How creation evolves from a simple exercise
A few years back, during the Covid-19 pandemic, I decided to work on changing perspective of elements in a composite. Something simple, straightforward. But does such a thing exist? :-). No, and this is a reminder of how creation evolves from a simple exercise.
Process of creation
My first thought was of a large spider. I would change it from one position to another… it gets worse… I decided to draw it and have multiples of it. But why spiders? How could this have appeared in my mind? Would it be the fact we had been ‘locked’ for months due to the pandemic and it is as if we were left to grow old apathetic in a careless room?
The spiders fitted well in the environment, so I moved one step forward. A room deserves a shelf with some vines coming out of it and old books. Again, I decided to draw the shelf, a rustic one. The books were piled on top of each other in a strange way that would evoke the idea of abandoning, of no use, of apathy by their owner. In order to complete the shelf, I added a melting ukulele. The reason being was probably related to the owner’s state of mind. A representation of art neglect.
Where was the owner in this composite? It is when a self portraiture came along. Myself with a vague eye holding an umbrella. One will ask again, why an umbrella? To symbolise the urge to be protected from all the world’s threats even being amid four enclosed walls. More specifically, in this composite, the spiders… that somehow could be representing something beyond themselves…viruses…pandemic…
However not all in this composite is dark. Above all this creator has a happy inner core. There are rays coming from the right, warming up her soul, partially and whispering that there is light at the end of tunnel.
This is how this creation evolved from a simple exercise with elements and ideas immersed in our subconscious that leads to our interpretations. Is it not mesmerising how the semantics of our minds work?
Process of compositing the image
Shelf
It started with one log of wood composed by several layers to add the grains, the wood’s eyes, scratches, and finished with separate layers for colours (colour blend mode), shadows (multiply blend mode), and light (add blend mode).
Spiders
They were done using several layers, making sure each element of it was done separately. All layers in normal blend mode, with the lighter aspects of the spiders being clipped masks to the main parts of the body.
Room
This one was basically composed by five rectangles, four of them being added perspectively. A gradient was applied for each of them and as the last step and above them all, I added a textured Layer. The light rays were added by drawing lines with the pen tool, applying gradient and blur. I made sure to add them at the same side as the light reaching the subject :-).
Elements
Main character, books’ pile and liquified ukulele were added carefully and their shadows were created using a second layer in multiply mode, gradient overlay, warp transform and blur field.