Down in Africa, Gonna Take Some Time to Do the Things We Never Had

So this is probably a new record with my lateness. :D Not only is my next project already finished, but I've been OUT of Computer Graphics II for weeks now.

I'm still adjusting to being out of it, though. ;)

There's something extra-special about this picture. It earned me my first ~*impressive*~ award in art...a Silver Key Scholastics award!

As quoted from the School website, "The National Scholastic Art Competition, launched in 1923 by Scholastic, Inc., is the oldest student art competition in the United States with students from all over the country competing for awards at the regional and national level. These awards offer early recognition of creative teenagers and scholarship opportunities for graduating high-school seniors. The awards are national in scope and administered by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers."

There are three levels for Scholastics awards... first is Honorable Mention (Which I got(!!!) for an animation I actually created last year for Computer Graphics I and touched up this year when Mr. Gehl told me he wanted to put it in the contest. However, I don't have the animation file or the technology to get it again to post. Sorry.). The second level is Silver Key, which I received on this piece! Today, actually, I received my fancy certificate and a lovely pin in the shape of...guess what...a silver key. The third and top level is Gold Key. The students who advance to Gold Key level have advanced to nationals, held this year in New York City! My friend advanced 3 peices this far...but probably won't be able to attend the ceremony for monetary reasons. I hope she can, because she really deserves to go more than most people in my mind. If anything, she should get an award for sheer number of golden keys!

Back when the award-winners were first announced, my name was put (along with the artists of the other 22 placing pieces at Waubonsie) on the Marquee, as you may have read on Mom's blog. I got it on the marquee for reflections, too, but I didn't get to see it. This was really, really cool.

The names, since there were so many, buzzed by ridiculously fast. We're lucky we got a shot of my name, actually! It was on there once before, for reflections, but WVHS has so many awesome amazing people that they rotate the announcements frequently and I didn't get to see my name.

Uh. I should probably get to the actual PIECE now, shouldn't I?

You probably won't notice, but I'm actually pulling the link for this image from the school's "Winter Art Display" online site. It's always exciting when I get something up there. :D For fall, I had the New York Collage up there as well....maybe not as exciting as a gold key, but still. It's a fun experience; both humbling (because DANG the other pictures are amazing!) and something that gives me pride (because...well....DANG the other pictures are amazing!)

I named this project "Out of Africa". I really, really, like the pun. A lot. It's kind of sad, actually, how much I like it, seeing as it's not that funny.
I did this piece in Photoshop for a unit called "Out of Bounds". This technique is...really popular. People LOVE doing out of bounds because it creates a cool, dramatic effect and it's quite easy. You can google-image "Out of Bounds" and only get 1-2 sports images on the whole page...everyone loves doing this effect and especially showing it off.

I'm not going to go into lengths about the process because you can find it by googling easily, as I already said, and the majority of hard work on this project was NOT with that effect. Mr. Gehl requires us to use two "photos", much like this piece here. Actually, this one is really cute. :) No one in our class used clotheslines...almost everyone did classic "grey background, white frames, photo with interaction cut into two scenes with an action bridge". One guy used a television, and I used a book.

I'm pretty pleased with myself for going so above and beyond the expectations. The four cheetahs and middle gazelle are all from the "base" photo, but as I got my idea firmer, I knew ONE gazelle would look pretty lame for an entire page in a book about African animals. Especially if Cheetah gets three. One inferiority complex, coming up! Also, I added the tree and birds (and brochures)...but that was after the rest of the project.

The text and frames kill(ed) me the most. Honestly, I still have no idea how I could make straighter lines in our school's photoshop, since I needed to warp them to suit the book's curving spine. Likewise, that text...drove me crazy. I never did manage to line them all up with the correct perspective, but I taught myself to just let go. By the way, that's all legit text. The "canvas image"'s text was far too blurry and far too light for my liking, so I copied and pasted from wikipedia. If I had more pixels to work with (again...canvas image was tiny and not lovely, but the best I could find) you could see my hard-work better. :P

Once I felt close to done enough with the image, I showed it to Mr. Gehl. He suggested I fill up the top of the image and blah blah blah, and thus I decided to add the trees and birds. I have to admit, I'm quite fond of my idea with the brochures. :)

Once THAT was done, and I actually felt done enough for the class, I showed it to Gehl again. This time, he pointed out six or seven tiny details he usually never would have brought up. That made me really excited, honestly...because I knew that meant he was going to submit it. I think having my work submitted to scholastics was just as if not more exciting than finding out 2/3 pieces made it. That seems kind of weird and is hard to explain, but I guess...begin considered good enough to go up with the big dogs is what gives me the rush. I'm a pretty uncompetitive person (most of the time) so whether I win or lose doesn't change that much. But the honor of getting to that point...that's what gets me. Because I know I've worked hard, someone else can see that, and someone else thinks that its worthy enough to go up with TRUE talent. Hogeez....that's intense.

"Africa" can be found by Toto