Week 10
This series of works is about exploring the concept that having a sense of identity can be a fragile thing. As humans we have more similarities than differences and we are all playing out a drama in this theater of life together. I wanted to utilize uncanny imagery that explored a range of styles from neoclassical to abstract with sculptural texture. I utilized broken masks or dolls to help illustrate that we are multifaceted beings whom have many different expressions and ways of being. In our human journey we are likely to change and shift and it is important to pause and reflect and not get to attached to what we may think we are or appear to be at any given point in time.
As someone who used to be resistant to technology and identified more with analogue ways of being, working with AI has shifted my perspective in so many ways. I had no idea I would be so interested in exploring visual story telling! I love how making digital artwork has provided an opportunity to work with themes, concepts and styles in a way that push me beyond my own preconceived limitations about my skill and abilities. I have learned throughout this class that it is important to me to embrace the opportunity to create art and learn from Ai instead of resist it out of fear and ignorance. Contrast exists everywhere, the good the bad the ugly the beautiful, within us and the world and it is all just an interpretation anyhow.
Meditating
Quilted Antiquity
Shapeshifter
Ball of shadows
Absorbed by the sun
Week 9 Digital Painting
I have been working out a series with the concept of pulling nuanced beauty from dystopic imagery. I am wanting to infuse elements of dreamlike surrealism with documentary photo realism. Utilizing AI and formulating prompts has been really fun to play with for this. I have been imagining bubbles as representing the discovery of possibilities existing beyond them, and incorporating them in each piece as part of my image system. Seeing from behind or inside one, or seeing outside of one looking in. Every one exists within the lens of their own perspective.
To create these images I utilized Midjourney and created a prompt setting the scene of a mixed media wasteland of toy pieces encapsulated in a clear bubble. Making use of the mixed brush tool to blur out certain spots and create a more painterly effect. The first image more Impressionistic. I experimented with different blend modes and layers to build the light and add more depth. I found what it did for the glass in the second photo to be really textural almost like gazing into a paper weight.
Combination of Dadaism and Neoclassicism
Dadaism
Why did you select this particular art style? I love the playful experimental, and doesn’t have to say anything in particular aspects mingled with the deep need to honor expression. It feels relevant to utilize in the chaotic and painful nonsensical Political landscape we are experiencing today.
What aspects of this style do you find inspiring or challenging? Creating art out of impulse, utilizing chance. Throwing juxtaposed or random ideas out and mixing them together to see a result has always inspired me!
How might incorporating elements from this style influence your own creative process? My own creative process relates with the Anarchism of this movement. I feel very much the empowerment and need of creating art spontaneously to process my role in the world. Nothing has meaning unless we give it meaning in our own minds, arguably?
How can understanding this style enhance your ability to convey narratives and emotions through your artwork? I tend to dabble in many different mediums and being able to feel uninhibited by expectation for a result is important to me. The style of Dada can be very risk taking, going against the usual to see what can happen. I love generating art with AI this way. Blending unlikely images or prompting concepts that don’t make sense really appeals to me.
Neoclassicism
Why did you select this particular art style? I wanted to explore with something sculptural that looked like it came from another time.
How do the elements of this style differ from your current artistic approach? My current artistic approach is often more abstract and less decadent.
What aspects of this style do you find inspiring or challenging? Inspiration from Antiquity, symmetrical and realistic, painterly.
How might incorporating elements from this style influence your own creative process? I find realistic and figurative paintings fascinating yet challenging to execute with my lack of painting skills but feel encouraged to explore more potential concepts this way with AI.
How can understanding this style enhance your ability to convey narratives and emotions through your artwork? Learning how this style came to be by artists of the late 18th century and early 19th century taking inspiration from classical antiquity, reminds me how movements and styles continuously get reworked and recycled. Understanding this gives me that idea of continuously cross pollinating elements from the past with modern concepts.
