Title: Out of Touch Medium: Editing/Drawing Program (Clip Studio Paint) Size: 24 in x 36 in Completed: November 12, 2021 Exhibition Text: This piece is an embodiment of what I have gone through and my struggles with depression. With the use of pictures I took, I made a simple collage revolving around me distancing myself from ME as a person. Meaning that I put my own feelings aside as to not worry others, to the point where I forget to take care of myself, therefore giving it the tittle Out of Touch, as i became out of touch with myself. This piece symbolizes the hardships I've gone through and how greatly it affected me. I took inspiration from the artist Rene Magritte, from their unusual situations and to the mood. |
Essay
My art project dives into the issues that have shaped me and affected me as a person. Starting from a young age, I began to feel feelings that I never experienced. From self-doubt, to anxiety, insecurities and feeling as though I am not enough. I began to look and compare myself to everyone I saw, to the girls and boys in my school and the people I saw on TV. The more and more I grew up, I started to question many things about myself that I did not take time to think about in the past. Back then, there was a line in what was socially acceptable and what was not. I focused a lot on trying to stay on that line to the point where I threw my feelings aside so I wouldn't be seen as different. Eventually, these feelings caught up to me all at once, and I became a mess, distancing myself from everyone. I began to lose myself and began to drown myself in all these feelings. I avoided asking for help or just talking it out with someone as I felt it was too much of a burden, and my feelings were “too confusing to understand”. Starting high school, these feelings got worse, and I began missing school and I felt too tired to wake up. Not tired when you lack sleep, but tired when you are just done with everything. I stopped finding joy in my hobbies, art and dancing and just spent my days doing nothing. All I thought about was school, I felt that if I focused too much on my health, I would not focus on school. Eventually this all caught up to me and I began to have panic attacks at school, I would feel like puking and fainting, and would skip lunch, locking myself away in the restrooms, causing me to lose weight, and eventually my mom caught up with this. That was perhaps the scariest and best moment of my life, I had never spoken about my feelings, but that day I was forced to spit it out. After that, I got help, and began taking medication. It helped, but those feelings were nowhere near gone. I still had trouble attending school, I felt safer with the medication, however I still couldn't do basic things like go eat in the lunch room or talk in front of the class or just do anything out of my comfort zone, it would all just make me breakdown. My parents had trouble understanding me too, not knowing how to take care of me, therefore they would get very frustrated with me causing many more breakdowns. Their not understanding made me question myself a lot and hate that I was making them feel that way. I started to blame myself for causing them stress even though it wasn't my fault for feeling this way. Then quarantine came, during those times, however long it was, I finally had time to think about myself as a person. Being away from people helped me become confident in myself. I found myself again, and although I still deal with these emotions and am still on medication, I am definitely better than I was 2 years ago.
Artist Inspiration:
The Common Place by Rene Magritte
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Not to be Reproduced by Rene Magritte
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Rene Magritte The reason as to why I choose this artist as an inspiration is because when you look at their art you have to take a double look to realize the "weirdness" of it. However, my piece looks very different in terms of style, evident since one is a digital collage while the other is a painting. Even If I couldn't emanate the style, I still wanted that weird factor. Which is we I went ahead and made a moving reflection, one of the scariest and weirdest things that could happen. Rene art is known for being weird as all its subjects in abnormal situation. My biggest inspiration was their "Not to be Reproduced" piece, the whole reflection made me uneasy which is why I wanted to do something like that.
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Similarities:
- Weird factor is evident, my piece having a different reflection on the mirror, and Rene with his inanimate objects in unusual positions. My piece challenges your eyes, as of course the reflection the big point of the image, it plays with your head because you know the reflection should be the same as what you are doing, but you see it doing something else and just tricks your mind.
Differences:
- Rene pieces are made especially to challenge you, while I made mine to show a story, more meaning based.
- Inanimate objects aren't the basis of my piece, more so I focused on a person (me) in a weird situation, not to absorb but enough to show the observer that something is off about the piece.
Planning Ideas:
For my process I had many different ideas, who did correlate with one another, except had different subjects.
Idea 2:
This idea shows me stuck in a glass cube in the middle of no where, however, you see other cubes in the back with multiple other people in them. Showing that I am not the only one going through the same thing. Another similar thing I did was me in a glass ornament, while a mystery person holds it, however the ornament is breaking. I got rid of this idea because I genuinely did not like it. |
Idea 3:
For each of my ideas, I wanted to sketch them out digitally first. I like to have a visual of what I want to do before I work on it, as it helps me be organized in my ideas. To be honest, I was just sketching out whatever came to mind, eventually this being what I came up with. I liked how it looked however I began to have trouble thinking about what I'll write for it. So, I looked at my essay that I wrote before hand, and I realized that I could relate it to what I had already wrote, I would just need to fix and add things. I want to wires to make it seem as if the TV is old, and breaking, while the wire on the legs in making it hard for the figure (me) to walk forward.
