Photoshop

Week 3

Photoshop a proposal or design for a public sculpture

Use planar images taken from life and reconstruct them in Photoshop.

Attempt 1

Using an image from a wicker chair, I constructed a proposed image in King George square, Brisbane.

This first attempt mainly served to practice with Photoshop and experiment with shadow, object manipulation and other tools within the program.

I am not inspired by this attempt and it is not a design I would peruse, however it was useful for learning purposes.

Attempt 2

Iteration I

Using a flat image from an iron garden mat, I made a large sundial in King George square.

This first iteration of the sundial still has the white background to the original image, making it difficult to imagine the sculpture in the space.

Iteration II

I rounded the base of the sundial which helped immensely with the overall aesthetic. Additionally, I used the easer pen in Photoshop to carve out the white space in the vertical triangle, then played with inverting it's colour to make it stand out against the backdrop better.

The base still had the white image background and the inverted white vertical triangle looked quite out of place.

Iteration III

I used the eraser pen in Photoshop to take the white background away from the base, I also used the black pen in Photoshop to fill the vertical triangle plane.

I added more elements from my envisioned design such as an anemometer (circular turbine in the center of the vertical plane) and I verbally pitched the concept of a twin sculpture near the ocean, contrasting it's inner-city sister.

The Sun Dial in complete shade or artificial light is useless, this is the irony I wish to capture.

These tools we once relied on to read the world around us and connect with place and time are completely lost in the very fabricated and constructed modern city life.

Does this mean that we are losing our sense of time and place?

Artist Research

Shahriar Asdollah-Zadeh, Patrick Loo, Sarosh Mulla

RAINBOW MACHINE (2019 - 2021)

This collaborative public artwork is heavily interactive for members of the public. 'Rainbow Machine' uses glass and natural light to create mesmerising rainbows in the viewers field of vision. This experience paired with the immediate image of a giant yellow telescope in the middle of Auckland is comical and childish, enhancing the light and positive feeling of the artwork.

Functional public artworks are of great interest to me, things that inform viewers or simply make them reconsider the world around them. This particular artwork has such a wonderful sense of play, I would love to mimic this positivity in my work.

Mike Tonkin and Anna Liu

The Singing Ringing Tree (2006)

The Singing Tree is perched on a hill, made of pipes that ring tuned notes when the wind plays through them. This is a beautiful example of art that directly interacts with it's surroundings but also, draws the viewers attention towards their surroundings. My Sun Dial proposal is largely inspired by artworks like this, where the natural place is brought to the forefront and viewers are encouraged to notice the mundane, and to connect with it.