating this digital collage, to show that I long to have my family back together. I hope that when people look at my piece they are able to feel the emotion and be able to understand the meaning behind my piece.
Inspiration
Artist: Edward Mason Eggleston
The inspiration I used for this piece comes from Edward Mason Eggleston, an art deco painter. His works are realistic depictions of a subject, mostly women, in nature. The pieces that I used as inspiration are “Peter Pan” and “Reaching for the Moon” by Eggleston. I was immediately inspired by how Eggleston created stances that really helped to represent the emotion in the piece. I wanted to use that in my piece since it is a very emotional one. The subject in both of the paintings appear to be reaching up in the air, which I will also have in mine. Immediately after seeing his works I knew that I also wanted to have a background in my piece that was subtle and that doesn’t take away from the overall piece. Although there are many similarities between our artworks, there are also many differences. The main difference is the medium. I created a digital collage and my inspirations are paintings. This did have an effect on how I used the inspiration.
Planning
The first step in my planning phase was planning what the collage would be about, what the theme would be. I did a list of bullet points that highlight what effected and how it affected me. For my first planning sketch I started by planning out what my theme would be for the piece. I knew it had to be about a time in my life that changed me. I knew right away that that time was thew span of 5 years between October of 2015 through September of 2020. In this time I lost three family members that I was close to, my great grandma, my grandma, and my great grandpa. I then brainstormed ways that this time period affected me, both emotionally and physically.
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I then sketched out kind of what I was going for and what each of the components would be for. In the middle I am standing facing forward with one hand reaching up and the other hand and a grabbing motion close to me. I am reaching up for three balloons that have the faces of my family members in them. In my hand i am holding the strings to three other balloons that contain pictures of family memories with them. I kind of liked this sketch but I think it could be a lot better. There were a few changes I needed to make in my next sketches.
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For my second sketch I went with a pose that was different from the first one. For this sketch I am facing to the side but my head is looking up. My hands are in the same position but my stance is different. The baloons are in the same spot also. I like this sketch better because I feel like it shows more emotions. I feel like it shows a desperation when I am reaching because I am looking up at my family. I decided to use this sketch as my reference for the digital collage. I knew that some parts of it may change when I am actually doing the manipulation of the pictures.
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Process
The very first thing that I did to begin the process was go to photopea.com. I selected to create a new project and fixed the settings (to the right). I had to adjust the width and the height of the image. I changed the width to 36 inches and the height to 24 inches. I also changed the DPI to 170 pixels per inch. This was a requirement for the project.
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Once the settings were all adjusted I was able to open my first image. This image is of a sunset I saw. It would become the background of the piece. I wanted to have the collage have an outside setting because it would show that the balloons will keep going up and never come back down. Which is symbolism for my family members not coming back. Also, my family is very religious. Therefore, the balloons could also represent my family members going up to heaven since they passed away. That is mine and my family's beliefs. What I really liked about this picture is the semi-dark background of it. I felt like it would help to make the parts of the collage more visible and it also could help to represent the emotions of this piece.
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After the backgorund was laid down it was time to start adding in the layers and the other components. The first image I added to the background was a picture of me. In the picture i am turned to the side with my head looking up. I have one hand up reaching and one hand close to my chest in a grabbing position. Once I had the picture of me down I played with some filters. I decided to go with the filter that darkened the picture slightly and added some contrast. I really liked how you could still see me but not as vividly. This helped to show how I felt after their passings. I felt very emotional and like I had lost a part of me. This filter makes me look like a part of me is missing.
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Next, I added in the picture of the balloons. The balloons that I used were blue but I didn't want them to be blue in the digital collage. I wanted them to be a gray color. Therefore I used one of the filters to make the baloon gray. Some ended up being a golden color temporarily. There are the three balloons in the sky floating and 3 baloons in my hand that I have a grip of. For some reason the filter that I had on myself disappeared. I added it back in later on in the process.
