Week 5- Photoshop Magic

As a tattoo enthusiast, the imagery that adorns peoples’ skin tends to inspire my artwork. For this poster, I decided to juxtapose two very strong art styles to convey the tone of the event I feature which I feel embodies all CRAP principals while making a striking visual impact.

I chose to make a poster for the annual Toronto tattoo convention, and due to the fact that Japanese tattooing has become incredibly popular in the west, I decided to contrast very polished, vibrant and almost cartoony Japanese tattoo art with very gritty, highly filtered pictures of downtown Toronto (where the tattoo convention featuring in the poster takes place). To create a bolder contrast between the gritty and the polished, I used very feminine colours for the waves and cherry blossoms that were inspired by my own tattoos. I feel the repetition of cherry blossoms creates a guideline for the eye the follow down the page that can serve as a way to align the piece as well.

While heavily influenced by Japanese tattoo imagery, I was diligent to pay homage to classic Americana tattooing with the lettering I chose for the tattoo artists names and date of the show. I used the soft yellows to be reminiscent of classic Sailor Jerry tattoo flash for the lettering against the cityscape in order to make it stand out, as well as the banner, which is a staple in Americana tattooing.

I also feel I achieved my goal of extreme juxtaposition by the way I decided to create my images. Instead scanning hand drawn pictures for the waves and blossoms, I decided to challenge myself and draw the bright, bold images with a mouse on Photoshop. I feel this allowed me to have more consistency with colour and line work as opposed to using pencil crayon and Sharpie, although I felt keeping the lines steady at times was difficult.

A revelation I had during the design process was that when used appropriately, drop shadows and strokes could dramatically enhance some aspects of the piece. When I applied drop shadows and strokes to lettering, the cherry blossoms, and the CN Tower for example, I feel that it helped the image “come to life” so to speak, and rescued the poster from looking flat (which it did before I discovered these features).

Overall, I feel I have achieved my goal of making a technically challenging yet visually pleasing poster that plays heavily with juxtaposition to convey the message that NIX 2010, while held in a gritty, urban environment, is an event that celebrates cultural diversity in art and is a venue where beautiful artwork is created.

Afterthoughts:

The in-class critique and low mark of my poster was really disconcerting and upsetting to me. I worked so hard to produce an original piece using juxtaposition and interesting colours to create a visually interesting piece (not to mention I drew most of the project by hand with a mouse). However, I can see now that the image was too clustered and lacked direction, and I should have gone with a simplistic approach.

The process was long and tiring, but the one thing I did learn from doing this project was to not try to fit so much into one image. I should have had a clear idea of what I was doing from the beginning and set boundaries for myself in regards to how much I add to a project.