Project 3 Final: The Cyclical Nature of Things

Cyclical Nature of Things

The theme of this work and composition was my personal traveling routine and transition. As stated in the last entry, on my daily walk I would always stop to admire the beautiful and ever-green moss growing on the branches of trees, mailboxes, and fences as I walked down my neighborhood street. Because it was the highlight of my morning walk I wanted to place that image front-and-center, making it the focal point of my composition.

My composition is made with four key images: The mossy branch, the street, a tree I pass on my way to the art building, and the side of the art building I enter for most of my classes. Some additional elements I've added are the sky-blue resting space at the bottom of the image, the streaks of white that can symbolize clouds, shine, or water, and a rendered tree to help the transition between two images.

One of my main goals was to integrate the images to form seamless or nearly-seamless transitions. I was pleasantly surprised to find that many elements lined up naturally when I started laying the photos beside one another and scaling them, especially tree branches. I wanted to make a balanced composition, so I sampled the blue of the sky in one image (the tree on the way to the art building) and made that a background color in the bottom layer in Photoshop. I used masks in three of the other images to allow that blue to show through. Other colors I have painted through the piece are the green of the street trees and the reddish-orange of the bricks on the art building and some leaves. The white streaks in the top-most layer have a few functions including leading the viewer's eye through the transitions/composition, adding wonder of what the white could be, and to give the work more readily visible texture. The complete this "final" work I have added a black frame with appropriate spacing that simulates the matte board frame I would crafted for the print.