Gradients

My strongest area of work was the digital part, putting in the gradients and coloring. I like the color of the ribbons alot, so I feel like that was my strongest work. Something I could've improved on was the drawing part, but also adding more to the project. It seems pretty dull and empty.
          The easy thing about this project was probably drawing in the leaves and circles with the pen tool then smoothing it out with the smooth tool. Using the smooth tool made it alot easier to get the circles to how I wanted them, making it more round. What I found difficult about this project was the drawing part. It took me a long time to recreate the image I took and put into the computer. Also my coloring was a bit off.
          The materials I used was the gradients tool, pen tool, and the smooth tool. I used the gradients tool to get the shiny color. I manipulated the gradients tool and got a nice light blue color. I also used the pen tool to make the actual shapes. I didn't really have to make it too accurate to the shape because as an alternative, I used the smooth tool. The smooth tool helped me to make the circles rounder, and lines straighter.
          I demonstrated the goal of this project by making it have sort of a Christmas feel, but have a little twist with just blue. It gives off a Christmas feel and the blue makes you sort of question it. If I could do this project again I would add more, more circles, other shapes and draw my ribbons better. My drawing was pretty bad, and felt like I could've done better on it and added more to the project in general.

Cartoon Character

          My strongest work was probably playing with the dodge and burn tool to make the color better for the pants and shirt. It gave my cartoon character more of a glow and made the colors of his clothes look less dull. The area that I could've improved on was the background. It looks kind of thrown together.
          The easy thing about this project was to play with the colors and get a good color for the pants and the shirt. I really like the color of the pants I got, I went for a khaki look and I think I did a pretty good job getting the color. I found using the pen tool to outline the cartoon character that I drew hard. Getting the lines right and in the right position to shape things like the head and hands. It took me some time to actually use the pen tool and outline my cartoon character.
          I used the burn and doge tool to play with the colors. I used the burn tool to make my pants a darker color to give it like a shadow look and make it look better. I used the dodge tool to make the other part of pants lighter to make it seem like the sun was hitting it lighting it up. I also used the pen tool to draw my cartoon character. I used it in the Illustrator and after outlined the character I put it into Photoshop to add color. I also used the paint bucket tool to make it easier to just put the color in the image. I think I demonstrated the goal because I wanted to give it a soccer feel but also show that the character can also be dedicated to more than just soccer. He's working hard at soccer, and other things too. If i could do this activity again, I would change the background. It looks dull and could be better. Maybe make the grass seem like a turf field, and make the soccer net in the back better.

Pen Tool Exercises

Polaroid Project

                  My strongest area of work was probably getting the background to match what I put in the Polaroids. It made sense to put my jersey for school in the background when the actual picture was me playing soccer. The area of work I could improve on was playing around with the Polaroids some more. I could of put them in different places and added more or made them better. 

                  I found putting the the Polaroids in easy, and how I would put the background with the the actual picture. However I found the composition of the Polaroids was kind of difficult. Overlapping the Polaroids was also difficult because to get rid of some of the frame I had to use the polygonal lasso tool. Besides using the polygonal lasso tool, I turned on the transformation controls so that it was easier to click on the the Polaroids that I wanted to work with. I also used the magnetic lasso tool to get rid of the rest of the picture so that just the Polaroids would show. I followed along the the Polaroids with the magnetic lasso tool so that everything selected was not the Polaroids and deleted it. I demonstrated the goal of this activity by just adding things that had to do with soccer.

                I wanted to show my love for the game, and I demonstrated it by getting a good picture of me playing and putting my jersey in the background. If I could do this activity again I would probably try to add a good quote. Also the background is kind of bland, I could add more and make it more creative. I could maybe put in a soccer ball, and my pair of cleans to add more of a feel of soccer.   

Letter Project

My strongest area of work I think is just getting the letters in the picture, It's sort of all over the place, but I like how it's confusing. It doesn't really make sense and it has people thinking, and myself also. I can improve more on my creativity, and to add more. Some parts seem kind of empty and dull. If I was more creative, and added more so it didn't seem so dull, it would've improved to be better. I could also improved on my color theory, better coloring would've made it more interesting and appealing. The easy part of this was adding in a background, and getting the type into the picture. The difficult thing was to actually come up with an idea on what I wanted to add into the picture, and trying to be creative with the letters. I had a hard time with the composition of the letters and picking what font size would look good. I used the type tool to get the letter "J" in the picture, I also just copied the letter layer to get multiple of them. I got the background online and made a new page with just the background. Then I made the two pages side by side and I just dragged the background piece to the main project and moved the layer down to the bottom so it would be behind everything. I demonstrated the goal in this project by just added random J's and not really having a specific topic. I wanted it confusing, and it is kind of confusing. It really doesn't have a meaning, and it gets you thinking what it really is about. If i could do this project again, I would probably change my font to different fonts. Changing the font would make it more confusing and help better achieve my goal. I would also add more to the project, some parts seem empty so I'd change it and add more J's to the empty space.