Friday, April 5, 2013

How to make someone look underwater

1. Import the photo you want to use (pick one with the subject's mouth closed)
2. Select the magnetic lasso tool and highlight your subject


3. Right click and select "Select Inverse"


4. Hit delete and this dialogue box will come up:

Click "color" and choose a deep blue

5. You can now go in and touch up the parts that the lasso selected that were unnecessary, but it doesn't have to be perfect
6. Add a "Foreground to Background" gradient at about 20% opacity



7. Select the paint brush tool and turn the diameter all the way up and turn the opacity to 25%
8. Cover the entire canvas in a dark blue layer (don't unclick- you'll get weird overlaps when you click again)



9. Change the brush pattern to a texture (I chose a soft one) leaving the opacity at 25%, but changing the brush size to about 250 (depending on the pattern) and make the color a very light blue. These will be your bubbles.



10. Draw a line from the face area to look like bubbles are coming from their mouth/nose
11. Turn down the opacity to about 10% and use the same brush and draw upward strokes in the negative space around the subject



12. Go to the filter gallery and choose "Palette Knife." Adjust the stroke size to 13.



13. Add another gradient, this time from the top corner (follow the way the light source look from the original image) with opacity at 20%, the gradient type "Foreground to transparent"



14. Select elliptical marquee and highlight the area of the gradient you just made, right click and select "Layer via copy"
15. On this new layer, right click and select "Blending options"
16. Select "Texture" Under "Bevel and Emboss." Choose a texture and make the depth -95%



17. Right click the layer and change the Bevel and Emboss opacity to 15%
18. Flatten Image
19. Choose your bubble paint brush again, Turning opacity to 6%, and add as many bubble as your want!



Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Artworks Field trip

Last week, we visited the downtown location of Artworks.

Artworks is an organization that beautifies Cincinnati and it's neighborhoods. They do this by painting murals throughout the city that are large and easily recognized. The people who paint these murals (lead by an experienced artist) are usually high school age kids.

A benefit of Artworks to the Cincinnati community is not only beautification, but for involving younger people in artistic investment. 

The person who met with us was Tamara Harkavy, the founder and Artistic Director of Artworks. She told us the stories behind some of the murals, and how Artworks was formed (it was modeled after a similar group in Chicago).

The link to their website is here. Below is a picture of an Artworks mural that I pass everyday on the way to school. 





Below is my favorite Artworks mural: