Mrs Hoe-gardens Earthly Delights.

The class concluding.

2009-01-29T18:05:00.000-08:00

Digital Imaging was interesting to learn that it's not always about photoshop and there are other ways to do things. Things that I didn't even really no were classified as digital. i found the blog to be challenging at first, but something different to do instead of a hard copy journal, I did enjoy the process of it though. At times I would forget that it was an online thing and forget to jot down my every idea and thought. It has been a fun and frantic few weeks and thank-you to Nancy for putting up with my crap!! i feel I have learnt a lot of things i didn't know was possible to do on the computer and it has been very entertaining and enjoyable.

Artist Statement

2009-01-29T17:10:00.001-08:00

My independent project is focused on a book, which I have turned into a small story type journal piece about myself. In it shows ideas, anger, happiness, secrets, thoughts, pictures, photographs, cutouts, letters, quirks and how I saw myself when i was younger, but also how I see myself today as an adult. The book to me represents my life and how it started with so many pages ripped out, almost like a part of me has been erased and how its yet to be finished, because the pages are still missing. I'm still looking for answers and yet to find the missing pages of who i am. Maybe one day the story can be finished and I will know my true self. Its a small insight into my quirky little amazing life!

2009-01-28T21:05:00.000-08:00

I would like the viewer to feel like they no a little something about me after browsing the project. it has been a big thing to me opening up about my life. I guess i was too afraid of the unknown and what was in front of me was already there and too good.

Independent Project

2009-01-28T20:40:00.000-08:00

My book/journal/scrap book is a insight into my crazy little life. i wanted to create a story about myself with a quirks and twists through it. its how i saw myself as a child and how I see myself today. To explain the significance of the ripped pages and ones torn out has more meaning to me. My life has been like a book where chapters and pages have been ripped out so my life growing up being adoptive is somewhat mysterious. I'm yet to get through the story of my life, i just know what i know today and what i have been told. To me I woke up when I was five with really welcoming people and then the rest is history. So you could say I only know my life from five years old, It really is an amazing thing and I dont know any different. I love my brothers and sister, my mum and dad, my family, the one i have always known the one that has always been there. This project is a part of me I wanted to share, and was also to share with myself too. After asking more questions to my mother I got a more in depth insight and just that extra bit of information helped me to create this piece for my independent project. In some of my imagery I have photoshopped, i have added photos, pictures, and letters and basically its not filled to the end, because the story about me isn't finished. I need to find the missing pages of my life to end the book.

Some pages out of my book...but not too many because its a secret.

2009-01-28T16:24:00.000-08:00

I feel exposed to everyone thats why i'm nude.

Its a very messy, torn, worn ripped out journaly type story partly because when i was a child i did exactly that to books, or if I would make something i'd do it really messily.

My big thick book.

2009-01-27T20:24:00.000-08:00

My book is coming along quite nicely. I feel like a little kid again cutting and pasting. Bringing back old childhood memories... its has turned out quite random also. Ha not as extreme as Kathy Ackers books though. mmmm not much else to write, might scan some pages in from it.

Narrative Project Cont.

2009-01-26T21:41:00.000-08:00

So after having a big think about the narrative project. obviously my initial idea was to do something involving masks. Then after taking photos of everyone in class, and having a play with their faces, mixing and matching facial features. talking about identity (again) I was going to put my mouth, eyes and nose and mix them up on other peoples faces. After doing that and lining them all up. Thats when the idea of hear no evil speak no evil came about. And for me to emphasize that even more was to use my own images of me today (because for me i only look back on my childhood today as an adult) . It all works in 3 ways to me, about growing up. Firstly (hear) I rarely heard nothing bad as a child, I was always given positive feedback and if i asked questions I would get a straight answer from memory. Going to primary school, I would always pretend to not hear people talking about me in a negative way and I think because of that I became more aware of who I was.. (See) Obvious reasons from , wondering why i don't look like my brothers and sister...mum and dad etc. growing up I didn't think any different, as i got older i started to ask more questions. But to me out my eyes I thought i did look like them. (Speak) When asked at school who was that dropping you off etc, I would say my mum..and they would say thats not your mum and back then i figured the less i spoke the less they wouldn't care. I felt it was all suppose to be kept a secret, so I would make up lies and say they were friends of my parents or a babysitter. i create tall stories and tell them to my friends. So thats why I picked that and how it works in my favour also, helping me to create a story about myself.

2009-01-26T21:26:00.000-08:00

Speak no evil- So it matched in with the other two, i kept the last (speak no evil) quite simple. i was going to leave it as it was but then thought I may as well emphasize the hand over the mouth, by adjusting the threshold. And it went with the first one.

