Seeing Sideways class take away

The first day of Seeing Sideways, the awesome instructor, Beth, told us that for our ten minute break, we had to stay in our chairs. Our class chairs have wheels on them, so we rode the chairs around the halls of the IT building. I'm pretty sure to everyone who saw these hoards of people in chairs coming at them was a sure sight to see because it's totally out of the ordinary, and they didn't know if we would collide with them or not. The hardest part of rolling around in the chairs was making it out the door of the classroom, and getting back into the classroom after our ten minute break. The first few people  to leave the classroom crowded the door trying to hold the door open and cross the threshold at the same time. On the floor was a bar under the door, which was our second obstacle, our first being that we couldn't leave our chairs unless going to the restroom. The rest of us lined up to get through the door., and one of them was nice enough to hold the door open for everyone else leaving the classroom. Some of us struggled a bit, but a lot of us took it with little to no trouble. I had a lot of fun rolling through the hallway in my chair because it's something I had not done before, and I felt the little kid in me start to come out. I used to spin in the chairs when I was younger, and everyone would think that there was something wrong with me. I don't think they realized I was being a kid and having tons of fun doing so, though I was slightly dizzy afterward. I spun and rolled around in the hall of the IT building feeling a bit of freedom from being trapped in a boring old school room looking at four walls, a ceiling, and a carpet floor. When we came back from break, I kind of had a bit of a struggle getting back into the room because of the bar on the floor. I had little to no trouble leaving room, so I kind of think my struggle back into the room was because I wanted to stay out in the hall and continue spinning and rolling around the hall. I love to be outdoors, and being out in the hall was like being outdoors for me, and the classroom was like being inside looking out wishing I was outside. I think how it will help me in my "journey through experimentation" is by keeping me stubborn to give up because when I had struggled at the door coming back into the classroom, I never gave up my seat to get in the room, and I tried over and over again until I made it in, being careful not to fall out of my seat.

Final Portfolio

This is my interpretation of Georgia O'Keeffe's "Lake George" (1922) oil on canvas painting. Using the original work as a guide, I painted the sky then used the gradient tool to blend the sky. Using the soft default brush, I painted in the mountains and the piece of land in front of the mountains. I lowered the opacity of the brush to paint the clouds and fog around the mountains and in the reflection. I used the flat blunt short stiff brush to paint the grass and the details in the mountains. I chose this piece because Georgia O'Keeffe is one of my favorite 'old masters' and I love to draw mountains.

"Wolf Eyes" by Renea Perry. I repainted the image using a combination of brushes and used a gaussian blur for the eyes. I drew the hunter pointing his rifle at the wolf, which is the image I had wanted in the first "wolf eyes" image. I used the color range on the hunter and lowered the opacity of the paint brush creating the glossy affect in the eyes on the hunter. I used the guassian blur to blend the hunter more into the glossiness of the wolf's eyes. I chose to redo this piece because in the last piece I did not have a hunter in the image.

"Maverick in Sunset" by Renea Perry. This image is based on a photograph I had taken of Maverick. I quick selected Maverick, the horse, and put him on a new layer. I opened a new file and painted the background then moved Maverick onto the background and masked his layer to remove some of his original background. I gave Maverick and inner shadow and a satin to give the affect of him standing under a darkening sky.

"Blue Buster" by Renea Perry. I used the quick selection tool to select Buster and move him to a new layer. Then I used the color range to paint Buster's background a light shade of blue and to paint Buster blue. I used the default brush to paint in Buster's eyes. I chose the color blue because it is a calm, cool, relaxing color. This photograph was taken a long time ago when Buster first started to grow his doggie beard. He has grayed out a lot since this picture. I made this image as a tribute to Buster because he is 14 years old now and he'll be 15 in May. Happy birthday little brother.

