I decided to create a collage that focuses on positivity. My idea was for it to look like a note to self reminder to be yourself. I used a quote by Zen Shin that always brightens my day, the quote says “A flower does not think of competing with the flowers next to it, it just blooms”. I felt like this was a nice message about how even though it can be easy to be caught up in comparing yourself to others, that isn’t needed. I felt like this quote would be nice to pull together all of my images I scanned.

Photoshop collage project 1

This fits in with McCloud’s definition of comics because I feel like the visual message translates into the text chosen. John Lovett’s work helped me to incorporate texture and the unity of colors. I used an eyedropper and used the same color from my scanned images to put emphasis on the text. This helped me to create meaning to my collage. Although someone may not view it the same as me, I have always had a connection to flowers, and the jacket I scanned was a gift from my mom. This made the imagery aspect special to me and the perfect time to use the quote in which I live by. I wanted the center of my collage to just be my handwriting because the message was important to me. That way the more you look at it the more details you may see on my scans that surround the text.

This was not my first time using Photoshop, but it was my first time using it in this way. In the past I have had to fix photos for a class and haven’t quite had the chance to play with it in an artistic way. The lasso tool was very helpful in isolating my images and then I altered the lighting on them before placing them all onto one page. I also utilized the paint brush tool and used my stylus to write my text. I like the idea of my collage and where I placed my images I just wish I had a little bit more going on. I was trying to save space for my text but since I did it last I had over estimated the amount of space needed. I think it would have been cool to add in some scan of real flowers but because of the season I had a hard time coming across them.