Art Nouveau Presentation

Here is the link to my Prezi:
http://prezi.com/wjpsg0abpgao/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

Advanced Photoshop Techique

I found this tutorial in this website to make a watercolour painting effect. Since I liked watercolours, I decided to look more into it.

Here's the link to the website: http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-effects/watercolor-painting/

This tutorial was easy to do and it's short. To get this effect, you have to duplicate the background layer (with the photo in it) 3 times and apply filters and blending modes to each of the duplicates. When it's done, you have a nice watercolour effect.

This tutorial was well explained as it tells me where to click with easy words to understand. It evens tells you what would happen if you do a certain filter or blending mode. I would use this for my personal photos or use this to make a poster look cool.


Here's the images that the tutorial used. It's not mine, BTW

Before:

After: 

Pixel Portrait

Png Version

GIF Version

For our first assignment in Year 2 Tech, we have to make a pixel portrait of ourselves. We have to make it 100x150 pixels, RGB colour, 72 p.p.i., and in a white background. When I started this assignment, I looked for a photo of myself for reference. I don't usually take photos of myself, but luckily I have a photo of me in Facebook. With a reference, I made my pixel portrait.

When I compare the Png and GIF version, they look the same. To me, the Png version is  a bit darker than the GIF; probably because Png files has better compression than GIF files adn can support many colours. When I enlarged them, I see no difference except for the picture to be pixelated.

For the pixel portrait, I wanted to accentuate my eyes, nose and mouth because those are the key features that makes a face unique, at least in my opinion. For the colour palette, my hair isn't really black; it's more of a dark brown. So the colour palette would be with lots of browns and some reds. This is important in order for my pixel portrait to look like me.

To make my pixel portrait, I put the photo of me as a layer above the white background so I won't mess with the photo and background. Then I made several layers for each part of my face and labeled it according to my face. This is so that you can still see the photo, but the pixel layers are separate. Then you use the pencil tool to the size of 1 pixel to colour in the face. It has to be the size of 1 pixel so there won't be anti-aliasing. 

For the eyes, nose and mouth, I went from pixel to pixel to pixel to pixel to make it look realistic. To get the right colours, I used the eyedropper tool to pick up the colours from the photo of me to get some gradient effects. This was a long and painful process. It made me miss my wacom tablet at home because it was easier to colour and use the eyedropper tool rather than using shortcuts on the keyboard.

Once I was done that, I filled in the face, neck and hair. I didn't go from pixel to pixel because I don't think it was necessary to do so and also I'm running out of time. For the hair, I used my own experience of colouring hair in the manga style to get it done faster. When that's done, I've put in the highlights.

After that, I saved it into Png and GIF files and I'm done.

Chinese Watercolour Painting

* I don't know how long this supposed to be and how detailed it must be, so I try to put as many important info as I can. Sorry for the long post *



Introduction 

Chinese painting is one of the world's oldest artistic traditions in the world that is still continuing strong. Compared to western art, their painting is more water based techniques, rather than oils or acrylics.

In general, Chinese painting is traditionally more stylized, more abstract and less realistic than Western types to capture the spirit of what they are painting. This style of painting relied on good brushwork and different degrees of intensity of ink to express the artist's conception of nature, and the artist's own emotions and individuality.

You can see in this painting of the variety of the brush stokes that's more abstract but still brings out the beauty of the painting.

Techniques

The techniques used in Chinese watercolour painting relies a lot on the brush strokes. A brushstroke can convey a lot of things like vitality, delicacy, and contemplation—the essence of Chinese philosophy and spirit. It is the “life force”  that the artist tries to capture and express through painting.  

The brush strokes give the painting rhythm and beauty and shows the subject's outward and inner qualities. At the same time, it shows the individuality and style of the painter himself because of their unique brush strokes. 

Materials

The materials used in Chinese watercolour painting are very similar to those used in calligraphy. Painters usually grind their own ink using an ink stick and a grinding stone. Ink sticks are usually made out of densely packed charcoal ash from bamboo or pine soot mixed with glue extracted from fish bones. 

Brushes can be made from goat hair, ox, horse, sheep, rabbit, marten, badger, deer, boar or wolf hair. The hair is tapered to a fine point, an important thing in Chinese painting. Then paper and silk were popularly used for painting.









There are different sizes of Chinese brush for the details or for landscape.

To the left of the ink stick is the ink stone. You add a little water to the well of the ink stone and grind the ink stick against the stone to make the ink.

Aesthetics 

The aesthetics in Chinese watercolour painting are focused on the excellence of the painting itself rather than of the life or object showed, in order for the painting to touch the soul than to the mind. 

In the art, one interesting thing to note is the power of nature and the distrust of the human eye. In a lot of paintings the perspective seems to be "floating" and it is as if you are the wind flying around while viewing the scene, an impossible perspective.

A lot of times trees, humans, and mountains are in unrealistic proportions, and mists are used to suggest a mysterious, unreachable distance that is not otherwise suggested by the actual height of the mountains. It is here that the spirit of the national art is most intensely expressed.  

Yes, let the painting touch your soul....

Visual Characteristics 

Chinese painting is not to express the various shades of color of the subject in relation to a fixed source of light, but to express the characteristics of the different subjects. For example, the adding of traces of brown or green to rocks, trees, leaves, grass and moss in a painting is used to reinforce the feeling of a particular season or state of the weather.

Sometimes the background is usually blank to give importance to the main subject. At the same time, since the sizes and shapes of the spaces in the painting are different, the very absence of content can itself create rhythm and variety. Sometimes the variety and balance created in this way is further enriched by the addition of inscriptions in the empty space.

Another characteristic of Chinese painting is the use of inscriptions in poetry of calligraphy and of special seals as part of the painting itself. It's important because it' used to express the theme and artistic conception of the painting more clearly and deeply while.  

You see, Chinese watercolour paintings usually have a red seal as signatures as seen on the upper- right corner.


Flower and Bird Paintings

Flowers and birds were favorite subjects in paintings in ancient China, offering a kind of special aesthetic interest. As an independent school of paintings, flower-and-bird works originated in the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and matured at the end of the Tang and Five Dynasties period. Many celebrated painters emerged at the time.

From this kind of painting, all kinds of flowers, plants, and birds were given various symbolic meanings. Flowers and birds can be compared to almost all thoughts and feelings of human being. They can symbolize feminine beauty, virtues, political authority, omens, and other stuff. And once established, this tradition became popular in every dynasty. This is so that their symbolic meaning grow increasingly rich and specific. 

This painting can have many meanings, as goes the saying "A picture can speak a thousand words",

And that's it. I'm interested in trying out this style of painting. Also, yay for my first post of my second year in high school! :D

Source

http://www.asia-art.net/chinese_brush.html

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/east-asian-art/chinese-painting.htm#rollpaintings

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/east-asian-art/chinese.htm#characteristics

http://www.chinaonlinemuseum.com/painting-birds.php

http://www.inkdancechinesepaintings.com/chinese-birds-flowers-paintings.html

https://depts.washington.edu/chinaciv/painting/4ptgtech.htm