What happens when an art student finally gets Photoshop?

So uni starts back in a few weeks and whilst I've watched my class mates create shops on etsy, network and work in theatres. I've stuck my head in the sand and ran away from the overbearing responsibility for my education.

Whilst at uni I found I have a much greater passion for designing than making anything. Who needs the impending threat of being stabbed with needles all the time? But I hated photo shop. Why is it so god damn hard to get a hold of? Even with lessons at uni, I just couldn't get the hang of it. Which, whilst not the end of the world, when you have a design degree to pass, it's kinda a big deal. So I resolved to teach myself to use photoshop like a pro...okay, maybe a little bit optimistic. But I was determined to improve greatly. It wouldn't be too hard to improve, we're starting from practically nothing here.

Decked out with my new laptop I got to work. With no clue how to start I randomly started to doodle and in all honestly, it looked shit, I can't lie, it really did. I'm too used to having a pencil in my hand which I can control with pressure and moving my hand to accommodate human bodily curves. Using a trackpad is the weirdest transition to make. The lack of control, for a control freak like me, was if anything, disheartening as I left I would never be able to get to grips with this. However I was trying to draw realistic historical designs like I normally create, maybe, just maybe I needed to delve into the world of pop art to get my photoshop inspiration.

Pop Art is a artistic movement born in the mid 1950's, extending to the 1970's, which heralded a contemporary block colour, comic book style-esque type of artwork. It typically included popular celebrities and recognisable imagery which made its appeal to the larger market so vast. With its new bright optimistic outlook on popular media culture, Pop Art was a great device for the post World War Two advertising industry, and consumerism took off alongside this art movement. Furthermore, one may argue that its popularity was down to the fact that instead of criticising this cultural change or pushing it further into the public, it merely recognises it in a passive and optimistically youthful way. One of the most popular and prolific artists from this movement is Andy Warhol whose art work is universally recognised. Some of his art work includes

Campbells Soup Cans 1962.

Whist this art installation looks like its been digitally done due to its uniformity. It was in fact hand painted with only the name of the soup being the variance. Warhol once said about this piece “I used to drink it. I used to have the same lunch every day, for 20 years, I guess, the same thing over and over again.” After the completion of this installation Warhol turned to photo-silkscreen printing which was to become his signature medium.

Space Fruit: Lemons 1978

This is a later print from Warhol's collection "Space Fruit" which depicted many different types of fruit including melons and pears. Whilst some Lemons are kept looking realistic the other lemons and the shadows are in block colour. This fruit series arguably relates to Warhol's obsessional interest in inevitable death.

Taking my inspiration from this I went about copying a picture I had of myself. I started with the picture on photoshop then traced over the outlines. I didn't try to go in detaill of all the creases of my clothing and all the lines only hands which I normally love to indulge in as it makes my work look realistic. Instead I glossed over those and stuck to the bare basics. Next I got the pen tool and went over the lines to create a shape I wanted to fill with a singular block colour. So for example, take my face. I used the eyedropper tool to get a colour that was actually in my skin tone, then created a "mask" with the pen tool so I could only fill in that section. Thus creating a block of colour. Now Im very aware I might be doing it wrong, and that there may be a hundred ways of doing it better. But this is just the way that I found I could actually create something that resembled a picture. Also I used so many layers and grouped them, I was feeling boss about this. The last touch was to add the back ground. The final product is a but of a mess I must admit. The picture I started with is a mess even and I can see loads of faults in it. But this is the first thing I actually managed to do a half decent job on photoshop. (Yeah, I'm also really proud of the hoop. I know it slays)

After this half decent success I wanted to share it with my mates as, I'm not going to lie, I was pretty proud of myself. Even if it had taken two days to master. My best friend, after seeing this, tasked me with doing a picture of her for her Instagram. You see I had cut corners on my picture, my hair isn't all brown, currently its got blue and blonde at the ends but I cut this out to make my life easier. My friend on the other hand didn't make my life easier. She tasked me with a picture that was mainly hair. I love her hair, but I don't want to have to try convey 500 shades of blonde on photo shop just yet. I'm still new to this shit after all. But I couldn't say no, and anyway, it would be a challenge.

In the end it took around 7 shades of brown and blonde to create a somewhat acurate representation of her hair. I had also learnt from my mistakes to include the eyelashes in the outline as I had to free hand the ones on my first picture and they add nothing to the picture. I also found I had sped up greatly, I could do a smoother outline in so little time and it was encouraging to know I was getting better. All in all, again I see many faults in this drawing and I want to improve on the hair sooo much, but I think it actually looks like her and I managed to capture a little personality in this one. I went from taking two days to around 2 1/2 hours so I think thats a decent enough improvement for now

I think I've got myself a good vague base knowledge on photoshop now. I still have loads to learn but as of now I think I'm good, well better than I was before. I want to be able to create realistic designs as well on photoshop, as I don't see it going down well if I walk into a design class with a 17th Century design in an overly modern medium. Or maybe I might start a whole knew design revolution myself!

#Photoshop #Painitng #Design