Mini Art School Numero Tres

This post is long, so please click on the Read More link below to see my second activity.
I really enjoyed this week's required project.  It was so much fun to look through all of my albums on iPhoto and then crop some of the pictures to give them a "different feel".  I found myself utilizing the "rule of thirds" that Golombisky and Hagen (2010, p. 133) mention when I was cropping my pictures.  I wanted to create something new like the exercise suggested, but I also wanted my picture to be visually appealing.  Now I know why a grid of 9 squares always appears when I crop or edit photos on iPhoto.  I always tried to make each third proportional, but now I know the rule behind what I was doing instinctively.  I know that the exercise only required us to pick 6 images to work with, but I decided to do more than that because I was genuinely enjoying manipulating the images.  I placed the original images and the cropped versions in the photo collage below.  See if you can guess which is the cropped version and which is the original photograph.  All photographs were taken by me, except the ones that have to do with my wedding.  Happy browsing!

 

The second project that I completed this week was the boarder variation in the Design Basics Index (p. 197).  I chose a picture of my parents' dog, Bowser, to work with.  I also used the photo-editing website Picnik (www.picnik.com)to add the different boarders to the photograph.  I have to say that I really love this website.  It is closing down in April, so right now you can use all of the premium features for free and then save your work to your computer or to Picasa or Flickr, which is great.  You can really manipulate your photos here, by adding texture, changing the color schemes, layering, and pretty much anything else you can think of.  They have really great fonts available too.  I used the eyedropper tool to create colored boarders based on the color of objects with in the photograph to highlight the frame or allow the frame to blend in.  I tend to be a bit conservative when it comes to boarders, so I really didn't go crazy with this exercise.  I used the texturing and font tools to manipulate the original photograph and to create a logo for a production company.  I think this website is a great free tool.  I am a bit upset that it is closing down in April.  However, the site did say that it will be available via Google+.  I am sure that I can find another one like it. :0)