Week 7 Digital collage
After seeing the tutorials on adobe fresco, I am really inspired to get my drawing tablet going and start adding more painted and animation elements to my artwork. I have not had the time yet however to acquaint myself to the new device or program but look forward to doing so! I was able to generate some ideas which I would love to continue to develop with more detail. One of the ideas started out as a portrait I took of Sage from the photo shoot on friday, I opened it in Photoshop and changed the background and added a moon. I then generated some ideas in Midjourney of a castle made of teacups. I loaded the photo of Sage to mid-journey and blended it with a generated photo of the castles and teacups (shown in the slides). I imagined the face to be dripping with paint so I took it back to Photoshop and played with the smudge tool, added some paint, and the bird. I uploaded the photo in Midjourney again and had it describe it to me, I wrote down the different prompts and used a lot of what it described for my next composition.
prompt examples: Mixes realistic and fantastical elements, in the style of Surrealistic portraits, national geographic photo, fanciful illustrations, in the style of surreal collage landscape, baroque maritime, photo realistic compositions. I changed from a girl and the castle to more dystopian scenes. I like how creative AI can be for instance when I prompted a skeleton to be holding a bag of oranges it create the bag inside the skeleton and the skeleton has crablike hands. I think it would be fun to open that image up and paint more with it but I kept it as is for now.
Week 6: Pushing the boundaries of creativity with AI
I wanted get experimental and abstract so I went to midjourney and started blending unlikely and different images of mine such as a picture of my handmade quilt with a picture of clouds to see the wacky things it would come up with. I then blended a result of the combination with the image of the palette knife style painted bull (second slide below). It is weird but I kind of enjoy the abstract and strangeness of it. Since this week is about pushing the boundaries I thought it kind of worked.
I started out in Midjourney wanting to create an image of a Bull with two birds as constellation cave drawings with soft texture in oil pastel, but AI wasn’t portraying my direction of constellation type drawings and instead generated a bull with a cave as a background. I wanted a muted color pallet so for the first image in the prompt stated monochrome. The second image was done with Adobe firefly because I wanted to get a more painted effect and found Adobe Firefly can do that well, I used pallet knife style as well as water color. I then went back into midjourney for the third slide and blended the image from adobe firefly with an image of a garden I generated previously in midjourney. Even though these images were different from what I was originally imagining and trying to prompt, I was able to immediately relate symbolism to them in my mind. I feel they have dreamlike quality I tend to go for and they represent a sense of hopefulness, a merging of strength and isolation with gentleness and beauty (more so in slide 2/3). The way the bull has its head turned toward the viewer as a sort of mirror, as if you were wandering out in nature and then stumbled upon the animal in a sort of mystical animal spirit guide way. Could this be real? and then it disappears.
Week 5: Visual Narrative Illustration
After uploading one of my own photographs to Midjourney I had it describe what it interpreted the prompt as. I then collected words such as, in the style of chiaroscuro portrait, and ethereal and combined with the concept of being below and above water. I uploaded different generated variations back and forth with Midjourney and Adobe firefly for mixed results. The concept for this series is alluding to a water protecting deity.
Frog man
This week, for some reason I imagined a frog man living a quiet peaceful home life. I ended up downloading Discord and Midjourney to help me bring the vision to life. I tried in adobe firefly but found nothing satisfactory. I wanted as usual a dreamy feel and cinematic lighting touches. I wanted the frogs home to be full of plants. Once I took the idea to Midjourney and generated a few images from varying prompts all starting with “frog man, vintage feel”, ect. I chose a few scenarios that had a similar looking character to further adjust with some slight generative fill changes in Adobe photoshop. I find AI adds extra items and often some obscure uncanny and questionable (makes me giggle) but for the most part it is pretty remarkable and accurate. Its challenging to direct it when I am not entirely clear with an idea or prompt but it always provides something interesting to play with. I seem to keep generating just to see what else it comes up with even though I have a limited number in my subscription for the month!