This was actually going to be my final idea, but one I started the collage, I wasn't fond of how it was turning out, therefore opted to my 4th idea (the final idea). |
Final Idea:
Process Explained:
My whole process consisted of me putting around 4-5 pictures together and making sure they aligned with one another. If the pictures I use did no aligned i'll rotate it and change it's size until I found a good spot. Afterwards I would color in blank spots and then blend in the colors of the different pictures, where they touched, to have a seamless look. Then i'll take one of the picture I took in the mirror without me in it and just lasso the mirrors reflection and paste that onto my reflection. As I finish I get my final picture, and line it together. I changed the lighting slightly by adjusting the hue, brightness and contrast of it.
Screenshots of Process:
First I got my 24 in x 36 in canvas ready and pasted my first picture onto my canvas. Making sure it is good size and nicely visible. However, as you can see there is a blank line at the top.
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To fix that blank spot I took another picture I took in the same spot but that was farther away, I aligned it so that the light bulbs touched. Once again tho, the colors contrast are a big far from one another.
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To fix the colors I took a brush from the drawing section and took the color who is most visible and with painting motion blended them together. However, the brush strokes were very visible so I took a blender and just blended it together until it was seamless.
That's when I took the picture for the second reflection. I didn't take a screenshot of the erasing process (although it is visible on video), but I decided to erase it by hand because I didn't like how to computer did it. It took a longer time but I think the outcome is great.
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For the last touches, I wanted to change the lighting of the image and make the colors more saturated without the use of filter. I used a hue and brightness option to change it and used a "darken" option to bring down the saturation.
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Video of process:
Pictures Used For Collage:
Reflection:
This piece was very difficult to do, not the building process of it but the planning process. I had so many ideas that would require so much experience to do, something I do not have with it comes to a digital collage. I noticed that I was trying very hard to be out of the box, which is a good thing, however with this project simple can be good too, it all comes down to how you bring your story to life with it. Looking at Rene Magritte's pieces again to clear my mind helped greatly in putting my ideas together to make a simple yet nice piece that I liked and felt I could achieve. That was the first challenge I endured but the second challenge was with the digital process, putting the images together etc. I had to change the pictures and rotate them left and right to make sure the lines connected (referring to the wall lines), it being slightly off bothered me greatly. My favorite part was working with the reflection, it was very tricky but it was nice seeing it coming together and I think in the end it came out very well. Also changing the lighting of the image was my favorite part, a small thing but I think it complemented the image well.
Connections to the ACT:
1. Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork?
Rene Magritte has a very unique style that they express in their artwork. As soon as you look at his pieces you think “wow this is very odd”, which is the main reason as to why they were my inspiration. Their strange works inspired me to add that strange factor on my digital collage.
2. What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
From what I found, not much is said about his thoughts on mental health however we can infer he does have opinions on it as his mother sadly passed away due to suicide, in return it affected his work greatly.
3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
While researching my inspiration and finding Rene Magritte. I learned a lot about him as an artist and what inspired him to do surrealist art. I also refreshed my mind on what surrealism is and what time in history it got famous. Rene Magritte especially is part of the major figures of the movement, developed after World War l in Europe.
4. What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The central theme for my inspiration was depression. I like to bring awareness to mental health with my pieces as mental health is something not only one piece can show and explain. So many people go through so many things, and with this piece I wanted to show what I had through.
5. What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
Unusual components in your piece can help add greater meaning as well as creativity, People like to see something abnormal as it plays with imagery and with your eyes and perception in life.
Citations (MLA FORMAT)
Skidmore, Maisie. “Ten Remarkable Facts about Surrealist Master René Magritte.” AnOther, AnOther Publishing Ltd, 21 Sept. 2016, https://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/9079/ten-things-you-might-not-know-about-rene-magritte.
Biography.com Editors. “René Magritte.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 21 Aug. 2019, https://www.biography.com/artist/rene-magritte.
Rene Magritte has a very unique style that they express in their artwork. As soon as you look at his pieces you think “wow this is very odd”, which is the main reason as to why they were my inspiration. Their strange works inspired me to add that strange factor on my digital collage.
2. What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
From what I found, not much is said about his thoughts on mental health however we can infer he does have opinions on it as his mother sadly passed away due to suicide, in return it affected his work greatly.
3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
While researching my inspiration and finding Rene Magritte. I learned a lot about him as an artist and what inspired him to do surrealist art. I also refreshed my mind on what surrealism is and what time in history it got famous. Rene Magritte especially is part of the major figures of the movement, developed after World War l in Europe.
4. What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The central theme for my inspiration was depression. I like to bring awareness to mental health with my pieces as mental health is something not only one piece can show and explain. So many people go through so many things, and with this piece I wanted to show what I had through.
5. What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
Unusual components in your piece can help add greater meaning as well as creativity, People like to see something abnormal as it plays with imagery and with your eyes and perception in life.
Citations (MLA FORMAT)
Skidmore, Maisie. “Ten Remarkable Facts about Surrealist Master René Magritte.” AnOther, AnOther Publishing Ltd, 21 Sept. 2016, https://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/9079/ten-things-you-might-not-know-about-rene-magritte.
Biography.com Editors. “René Magritte.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 21 Aug. 2019, https://www.biography.com/artist/rene-magritte.