Challenge 3 - Emily's Political Statement

The challenge this week was all about pop art. Basically, the only parameters were to create an original piece of pop art involving current themes and ideas. Sounds simple enough, right? Pop art plays on things that are popular in culture, from politics to celebrities to entertainment. It involves things people obsess about and see or use on a daily basis. (So if you've seen my sister's post, you'll see that her obsession is with me....) I'm a big fan of artists such as Roy Lichtenstein and David Hockney. One of my favorite pop art pieces is this one by Lichtenstein called "Drowning Girl."

For my own masterpiece, I decided I wanted to use popular topics that are all around us now. I chose Lady Gaga, cupcakes, and the green movement. These are topics I consider very relevant to today. This is my final project:

Back to the beginning... My piece includes pictures of a cupcake and Lady Gaga (in the famous meat dress) giving their opinion on being green all on a background of a collage of plastic bags. My supplies and tools included Paint, scissors, glue, plastic bags, electrical tape, and some old magazines. One of the most time consuming parts was probably cutting out all those itty bitty letters...

Decoupaging plastic bags was fun and played with the whole green/recycling theme.

Again, my final piece.

Some close-up shots:

This was a pretty fun project. I think pop art is really neat. It was interesting to see on the show the types of projects the contestants did. There were some pretty heavy topics... My piece was much more lighthearted (in a deep, philosophical way).

My sister's fave:

I knew you'd all be huge fans of my artwork, so click here to find it on CafePress. Get yourself the shirt version, you deserve it. Note: That color is supposedly "kelly green." I don't know what it would end up looking like...Probably amazing, no doubt.

Overall, it was exciting to give pop art my own spin. After seeing what the Work of Art contestants came up with, my sister and I may need to step it up. It seems our minds aren't quite as twisted as theirs. But we're working on it! Can't wait for another challenge. See you next time! Don't forget to vote!

-E

Websession: Kristine's entry for Work of Art Challenge #3

Before I start, here is the final result of this week's Work of Art challenge (see here for the rules). Thank goodness, there was no twist/turn/unforeseen additional component. I really thought something would pop up... after all, it was a pop art challenge! Anyway, as I was saying, here is my final piece:


I committed a whole bunch of no-nos during this challenge. The judges would've kicked me off for producing a piece of art that could be considered "derivative" (c'mon, inspired by Lichtenstein, with modern themes), I decided to use a technique I'd never used before ("how hard could it be??" kiss of death), I used a word no one has ever heard before, I used pictures of Emily (sorry, Emily)...

I guess I should start by explaining the "hoverweb" reference. 2-3 phone generations ago, when we used non-smartphones, we had to text via the annoying T9 system. That is, the phone has 9 keys, and so 2 = a, b, or c, and it attempts to autocomplete words for you. Well, whenever we typed "Inter..." it would automatically suggest "hover" as the word we were trying to write. Really? Hover?? I don't see how that's statistically more likely than, say, "Inter...net." So we added "web" to "hover," and came up with "hoverweb" to represent the Internet. Yay.

Now that you all know the history, I'll digress further. This evening Emily and I finally watched the last two episodes of Work of Art. I don't think our final projects could be further from what they've done so far! Huh. People do interpret the challenges however they like. And I can't figure out why the judges like the ones they like.

Back to my artwork! As I mentioned, I'd never tried this cartoonizing technique before. Armed only with pictures of Emily holding a cell phone, Paint Shop Pro, and various Photoshop comic effect technique tutorials, I was on my way. It didn't take long for me to realize that Photoshop tutorials don't translate nicely into Paint Shop Pro. Here were a few of the test alterations I tried before getting used to some of the more advanced design features:



I won't go through the entire process, but will note that I learned all about techniques like cutouts, posterizing, halftone, masks... look at me. Now I want to take a class on photo editing software!


In all, I created five pieces that were decent enough. Here they are, with my commentary:

I drew in the crazy hair on this one. Yay Stumbleupon! That site is crazy addictive. It creates zombies. (incidentally... Happy Halloween!)

This would have been better if I'd kept it simple. Too colorful. And Emily is NOT that tan.

Also overly complicated... and no, I'm not predicting that Emily will get dumped (by text or anything else). It's just one of those things you hear about these days.

This was the first cartoony image I attempted. It looked and sounded better as a concept. In reality, meh.

When I narrowed it down to my top six (one didn't make the blog) I sent them via the hoverweb to the nearest cheap photo printing place that came to mind: CVS. Huh, wonder what that acronym means... Ah, well, here are my final printed cartoon art thingies. The printouts weren't bad!


And, one last time, my final art project:


'Til next week! :)