"Tigerkitty in the Grass" by Renea Perry. I sketched this in my sketch book then scanned it onto the computer and painted the kitty over the sketch. I quick selected the kitty put it on a new layer then used the fill bucket to fill in the background of the new layer. I opened a new file and painted the sky and grass then moved the kitty onto the sky and grass image adding a mask to the kitty's layer and removed part of the kitty's paws to reveal the grass coming over the paws to show the kitty is sitting in the grass. This is my child friendly image. I was thinking chibi kitty, which is why the head is so big and the body is so small.

"Little Puppy" by Renea Perry was sketched in my sketch book, scanned onto the computer, and painted with the hard default brush. I used a gaussian blur on the eyes, the bone, and the shadows. This is my other child friendly image. I chose to use bright vivid colors because when thinking of children, I think of bundles of energy, which bright colors give off the feeling of positive energy, or sometimes blinds us like the bright pink bone. I forgot to add the eye lashes for the cuteness effect.

"Pet in a Can" by Renea Perry. I wrapped a disinfectant spray bottle with a paper towel for security reasons, and took a photo of the spray can. I quick selected the spray can then added to a new layer and moved it onto another file. I painted the spray can, then put the text on the can and made another layer of text under the can. I arched the text on the spray can and painted the person and dog. I filled the background blue then gave the spray can a drop shadow and a bevel and emboss then painted in highlights and used the guassian blur on the highlights.

This is my image with text. The font is Handwriting-Dakota. I painted the sky and clouds then added the text. I used the bevel and emboss effect on "Let you imagination" and "Fly". I warped "Fly" gave it a drop shadow to make the word "Fly" look like it is flying off the page and used a gradient overlay for the color effect of the word.

This is my other image with text typed in Edwardian Script. I painted the background using a guassian blur on the moon and the lighter green trees to make the trees appear further away from the viewer. I gave the text a gradient, a slight outer glow, and an outer stroke. I used the flat blunt short stiff brush to paint the grass and give the trees more detail.

This is one of the few times I drew something directly in photoshop without sketching it on paper first. I discovered how well the flat blunt short stiff brush makes grass and have been using it a lot more in my landscapes when I want to have detailed grass. I used a soft brush for the outer glow of the moon and a hard brush for the moon then a guassian blur on the moon spots. I drew and painted the friesian on another file giving it a red background so I could see where I needed to add shadows. I masked the friesian onto the night background. Though the horse looks a little oblong, I really enjoyed this piece.

"Augustine on TV" by Renea Perry. I sketched this image in my sketch book then scanned it onto the computer. I used the hard default brush to paint this image and used the line tool straighten the television's edges and show running lines. I gave the antenna a gaussian blur. Augustine is one my characters that I had been drawing since high school. I painted the background behind Augustine with running lines as an imitation of most animes when the character is running toward its opponent.

 "Akumuzilla" by Renea Perry. My character, Akumu, is on set representing a giant lizard terrorizing the town. Probably the second longest to draw and paint, this image took 36-40 hours to draw and paint. I sketched in my sketch book then scanned it on the computer painting the sky on a separate file. I masked the sky then put the ground, Akumu, the plane, and the backgroundcity on their own layers. I used the line tool for some of the windows of the buildings, the street, the side walk, and the cut off of land and sky. I used a gaussian blur on the shadows and highlights. On the plane is a inner shadow. Akumu didn't get hit by the toy plane, but he is upset that I made him do this image after promising him I would not ever have him the old cliche of a giant monster stomping the town.

"Astounded" by Renea Perry. This is my vector image of a wolf, my fursona, caught off guard. I filled a circle with the color purple because it is hard to put shadows on a completely black wolf. I used a straight line and a curved line to make the muzzle. I used the curve line for the inner ears and the mouth. Using the pen tool, I changed the shape of a triangle into a sweat drop and another triangle into the ears and nose. I used the pencil tool to draw in the fur. I am still trying to figure out Illustrator and this was the best image of this wolf I was able to make. The wolf accents how I felt when Akumu, my character I have been drawing since high school, told me that he was quitting because I went against his wishes with the "Akumuzilla" image. I told him he cannot quit because I am his creator and he must obey me.

