One Eye In A Galaxy Of A Universe

One Eye In A Galaxy Of A Universe

11″ x 17″

Adobe Photoshop

Everywhere we look, cultures and faiths surround us, no matter where we are. Whether it be as simple as a cross hidden under a shirt, or a huge Church on the corner of the street, it surrounds us, defines us. At Regiopolis Notre-Dame Catholic High School, our faith surrounds us and defines who we are, as both a community and as individuals.

 The purpose of this assignment was to capture an idea and general concept and notion of Regiopolis Notre-Dame, using new and old techniques on Adobe Photoshop.  After exploring the different themes and images found in Regi, all of which depict a different aspect of it, I decided on a theme of Faith and Religion. I choose this as my main focus because I feel that this is the center of our faith as a whole, and also shows who we are as a group of people, all gathered under one aspect seen in the world. The overall meaning of the piece was to capture a concept of Regiopolis, which was Religion and Faith. To accomplish this in a digital piece, I had to capture my own photographs; to do this, I went to the literal heart of Regi, our chapel. Inside the wooden doors I found a large variety of objects that would successfully depict this concept. The photographs I took, which were later used in the creation of my digital piece was a small variety, all however, encapsulating this theme. These pictures include the Mary and Joseph statue, the bowl of holy water to bless oneself upon mass ceremonies, music from the chour and a glass bricked window. Although there was only a few images token, all were edited and duplicated in Photoshop in their own unique ways to created my final piece.

This piece itself was created on Photoshop using a variety of techniques; the skill used the most was however, one called masking. This can be seen in the main focal point of the piece, which is the statue. This was my main focus of the piece, and what I wanted the rest of the layout to evolve around and give focus to. I captured two photographs, one of Mary and one of Joseph, and decided to change the look of them from something seen and easily recognizable, to something that makes the viewer think deeper about what their seeing. I placed these two images and “masked” the Mary statue over top of the Joseph statue to give them the combined look. This masking skill was repeatedly used throughout my creation process, as I merged and combined layers and photographs together to give a more unified, whole look. To finish the piece off, I played around with all the filters and layers in the piece, to make it look like all aspects fit well with the other. This was done by changing the layer appearance from normal to different things like overlay, dissolve, defuse, lighten and more.

 During the creation and completion of this piece, a variety of both principles and elements or art were used to make the piece more successful and visually appealing. These include emphasis, unity, movement, proportion, balance, rhythm, colour, and value. Firstly, emphasis; the statue attracts attention first in the piece. It is seen as the most important aspect compared to the other objects on the page; this is done by making it fill the majority of the page and have it stand out the most by having it lye in the foreground, and have the background complement it. It also falls on the left vertical grid of third line, attracting the viewers attention here, making it a focal point. Unity can be seen in the piece as a whole, as all the elements connect the work of art together, unified by the bright inverted colours and brightness. Movement can greatly be seen in this piece. The viewers eyes first fall upon the statue, and travel upwards towards the explosion of light behind its head, then follows the waves of the bowl downwards towards the larger explosion of light and back up the statue. Proportion is seen in the balancing of the two halves of the picture.  The size and proportion of the large statue on the left side of the image balances the right hand side in equal visual weight with the help of the large light explosion. This balance is seen the equality between all the elements in asymmetrical balance, balancing both halves. The last principle is rhythm; this is a movement in which some aspects and elements of the piece occur regularly throughout; these elements are the music notes and lines, as well and the light explosions and waved lines. The first element of design seen is colour. Colour can be seen in this piece in its own theme. I choose to use inverted colours, in a cool colour scheme, all in which connect and complement each other. In this scheme, I decided to use lighter values. These values can be seen in the artwork as the relative light and darkness of the colours in the picture. In this piece, the colour values and light, giving a sense of clarity and openness; by using the same bright colour values, it allows the piece to be unified as a whole.

To anyone, this piece may seem unusual, or, more common, very different; to me, this piece is very unique, and fully expresses its meaning upon further examination and thinking. This can be understood from the tittle of the piece, “One Eye In A  Galaxy Of A Universe.” To me, this felt very fitting to the message I wanted to capture. This tittle was created from many things interpreted from the piece. Firstly, the background; There are two light explosions seen, one behind the figures head, and one on the bottom intersection line of the grid of thirds. Upon inverting and altering the colours of these photographs, they turned into what looked like pupils of eyes. This happy accident turned into something that helped further describe the message I wanted to portray. By adding other photographs ontop, I ended up with tiny star like dots inside these light explosions; these reminded me of galaxies; thus came the name. Rather then seeing our Faith and Religion as the only one in the world, Regi recognizes that there are many other faiths around the world, and we are but one. Our Religion is but one in our world, but one eye in a galaxy, of a universe. 

Overall, I am very happy with my final piece! However, with any piece, with strengths comes weaknesses. To me, a great strength was the success of the statue. This was the first time I decided to create something like this, and feel the final result turned out very well. To my eye, I am unable to find any gaps in the masking of the two statues, allowing it to be seen as one. However, I feel there is one weakness in this artwork. To me, it is the music notes; I had wanted to place them behind the statue to thus not distract the eye from the statue, but was unable to do so for it changed the overall colouring scheme and layering due to the changing of levels in layers. This would be the only thing I would change in my piece of artwork. As a piece as a whole, I feel that the overall look achieved is very successful, and all aspects contrast and complement the other well, thanks to the colours, their intensity and unity.