2009-01-26T21:25:00.000-08:00

See no evil - Initially i did the same with the eyes as the ears. but it didn't look right at all over the hands. So i figured i would pixilate my arms and hands, to emphasize 'seeing' .

2009-01-26T20:53:00.001-08:00

Hear no evil - Here I added on ears. because mine weren't visible. I drew them, scanned them in and added them..they looked kind of funny thats why I have added the threshold to it, so it blended in.

Narrative come alongs.

2009-01-26T20:15:00.000-08:00

Found the beautiful image of a girl and her interpretation of hear no evil, speak no evil etc. i love how its set out and she tells a story which is almost sad.

First stages of narrative project..i hate looking at myself

2009-01-20T19:10:00.001-08:00

an example.. thanks diane!!!

Narrative Project Cont..

2009-01-20T19:04:00.000-08:00

Ok so after thinking of identity issues with the narrative project, i went way off track after playing with one of the photos, and doing that whole censored thing covering the eyes.. and then it lead me to hear no evil, speak no evil etc... but not sure how i will do it.I think i will use 3 photographs of myself though, then work into identity aswell and bring it back to those 3 things of speaking hearing and seeing no evil and how i didnt no any different growing up .so im going to continue to have a play and get back to myself..

Collage Again

2009-01-20T18:16:00.000-08:00

Again with some text, as you noticed I've taken out the entire background. just really cleaned it up.

Rewind back to my collage!

2009-01-20T17:53:00.000-08:00

Just stepping back in time here, thought I'd have another play with my collage. And as you can see it looks alot different to what it was.After looking at this one i might add some text across it. To me when playing around with it, I was thinking it shows the many different ways I was feeling growing up as a child. I guess I had a very black and white kind of fuzzy memory of it, yet other days it would be bright and colourful, then some days I wouldn't know anything. So its a portrait of myself of a jumbled kind of life.

A piece from Kathy Acker (obsession)

2009-01-19T18:45:00.000-08:00

See how random this is.....

My Father

Kathy says, For finally my father was coming back. As soon as the night turned black as the cunts of witches, he walked through our door.

Once he had settled down inside, with his pint and slippers, the cat nodding drowsily against his shoulder, he told me that he hadn't brought back what he had promised me, my own whip. Instead he had come back with a non-white brat, outcast, orphan.

This devil's child who was nameless was a pale, skinny male. His hairs were blacker than a witch's vagina. When I smelled him, there was a reek of sheepdog who had never been taught anything.

I spent the night, sleepless, weeping into my pillow, and so did he.

I wasn't a good child. Or, the same thing, they (the males in my family) told me that I wasn't a good child. I didn't know how to react to this identity, this reification, other than by throwing my badness, which my shyness always wants to keep hidden, into their faces.

But openly I loved the night. Whenever it was black, outside, I talked to those animals who sat around me and I knew they had languages and I began to learn their languages.

Then father tried to make the gipsy brat into something less than outcast by giving him the name of a child who had already died. Day after day I watched the brat. Unlike me he wasn't bad because he was being told that he was bad; nameless, from as deep as his self or sea went, all he wanted to do was to spit at the world. The human world that seemed nonhuman. I admired his ability; it didn't matter to him, as nothing mattered to him, that I did.

Even though he was only six years old, he would have stolen everything from this father's house, but there was nowhere to go with it.

Though I never spoke to him openly, I would have done the same thing.

My father loved his false son. Hindley, my father's real son, hated the new Heathcliff.

My father knew that I saw that all that I couldn't and wanted to do, Heathcliff did. "Why can't you be a good child, Kathy?"

"Why can't you be a good father, father?"

KATHY ACKER (ummm somewhat disturbed)

2009-01-19T18:26:00.000-08:00

So after having a read of Kathy Ackers book 'Pussycat Fever' I was quite concerned...It totally wasnt what I expected and I dont think my book/journal will be quite as graphic as hers!!The one thing I did get from it was how random the text was, which I want to do with mine!! not sure if i should post a couple of pages from it up!! might offend people hahahaaa

Independent Project Thoughts & What nooooot

2009-01-14T21:29:00.000-08:00

After much thinking about this topic..i even dreamt about it. Im going to continue with my theme of identity/adoption etc etc etc. I want to create a book that tells a story about myself. My first initial thought was to do it in a form or a pop up book. and insert pictures (of me) i will manipulate into the book..then I thought, perhaps it could be more like a journal type story book. I want to buy an old book from an op shop or something and totally rip it apart by sticking in lots of my images, other images, text, objects, taking out pages and putting in other pages, drawing in it etc. Changing the text in the book and basically going really crazy!!! so it ends up as something I have created a novel about myself. Kind of an insight into who I am. hmmmmmm so thats that thought for the moment!!