"Music is my Inspiration" by Renea Perry. I sketched this image in my sketch book then scanned it onto the computer and painted the sky on another file. I masked the sky onto the image. I painted myself, the headphones, the grass, and the notes in the sky. I used the custom shape tool for the flowers and gave the flowers an inner shadow. This image is of me relaxing while listening soft uplifting music.

"Music's affect on my Darkside" by Renea Perry. Sketched then scanned onto the computer, I bucket filled the background and gave my darkside and the fire their own layers. I used a gaussian blur on the shadoes and part of the flames. I gave my darkside an outer glow, and used the custom shape tool for the music notes. She is not exactly an evil dark side, but when listening to my favorite rock bands, like Korn, Disturbed, and System of a Down, she flairs up happy and dancing with an evil grin on her face.

This is my masculine image. Sketched then scanned onto the computer and painted in Photoshop. The shadows and highlights on the horse have a gaussian blur. 

This is my feminine image. Sketched and scanned onto the computer and painting in Photoshop. I wanted her to be a light color with a light background to show how calm and collective she is.

 WARNING: Next image is very gory!

"Don't Hunt Wolves" by Renea Perry. Sketched and scanned onto the computer and painted in Photoshop using multiple brushes and gaussian blur for the shading and the two wolves further away. This picture took the longest to create and finish (between 56 to almost 78 hours). I drew this image as a protest against the hunting of wolves. The alpha wolf (snarling), has found his pack dead and the hunter is still there.

"Sky and Grass" by Renea Perry. I used the flat blunt short stiff brush for the grass, the hard default brush for the sky, and the round point stiff brush for the clouds. This image I used as the background for "Tigerkitty in Grass". I love this background so much I wanted to use it again so this is an image of my own choosing. I really like to draw and paint backgrounds.

"Happy Wolf" by Renea Perry. Sketched in a comic strip I made, scanned onto the computer, and painted in Photoshop. I filled the background, and used gaussian blur for the shadows and highlights. This image was in a comic strip I had made a few months ago, and I wanted to see what this image would look like if I painted it in Photoshop. I usually color things in with color pencils or paint, so using Photoshop is still new to me. Yes, this is my fursona, which is one happy wolf giving wolf kisses to her friends and family.

midterm portfolio

This is a picture of me and Vennie, the horse I had leased for 4H horse and pony. The picture was taken while I was showing in a halter class back in 2005 or 2006. I'm not too happy with this piece because I struggled removing a few things. In the far left corner there were two horses. I used the lasso tool to select the rear end of one horse then deleted it. I struggled removing the other horse because he was behind the fence. After removing the two horses, I used the patch tool to clean up, but things got a bit blurry. Behind Vennie's head, there was a light pole. Using the lasso tool, I selected the light pole and removed it from the picture. As I had done with the two horses, I used the patch tool to clean up the bits of light pole that was left over and to make the window that was behind the light pole look like a window. I feel I did better removing the pole than I did removing the two horses.

The family dog, who really is family. Buster was about a year or two old when we took this photo, so this is another old photo like the photo of me and Vennie. In this photo, I went patch tool crazy. There is a fold from Buster's rear end to his cheek that was kind of hard to remove. I patched the fold in two sections starting with part of the fold that was on his back. Then I patched the part of the fold that was on his head. There were spots on the wall that I removed using the patch tool. I selected each spot one by one then drag the selection to a clean spot on the wall. Due to time fade, there were a lot of little white spots that dotted the floor. Along side the patch tool, I used the spot healing tool to fill the little dots with the floor color. I'm pleased with the way this piece turned out because it really enhanced the original picture, though there's still a bit of evidence of a phantom fold.