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The next thing I did was add my family member's faces to the balloons. I did this by adding a picture of them to a new later. I then used the lasso select tool in photopea to oonly select their faces. Once I had their faces selected, I copy and pasted them into the balloons. I did this for all three. I then used the refined edge tool and eraser tool to clean it up.
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Experimentation
The main thing I experimented with was the filter I would use on the picture of myself. I chose between these four filters. I wanted a filter that would darken me so that I kind of blended in with the background. All of these filters did that except for the second on. The last one made me look to orange. Therefore, the one I chose was first one. This one made me stand out from the background but I also kind of blended in. I was really happy with how this filter looked on the image.
Critique
My piece in the center has some similarities and some differences to my inspiration. My inspiration came from the works of Edward Mason Eggleston. His pieces are the outer two. When I first looked at his pieces I knew right away that those would be my inspiration. I loved how the stances in his works help to show the emotion of the subject. With my pieces I used a similar reaching motion to help represent the emotion of the piece. Also the background in both the inspiration and in my piece do not take away from the overall piece. The backgrounds are not very distracting. My piece, obviously is more realistic since I used photos, whereas the inspiration is a painting.
Reflection
Overall, with this project I feel like I was able to acquire new skills when it came to using Photopea. Photopea was a new website for me, but I was able to pick it up relatively fast. With the help of the in class mini tutorial and looking things up online I was able to learn the majority of the tools needed in order to better my collage. This was the digital collage I have ever created but I doubt that it will be my last. My favorite part of this project was that I got to make it very personal. This piece really pulled at my heartstrings because it is about a time in my life that was very emotional for me. It is about how within 5 years I lost three of my family members that I was close to. This time in my life was very hard for me, but I love that I was able to honor my family members through this piece. I hope that people will be able to see the emotion when they look at this piece. My least favorite part was dealing with the technology. In the beginning of this project I had to restart a couple of times because Photopea froze and everything was deleted. Once I was able to get started again, it kept freezing, so I had to take many breaks.
ACT Questions
Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
- There was a very obvious cause and effect relationship between my piece and my inspirations. The stance that I took in the picture is relatively similar to that of the stances in the works of Edward Mason Eggleston. The reach is what makes the similarities identifiable
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
- I feel like the approach of the author is to create artwork that tells a story. This all ties back to identity and emotions.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
- Through research I bettered my knowledge on how people use art to express themselves and tell people personal things in their life. Art is a way for people to express themselves and their emotions. Identity and culture play a large role in the creation of artwork.
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
- The overall theme of my research was identity. I had to think about the time in my life that changed me, so I tried to carry that into my research. The research helped me to find ways to express the emotion and my identity.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
- When reading the research I inferred the Eggleston also has a personal connection to the theme of the pieces, even though it doesn’t outwardly express it. I was not able to identify if he has a personal connection to the art that he creates.
Citations
“Edward Mason Eggleston.” Wikimedia Commons, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Edward_Mason_Eggleston.
Picryl. “Peter Pan by Edward Mason Eggleston.” PICRYL PublicDomainImage, PICRYL, 8 July 2022, garystockbridge617.getarchive.net/amp/media/peter-pan-by-edward-mason-eggleston-580648.
Picryl. “‘Reaching for the Moon’, Painting by Edward Mason Eggleston - Picryl Public Domain Search.” PICRYL, 1 Feb. 1933, picryl.com/media/reaching-for-the-moon-painting-by-edward-mason-eggleston-426179.
Picryl. “Peter Pan by Edward Mason Eggleston.” PICRYL PublicDomainImage, PICRYL, 8 July 2022, garystockbridge617.getarchive.net/amp/media/peter-pan-by-edward-mason-eggleston-580648.
Picryl. “‘Reaching for the Moon’, Painting by Edward Mason Eggleston - Picryl Public Domain Search.” PICRYL, 1 Feb. 1933, picryl.com/media/reaching-for-the-moon-painting-by-edward-mason-eggleston-426179.