Photoshop Design and File Formats

Photoshop Design and File Formats

I began this first composition not having a solid plan, however I commenced by inserting various black shapes onto a white background and as instructed, I moved the shapes around; up and down, side to side, and overlapping one another -  until I saw a design in which I could work with and build on. The first design to take shape was the white faces when I noticed a nose and a forehead emerge which is when I decided to add a square and long rectangle for the top hat. I then began adding layers evenly to both sides in order to present a mirrored image in order to create a stronger sense of positive and negative space, whereas the negative spaces are just as important as the positive ones, giving two different design views, depending on whether one is viewing the positive spaces, the black shapes, or the negative, the white spaces.

Once the heads were complete I added a black circle to each side to create eyes, and black tear drops to create the mouths. I then added the octagon shapes beneath the heads creating ties. In order to fill the center of the composition I created floral vases setting on a table utilizing octagons and filled them with foliage and flowers (and banana bunches on each side as well to look like foliage hanging over the edge of the planting pot). Squares and an octagon shape were utilized for the table, in which in the colorized version, I realized I needed to do this in order to logically fill the negative space and create a composition to the negative space, and a flow to the composition.

The faces and designs which pop in the black and white version are not as noticeable in the colorized version because the shapes were blended together making it unclear where one shape ended and another began. I chose many separate colors in order to make the shapes much more clearly cut and recognizable. Once the colors were added I noticed some of the shapes had to be moved slightly and resized in order to mirror image them and make both sides of the composition cohesive.  I also tried to use colors that made one another pop out, establishing aesthetically pleasing colors. The red and green as complimentary colors in the planting pots, yellow for the planting pot and purple, red and green for the flowers, additionally, I added magenta, which is almost purple in order to pop the yellow of the planting pot and finally, orange and blue were used opposite one another in the bottom octagons of the composition, also complimentary to one another. The rest of the color choices were added in order to compliment the colors in the composition, such as the hot pink lips next to the pink, which I believe compliments the magenta in the top portion of the composition. The turquoise blue of the eyes was chosen because, honestly, I just like blue eyes, but in all actuality, the turquoise does make the yellow of the planting pots pop as well. The light green band around the top edge of the planting pot was chosen not as a complimentary color, but in order to make the composition blend together without creating too many cut points within the top and bottom half of the composition, giving it an aesthetically pleasing flow, this is also the case for the peachy, coral color between the oranges and blue, as I didn’t want too much attention paid to the bottom half of the composition.