This beauty is an extraction of a rose from one picture onto a horse's face in another picture. The original pictures are from morguefile.com. When I first saw the horse I immediately knew that it needed a flower in its mane. I chose the rose because the red makes the mane stand out more and gives the horse more of a charming character. I used the quick selection tool to select around the rose then I moved the rose from its picture onto the picture of the horse. Then I placed the rose on the horse's forelock by its ear. I went back to the picture of the rose and quick selected more of the leaves around the rose and moved the new selection onto the horse's mouth as if the horse was holding the rose. To make the rose by the ear smaller, I clicked the command, shift, and T keys then adjusted the rose so that it looked more like it was resting on the mane. 

I really enjoyed this piece. I call it Classical Tiger. He's flashy, he's stunning, and he's gonna get ya. The original pictures are from morguefile.com. I used a lot of masks for this piece. First I selected a tiger, and when I saw this handsome feline, I saw, in my mind's eye, a bow tie and a top hat; just look at that smile on his face! If only I found a cane, but that would have been too much. The picture of the flowers that I used for the background was too small, so I overlapped the picture of the flowers. I added a mask to the top layer of flowers. Before messing with the mask, there was a line from the overlap that went straight through the background. I adjusted the opacity of the mask then used the brush tool to take away the line. In between working on the background, I added a mask to the tiger and used the brush tool to remove the tigers background to make the flowers its new background.  I picked out a top hat that would fit the big cat using the selection tool then flipped the image and moved the selection onto the tiger's head. I added a mask to the hat to clean up the outline around the hat. Unfortunately, when I picked the bow tie, I didn't save it, and couldn't find the image again to add to my reference pictures that are on the side of main piece, but the bow tie image was also on morguefile.com. I quick selected the bow tie and flipped the image then moved it onto the tiger. Pressing and holding command, shift, and T, I adjusted the bow tie to fit the tiger's throat then added a drop shadow to keep the bow tie from floating above the tiger.

I call this piece Rabbit Prayers. I like this piece though it isn't my best practice with shadows versus light. I was attempting to show off what I learned about masks and what I had learned from simply playing with photoshop at home. I masked the candles and the floor, used the brush on the mask layers to take away part of the floor from the candles, then quick selected the rabbit and added it to the image. My main concern about this piece is the shadows and where the light sources are. I tried to make the rabbit darker by using a drop shadow, but the drop shadow was not working. I made a copy of the rabbit's layer and clicked the alt and delete keys to fill the original layer with black. I moved the original layer down a bit to show a cast shadow of the bunny in front of the candles. Then used the drop shadow to come down off of the darker shadow. I selected the rump, part of the hing paw and stomach and added a Gaussian blur for a shadow effect. The original photos are from morguefile.com.

I am extremely proud of this piece, Inverted Leopard. I moved the image of the leopard onto the image of the rocks that I wanted to use for a background and brushed away the leopard's original background. I made a copy of the leopard's layer and put a mask on the copied layer. I inverted the color of the leopard then used the brush on the mask to reveal the lovely piercing eyes and nose. I chose an inversion that I liked and found one that shows the spots and the solid color of the original cat. I went through hue/saturation and chose the blue purple. In the original picture, the leopard's eyes are very dark. Under adjustment-levels, I adjusted the lightness of the eyes and painted in the pupils with the default paint brush. The original pictures are from morguefile.com

Same as the "Inverted Leopard", I am extremely proud of this piece, Owl Town. I moved the image of the owl onto the desert image and put a mask on the owl taking away the owl's background so the owl would have the desert image for a background. I love to right text for many of the pictures I play with to further send a message, be the message funny or something useful. "This is my town" is in Rosewood style. I clicked "create warped text" to warp the text in a wave and adjusted how wavey I wanted the text to be. On the fallen tree, it says "Owl Town". I changed the color of the text to an orange brown color to kind of match the tree and added an inner shadow to appear as if the text were carved into the tree. I clicked "create warped text" and chose rise to fix the text to the horizontal direction of the tree creating a sort of vanish point of the text. The owl is says, "I'll be watching you." because that's what owls do, they watch you while you are asleep. I chose a light gray color and clicked the custom tool then the oval to make a saying box around the text. The original pictures are from morguefile.com.