2009-01-14T20:53:00.000-08:00

Some interesting pics I found that reminded me of identity/miss matched faces, i love the top image, its totally crazy!!

Narrative Project Thoughts.

2009-01-14T15:34:00.000-08:00

So here are a few images I have been playing on for my narrative project. I have to admit I was stuck at first for an idea! So I decided to take some photos and and just play around with them in photoshop. Changing the facial structures of each person. I first tried using the lasso tool to get a finer edge, whilst swapping the eyes or nose etc. But I then thought it looks abit too neat. So I just selected areas and switched them over onto other peoples faces. Which turned out quite funny, and distorted some of their faces. After doing this I didn't really know where I was going with it and it then came back to my collage idea, about adoption, identity etc. And I think i came to conclusion with my narrative project that the theme of it follows identity. its about the many faces in the world, and everyone is trying to find out who they are. The symbolicalness of the masked features of other peoples faces is a mask. Basically what Im trying to say is that i feel like I have been in a mask all through my childhood and even sometimes now I still do. And just because I am adopted doesn't mean other people don't have masks if that makes sense....

2009-01-08T19:41:00.001-08:00

Diane before shot

Diane after shot

2009-01-08T19:36:00.000-08:00

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Jess before shot

Jess after shot

2009-01-08T19:33:00.000-08:00

Jo before shot

Jo after shot

2009-01-08T19:13:00.001-08:00

jill before shot

Jill after shot

its strange to think that some people do actually look like this..

Collage 2: Yet again playing with photoshop

2009-01-07T16:24:00.000-08:00

Found this pic thought it was quite funny!!!

Here is another one I played around with the cloning tool, water colour. And to me it kind of represents whats going on in my mind, kind of seeing things from 4 or 5 different ways if that makes sense. I blanked out everyones faces in it, as a sign of lost identity. Who are these people, who am I?

?

2009-01-07T16:13:00.000-08:00

Are we suppose to work on our collages in parts and show the changes we are making on our blog? Because I just kind of did all mine in one go.. But I guess I will keep playing with my collage on photoshop. The one I presented yesterday most likely wont be the one I will use for assessment..`

Some of my favourite Hockney creations.

2009-01-07T15:59:00.000-08:00

I like his portraits the most, probably being as I enjoy taking photographs of people myself. The image of the landscape down the bottom, to me is his most well known piece and one of my favourites. Do we put our artist presentation on our blog? mine is in powerpoint? HEEEELP

Assignment 1: Collage cont..

2008-12-29T14:45:00.000-08:00

This is my belated collage i played around with in photoshop, it took me longer than expected to post, because i didn't know you has to save it as a jpeg! But I finally got there, I was basically just having a play with photoshop, working with layers and having a play with text. Main changes to me are I have distorted my face in the family photo down on the left hand side, its depicting me and my childhood to me when I was growing up, i asked a lot of questions about why I didn't look like my brothers and sister. I saw this photograph with me as a blur, not fitting in with the family I had grown with. The dishevel of letters above is partly saying this is me, but I'm confused of who I am. i added the world identity, just because a part of me has lost my identity. I would have had a whole different life if i wasn't adopted. Brothers and sisters etc family i have never met. But actually I don't know any different, this is me.

Assignment 2: Artist Presentation

2008-12-21T18:19:00.000-08:00

I have decided to look at David Hockney who creates photographic collages. I picked him as I have always found his work very interesting and unique. And for obvious reasons the photographic side of it.

ANGER

2008-12-21T18:04:00.000-08:00

Right.. so after moving into my new house..telstra decided they would go on strike! so i have had no internet for 3 weeks. Then to add to all the chaos my collage I have played around with wont upload. cool

A glimpse at some of my photography

2008-12-13T20:19:00.000-08:00

Not sure how this is relevant, but I guess I was just practicing uploading things onto the blog. and i guess in actual fact we are treating this like a hard copy journal. and i would fill it with my own work. so yes it is relevant. it feels so weird doing a journal this way. but im always keen for something new!!

2008-12-13T17:54:00.000-08:00

So in relation to my collage, I created one about myself. It partly represents my childhood life, my identity and who I am today. The materials I used were little pieces of artwork i made when I was younger, a story of me describing myself, and photographs of my family and myself.

Assignment 1: Collage

2008-12-11T00:44:00.000-08:00