For my collage, I looked into trying to blend in the different materials into one aesthetically pleasing picture. I started with the background being a buttoned down shirt that I had. The design on the shirt is very complex and set a unique tone for the rest of the

Digital Collage

picture. The deliberate sequence was not in the order of the objects themselves but as in the layering of the collage. One image being pushed over the other another being cut out to show the background layer. I thought of it as a way to extend the meaning of a comic to a different level. I used John Lovett’s idea of texture when bringing in a metal can bottom to contrast the rope like bracelet I put on top of it. Also using Lovett’s theory of dominance, I made the bracelet and the shark the top layers, while rotating the borders in and out of being the dominant layer. The list of my objects are all items I wear, except for the metal can bottom; that was just an interesting touch and looked cool when faded out. I chose items with different feeling to them and tried to bring that idea to life when digitalizing the images. the bracelet on the left looks like just a bunch of small, plastic beads, while the bracelet on the right looks more rough and rope like. I do appreciate that when digitalizing these bracelets, that they do not just look flat and 2-dimensional, but instead they look like that one could just pick them up. I did not use any words because I cannot really put words to this collage, it really is just one of those photos where the meaning is put up for the viewer to create.

This was the first time I used photoshop from scratch, usually I’m editing one of the photos I take with my camera, but this is really the first time starting from the bottom up and getting Total freedom. The resizing tool really helped and also the rotation tool helped with the borders. I used the lasso tool and quick selection tool frequently because this allowed me to fully bring what I wanted to the collage and cut-out any unneeded portions. I also just used the layering tab to my advantage, while picking out which objects would show dominance over the other. I like having the freedom to create in a digital environment, but I have only really made collages by hand in my life, so this was definitely a challenge for me to create.