Monday, January 16, 2012

Antiquity Challenge



To help me learn Photoshop CS5, my sister Sharon challenged me to produce a piece that included "antiquity" images that each of us chose and then used with a background of our own making. I welcomed the challenge in order to learn some new techniques, and I thought I welcomed the theme because I have used antiquities many times in my art (mostly in soulcollage). Interestingly, she and I independently chose images from Central American cultures. Since I wanted to use my own photo graphs for backgrounds, culling through years of my pictures of trips through Mexico, Honduras and Turkey was overwhelming. But I learned a lot about blending modes and adjustment layers. After spending way too many hours struggling with it, I finally decided to call it done so I could move on to my next project. Thanks, Sharon, it was fun!

Friday, January 13, 2012

What to do?

I made this soulcollage a couple of months ago when I was going through a hard time and wasn't sure what I wanted to do. The statue of a woman pondering somethings so deeply inspired me to express my own indecision and ambivalence. All the images are taken from magazines (mostly advertisements or National Geographic). Working on this helped me get through a difficult time in my life by focusing painful feelings on a creative process.