This was a fun one called Have You Seen My Brother? The iguana is looking for his brother, and his brother is hiding from him in the grass. This one I was fighting with because when I did the mask of the big iguana, I tried brushing away its original background and the background kept smearing and I couldn't for the life of me figure out why. The about two hours later I found out I was on the wrong brush setting. What a laugh I had that day. Anyway, I used a round fan thin bristle brush and a round angle low stiffness brush for the grass around the big iguana's legs and stomach and around the lower body of the small iguana. As in the picture Owl Town, I used a light gray color for the speaking oval around the text, "Have you seen my brother? He tore my favorite shoe." because white took away too much from the image. I clicked the custom tool for the arrow pointing to the naughty little lizard in the grass and held down the command, shift, and T keys to shape and angel the arrow at the small iguana. I made the arrow small because I wanted the viewer to read the text first then look for the small iguana, though that shouldn't be too hard since the little one is kind of light. The original pictures are from morguefile.com.

Remember the old saying, "Wolf in sheep's clothing"? Well this is the opposite called No Wolf Will Mess With Me. What better way is there for a sheep to avoid getting eaten by a wolf than dressing like a wolf. I picked a forest background and found an image of a wolf and a image of a sheep that I felt would fit perfectly together. I moved the wolf image onto the forest image and put a mask on the wolf to brush away its original background. I selected and made copies of the grass at the wolf's feet and placed the copies in different spots around the forest's floor. Then I quick selected the sheep and moved it to the forest adding a mask to the sheep to clean up some the original background that came with it. I searched for some wolf ears, and found some dog ears that I quick selected and added onto the sheep. I used the round angle low stiffness brush to paint in the wolf markings on the sheep.  I quick selected the wolf's tail, putting it on a new layer and dropped the layer of the wolf's tail under the sheep's layer then applied the wolf's tail to the sheep's rear. There was a stack of logs in between the two trees in the very back. I quick selected the skinny tree in the far back and moved the selection over the logs. Then I quick selected parts of the bigger tree in the back and placed the selection and the copy of the selection over the parts of the tree covered by the skinny tree's selection. The original pictures are from morguefile.com. Ok. Story time. This sheep got lost in the woods. He heard the nearby howls of wolves, so she found some wet tar on the road and rolled in it and found a fury toy with a ball and tied it to her rear. She found some dog ears from a Halloween costume, all this stuff lying on the road in the middle of nowhere, and puts the dog ears on her head. One of the wolves comes down to investigate her while she's scratching like a dog. She stops and looks at the wolf, the wolf looks back at her and it puts it head to the side in confusion. The disguised sheep yips and yaps like a wolf making the wolf more confused. The wolf snorts and walks off glancing back over its shoulder at the sheep. She sticks out her tongue and the wolf trots away.

This is Wolf Eyes. All eyes tell a story. This wolf is scared from a close encounter with a hunter , which is why the eyes are so wide and the pupils are dilated. Wolves are no longer on the endangered species act meaning that ranchers and hunters can hunt these beautiful majestic creatures and if wolves are spotted near a ranch, ranchers can kill them on sight. What I had originally wanted to do was put a silhouette of a hunter in the pupils of the wolf's eyes, but it wasn't working out the way I had planned. I had drawn the eyes in my sketch book then scanned the sketch onto the computer; opening the image in Photoshop. I used the default brush, a round fan stiff thin bristle brush, and a flat curve thin stiff bristle brush to paint the eyes and face. I put the pupils, the iris, and the rest of the eyes on their own layers so I could work with highlights and shading better. I'm happy with this piece because the eyes came out great with the hint of dark blue in the pupils, but I'm also unhappy with this piece because I do not feel I accomplished the mood I had wanted to set in the picture.