In this remix assignment I took an assignment I already completed and added Waldo to the picture. This is what the remix told me to do:
I put Waldo into my places of peace. To do this, I used Superimpose and got a photo of Waldo and edited it into my original assignment. This is how it turned out. Let me know if you found Waldo.
When I think of horror, I think of the killer in the shower trope. My first thought was to have 106 written in bloody letters, but that seemed kind of basic. I found this picture online of a serial killer shower curtain that makes it look like someone is in your shower (not sure why anyone would want that) and I added a gray blob onto the mirror in a new layer using Photoshop then changed the blending mode to Lighter Color and the opacity to 35%. I then used the erase tool to write ds106 to make it seem as if the killer had written that before they get their next victim.
Money. Money runs the world. BUT so girls, specifically women, specifically Beyonce.
For this assignment, to mess around with money, I decided to replace the white man currently on the bill with someone more relevant, more prophetic…Beyoncé! I used Photoshop to remove the original face, but keep the same frame. I also downloaded a money texture to get the pattern overlay right. I then made the oval a clipping mask and added in this beautiful picture of Beyoncé. I adjusted her as a I saw fit and now we have money that actually means something. I would tie this into our theme because Beyoncé brings me joy, she is an old friend of mine.
This assignment asked us to combine two images in order to create a shocking message. For me a shocking message is anything that causes controversy. My message is that breasts are not inherently sexual. I chose an image of a woman who is consensually showing her breasts and then found a stock image of a middle finger covering her nipples. I changed the colors to purple using the ColorMix tool on Canva because I wanted to make it objective and not place race onto this message. I used the curve tool to write Not and Sexual around the breasts.
I decided to re-mix one of the photo assignments! Instead of doing grass or the ground, I did the sky with some clouds. I decided that a sky is just as much part of the earth. I found an HD picture of the sky, one without too many clouds, so it wouldn’t be distracting. Then I downloaded a font called Cotton Candy Cloud from Dafont.com. I then found an HD picture of clouds and a png of some birds. I had the sky picture as the background. I then typed EARTH in big white font with the cotton candy cloud font. I added the cloud picture as a clipping mask and adjusted them accordingly. I then added a dark blue dark shadow on Multiply and 75% opacity to add depth along with the birds flying.
This evening I found myself wandering around looking at everything I passed by wondering how each object might look super close up. I was trying to find just the right object (or animal, but my dog’s a bit squirmy) to take a very close-up photo which could trick an audience.
This ds106 assignment was fun to ponder and I still don’t know that I chose the right thing for my subject, but I liked it anyway.
The most difficult part of this 3 star assignment was getting the camera (aka phone) to stop shaking while my hands hovered above the object. I got a few blurry photos until I realized I could steady my wrist against a nearby wall. Finally! I got a photo, but how difficult would it be for someone else to accurately guess what it was of?
I decided to crop it down a bit further and used Photoshop to change the image to black and white. I’m hoping the color change makes this a slightly trickier image than when it was in full color.
Whether mine is the easiest to guess or not, this was an interesting way to view the room around me. If nothing else, I have a new visual appreciation for the subject of my photo.
The assignment called for us to populate one of Bob Ross’s landscape paintings. I chose his 1987 Mountain Summit painting because I loved the way the ocean was drawn and the reflection of the trees in it. I thought about who to add to this photo and my first thought was Black women. Black women make everything better. I also thought deeper on how very rarely if at all do us Black women get to be feminine and spiritual. We are always seen as so angry and our spirit is taken from us. I want to see more Black women enjoying nature and just being human. We deserve to go on hikes, do yoga by the cliff side, or just sit and breathe in life without fear for our own. To add these beautiful women, I used Canva’s element feature. I searched Black women into the feature and sized down and rotated the ones I picked. I love the woman on the swing because she looks so peaceful. We need more Black women simply being at peace. I connected this to the theme of “Joy of DS106” because I am using digital storytelling to convey these Black women’s joy.
by Thomas Pulsifer
For my final task from the assignment bank for this week, I chose the 2-star prompt of depicting a superhero in a dull, everyday situation. With Batman being my favorite superhero, the choice for which hero to have star in my picture was an obvious one. In the photo above, we see Batman (definitely NOT Bruce Wayne) grabbing a quick bite after a long night of crime-fighting. He’s trying to ask for extra ketchup packets, but he’s a bit shy.
Once again, trying to apply photography advice to pre-existing photos is a bit impractical, but I did mess with the lighting to make sure Batman matches his surroundings. Throwing typically stoic heroes into mundane scenarios is hilarious, and hopefully Bru– I mean, Batman, is able to procure his additional condiments.
by Thomas Pulsifer
Tapping into my love and appreciation for the artform that is video games, I decided to tackle Jerome Mueller’s 3.5-star prompt to draw an intricate object with only 16×16 pixels. I’ve done a lot of pixel art in the past, so I was excited to see this prompt come up. Though Halloween may be over a month away, it’s never to early to get in the spooky spirit. For that reason, I chose to draw a skeleton.
To the surprise of no one, the 206 bones making up the human skeleton are quite difficult to capture in such a limited resolution. That being said, I feel as though I’ve done a great job capturing it with the limited pixels I was given. Since not every bone could be included, I chose only the the most iconic parts of the skeletal, which includes the skull, ribs, and pelvis. So long as these paramount components remain, a skeleton will be recognizable, even at such a miniscule size. I made use of my photographic expertise by including a contrast between the light bones and dark background. This helps the gaps between the bones stand out, making the skeleton much more identifiable as such. I used Piskel for this piece, which is a free website I use for all my pixel art. I encourage anyone that’s interested to check it out and try it for yourself!
As an artist, I’m always struggling to find inspiration to create, and when I do find inspiration I always want to do these 40 day project that are entirely unthinkable given my time and resources. We live in a time and a space where we literally can’t slow down, life moves at a million miles per hour, with no rest stops, no time to morn lost time, no time to contemplate what’s coming up next on the road and no end in sight. This particular project was an opportunity to produce alot of small piece very quickly, but I wanted to just slow down and really focus on the point of this assignment: what can you create with just a few lines a couple dots and a single curve. The answer that came to me is the essence of humanity. I created a piece that reflected who I am as a person, stripped bare of all of things that make me an “individual”. In this piece I experienced detachment and truly began to understand the teachings of the Buddha. For the first time I understood that their is no self, at the end of the day we’re all just people, but even our flesh and bones are an illusion, we are energy floating in the façade of reality vibrating insentiently, suffering immensely, the only solution is cessation and yet we beg for only more movement, because life is movement life is tumbling down the hill of mortality and hitting every rock, and we’ve convinced ourselves that this is what we want, that this is what we need. This week I was happy to take a break, and truly see myself for who I am.
I was mostly kidding about the above post but I was serious about wanting to get to the root of the assignment, and I think that was telling a story with an image. The image is blank but most people would recognize it as a person and I think each person would come to a different conclusion as to the meaning of the piece if not for the paragraph above. They create their own story. Their Is a story behind this piece, and I added some things which I think serve as clues, but I don’t want to discuss it just yet, instead, to whomever may be reading this, please comment with what you think the true meaning of this piece is. Thank you for reading.
