Wesleysdf

#840535 Chagryn's School of Art (Week 1)

Posted by Chagryn on 14 January 2014 - 01:37

Hello all, I have decided that it would be easier to just host the classes here on the forum. I have also decided that I will not exclusively limit content to just my students. However, the only people that will receive one on one attention, CnC, and advice will be the student's who expressed interest prior to this post. I think this will help more people and that was my goal. Hope you all don't mind. Without further ado. Lets get down to business.

You should have Adobe Photoshop CS2 downloaded and installed. Link here:

https://www.adobe.co...e=cs2_downloads

(you will have to make a free account to obtain the software - after creating the account Photoshop will be towards the bottom of the page)

Placement, Canvas Sizing, and Rule of Thirds

Week 1 January 14th 2014 - January 21st 2014

Lesson

Creating a signature is more than slapping some layers together. Everything about the signature matters. Designing a piece too large is unsettling on the eyes. Remember, just because the canvas is BIGGER doesn't mean its BETTER. Our goal while creating signatures is to create something nice while making it pleasant for the viewers. The same concept applies to signatures that are too small. When we look at a signature that is too large or too small our eyes and brain struggle to find details. So starting off with an acceptable size is the first step to creating a good signature. For the remainder of this course all assignments will be made on Canvas size 475x200 (lengthxheight) pixels. There is not a perfect signature size so when you are making custom work (not for this course) experiment with different sizes.

Now that we have a good appropriate canvas size we are ready to move on to the next step. Sizing and placing our render. ( We will talk more about renders in next weeks lesson ). Here is where some of you may learn something new that I learned here on the forums. Its called the Rule of Thirds. This is primarily in regards to placing your renders on the new canvas. Basically, you take your canvas and imagine the canvas broke into three even pieces. See below:

This is a piece I made for the Grand Graphics Tournament and I have used a red brush to break the canvas down into three "semi-even" pieces lol. Please notice where I decided to place my render. You want to place your desired render roughly onto one of these lines. On a blank canvas of course you won't have these lines but you can easily image where they would be no matter your canvas size. This is the ideal placement. Placing your render in the middle implies heavy focus for the viewers and creates "odd" space on each side of the render. Placing the render either too far left or too far right creates too much "Negative Space" and will draw the viewers attention to the negative space. See below:

Assignment

Please take this time to review the lesson and understand the concepts. Also, understand that this is fundamentals course and better material is coming. We must work our way up. I am giving you a few assignments here and they can be seen below.

1. I want you to PM me a link to your latest signature. This is in good spirit so that we can have before and afters for the course. If you don't want to participate in the before and after portion of this course you are not forced to but it is encouraged. The pieces will be kept until revealed at a later time.

2. Using the course signature size create me a signature with a SOLID COLOR background and a random render placed in what you think is the rule of thirds area. DO NOT include the red lines. This should be conducted on a visual basis only. Please post your results here!

3. A educational video will be posted shortly and you must watch it. ( If you have a youtube account I want you to comment with your forum name to let me know you watched the video ).

If you have any questions about this weeks lesson please ask here. There is no dumb questions and we are all here to help each other. Someone once said "The only dumb question is the question not asked" so remember that. Also, the deadline for assignments is the last day of the lesson week. For this week it will be the 21st of January. Good luck guys!