Frog man was likely subconsciously inspired to me by the toad and frog children’s stories though that wasn’t my intention going into it. At first I imagined a frog inside a jar and then wanted the scene to develop with the frog breaking the jar and escaping. However in adobe firefly I struggled getting a consistency, so eventually changed the idea to just frog man, for an attempt to solidify a character. Below are some of the Adobe fire fly images.
Week 4: Artistic Interpretation
I generated with adobe firefly (second slide) the prompt of a blue dragon made of water swirling up from the ocean. I then opened it in Adobe Photoshop to cut and paste layers of the water, play with the smudge tool and paint brush to get more of what I was going for. I even pasted my own eye as the dragons eye from a photo for fun. This project really gave me a fuller feeling of what digital painting feels like. I loved the ability to merge the layers and blur elements of photo realism from the water with the painted feel of the dragon. I felt the ability to use AI to assist with my prompt was really effective. My motivation to use a dragon is because we are headed into the year of the Dragon according to the Chinese Lunar Zodiac. The Dragon symbolizing potential and opportunities for growth.
Week 3: Exploring AI-Powered Artistic Concepts
Digital Art with AI Elements
Done with Photoshop and generative fill to create candles, Raven snow adjustments.
AI-Enhanced Concept Sketch
After generating and playing with these images I feel AI could be such a tremendous tool in helping with the design of real gardens.
The concept of this portrait is acknowledging a union between digital possibilities and nature as an invitation to the artist. Wanting a dreamlike behind the glass feel, as well as held in between painting and reality. I referenced two photos I took by Chimicum creek (slides below) and worked with them in Adobe firefly. Then after generating with prompts the idea further developed in Photoshop with collage and post processing.
(Week 2)Exploring composition and arrangement with AI
This work was generated using Adobe firefly with hours of prompt feeding after base referencing the shell photo below. Than a chosen composition was further processed in Photoshop. With time, my vision became more apparent, even though it remained allusive if that makes sense. I found it thrilling to turn concepts and ideas into tangible expressions. I wanted organic yet abstract shapes to be the focus. These shapes have an almost uncanny avant garde feel. The dark negative space surrounding makes the shapes appear luminous. There is a sort of balance coming from the shell-like shape in the center with it’s use of symmetry. I wanted the overall tone of the photo to be monochromatic with a muted palate and a feeling of art from the past. It looks as though it was painted or drawn in pastel. The composition alludes to mystery. The lines and curves lead the eye to examine each shape. The artwork for me inspires pondering and reflection. I can see the appeal of working with AI to develop conceptual artworks. It feels limitless!
Other works generated with prompts and referenced from still life of shells:
(week 1)Introduction:
I am Sam, this is my second year as a student pursuing a multimedia communications degree. I have always believed and been an advocate for d.i.y culture but felt intimidated and blocked when it came to technology. I am a songwriter and performance artist at heart (not by choice but by fierce internal need) and had always wanted to make music videos but lacked the know how. My partner was looking up programs at Peninsula college and said the multimedia degree may be something I would enjoy. I felt I had nothing to loose, as I was craving learning new skills to move away from labor and emotionally intensive work. I bought a laptop and applied and here I am, quite honestly blown away by all that I have learned so far. As an exploratory artist, the creative freedom I feel tapped into now, is phenomenally empowering. I used to feel a bias for more analogue “off grid” approach to art (out of naivete) but am increasingly appreciative and fascinated by digital possibilities!
Nature and textiles are incredibly inspiring to me as well as the concept of “making something out of nothing” or using what you already have or have found. I find satisfaction in resourcefulness. I am really inspired by quilters from Gees bend https://www.arts.gov/stories/blog/2015/quilts-gees-bend-slideshow
Here is some recent work I have made using scraps of fabric I dyed with plants or found;
Some inspiring artists;
Digital art Inspiration;
Photography/digital artwork curated on this page I find inspiring https://www.instagram.com/smeszaros/ I love bit of surrealism mixed in!
I can’t say the work on personal Instagram feels satisfactory to me but here is the link https://www.instagram.com/chonkoso/