My three visual assignments this week took me a LONG time, but they were so worth it! I’m very happy with the results.

Image with a Message

1 star

I have always had a love for quotes. Maybe it’s my passion for writing or my strive for optimism and inspiration, but I can remember being as young as 11 and handwriting quotes to cut out and decorate my bedroom door. One of my favorite quotes that I’ve ever heard (and I first heard it many years ago) is from the movie Pooh’s Grand Adventure.

I was obsessed with Pooh Bear when I was a kid, and this movie was one of my favorites. A quick summary: Pooh Bear is upset, because Christopher Robin says he won’t be able to come visit the 100 Acre Wood as much as he has been recently. He won’t tell Pooh Bear the reason for his schedule change (turns out, they find a note that says he’s left for “SKOOL,” which Owl–in his infinite wisdom–misreads as “SKULL,” leading the gang on a terrifying adventure to the dark parts of the 100 Acre Wood).

When Pooh expresses his sadness, Christopher Robin gives him a hug and assures him the following:

“You’re braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”

With its alliteration and sheer sweetness, I’ve always kept that quote close to my heart in times of trouble; we are so much more capable than we believe ourselves to be, and we should start giving ourselves credit for all the wonderful things we accomplish.

I found an adorable Creative Commons picture of this crocheted Pooh Bear doll and simply added text via the Paintbrush app for Mac. I chose the handwritten font to add to the fun, airy feel.

Apophenia

3.5 stars

I’M REALLY EXCITED FOR HALLOWEEN, YOU GUYS.

Like you saw in last week’s summary, I have decorative pumpkins, so I thought: why not create my own spooky pumpkin patch in the woods? I combined one of my favorite seasons with one of my favorite holidays (there’s something nostalgic and wonderfully eerie about autumn) by uploading the picture I snapped on my phone of three pumpkins into the aforementioned Paintbrush app.

Then, I let my inner elementary school student run free with the spray can, shapes, and paint tools to create this scene. Note the peering owl eyes from the tree trunk–essential to any Halloween scene.

HISTORICAL SELFIES

3.5 stars

This took the longest out of the three visual assignments, but it was a helpful process to learn more about photo editing and produced an exciting result!

My favorite Golden Age Hollywood actress and one of my beauty inspirations is Marilyn Monroe. I love her wit, charm, and how she’s come to stand as a role model for curvaceous women.

I also really love James Dean: sexy bad boy with intelligence and a good heart deep down.

I’m sure many of you have seen this image around the Internet or decorating 1950s-era diners:

This is an incredible drawing of the two classic stars of American cinema, sex appeal, and popular culture, but before I started researching Marilyn and her life, I actually thought she and James Dean were involved thanks to this image, and that got my romantic, cheesy heart soaring.

Unfortunately, they were not.

According to memoirs, they met once or twice but never became serious. Despite this revelation, I still think they would have made an adorable couple, and I love to see art and pieces dedicated to the two of them today.

The above historical selfie is my contribution to the James/Marilyn collection.

Since I don’t have Photoshop on my personal computer, I was able to do some quick Google-ing and found an awesome online editor that does nearly the same things Photoshop does. The final product doesn’t look quite as seamless as it would have if I had used Photoshop, but it works.

It took a lot of tinkering with layers, erasing, and blending–and before all that actually FINDING two pics with similar lighting to edit–but this was the result.

A tutorial for this would be far too dense for this post, so I suggest you hop on over to YouTube and watch some Photoshop tutorials OR check out the Digital Teaching and Technology Center in the ITCC. They can show you the basics, there.

I decided Marilyn is totally BFFs with Audrey Hepburn in this universe, so Audrey snapped a pic of her bestie with her man being all cute and lazy on a rainy Sunday morning, and Marilyn then posted it on Instagram. Not technically a selfie, but that’s a minor detail.

Also, notice the amount of likes, because you know modern Marilyn would absolutely be Instagram famous.

The image above is of a air compressor protected with a c-shaped red concrete barrier.  I saw this design at a local WaWa displaying concept of form/function/message is what came to mind. Norman spoke of a model called seven stages of action which explain how humans will interact with technology. This is a tool designed for the intention of putting air in a vehicles tires, and when designing this area, the designers goal was to prevent accidents and the protect the equipment when designing this station. I feel this is a great design, the color red indicates caution, because we as humans are use to red stop signs and traffic lights.  When a driver approach this station they will automatically slow down.

The no smoking sign was found on the inside of a bathroom door at the Mary Washington Hospital. The color red and the circle and crossbar symbol with the cigarette in the middle is very universal. The message on this sign should be understood by ones who may not read English or can’t read at all. The deep dark red gives the indication of stop or do not participate in this particular activity. Having the sign dark red gives a serious warning not to smoke verses using a light pastel color.

The above image showed two forms of balance symmetrical and asymmetrical. This design is very balanced with the same exacted  amount of space apart and in height. They also have a functional purpose of protecting the building from vehicles that are parking. This design wraps around the front of the building also which is hard for anyone to miss. The size of the safety poles are asymmetrical to the building in a uniform manner, this give the allusion of a wall before the real wall.

All three of my pictures have a functional component to their designs. The theme for all three appears to be warning of a possible accident and safety for potential walking customers.

In this assignment we were asked to find our name or part of our name in our environment. If we could only find part of our name we had to piece it together with other parts until it was completed.

So for this, I went through my garage (which should add an extra star to the challenge if you ask me) and found a street sign my mom had illegally stolen from the streets of California before their wedding as a gift! It’s been in my life since I was little and I have always enjoyed hearing that slightly disturbing, larcenous story. So when I took this picture that spelled out my entire last name I thought it would be fun to play with the lighting again. Since almost all street signs have been made of reflective material since the 80′s I wanted to take advantage of this. I turned the flash on my camera and posed and I think it came out pretty shiny!

For me the sign alone tells a story. I don’t know much about my extended family so most of my familial history has been created within the last generation. Whenever I look at that sign I get am able to not only take the verbal story passed down from my father to me but I also am able to add a visual piece to it that I think really makes the story real.