Mental Health Awareness Project
Haven Youth and Family Services launched a competition for mental health awareness in the time of COVID. In order to contribute to this cause, I decided to create a piece using Adobe Photoshop titled "Isolation". I will include my Artist Statement below for further elaboration:
I was inspired to create a piece of art that illustrates the mental consequences of the coronavirus pandemic. I decided to use Adobe Photoshop in order to give a more realistic approach to this project, as I want to convey the realness and severity that mental health holds now more than ever. With this new lifestyle that has emerged in society, it is easy to feel alone or lost in an abyss of anxiety or stress, which is why I titled this piece "Isolation". This issue really struck a chord with me, because many people feel like their emotions are invalid, or that it is insensitive to open up about their mental health during this time; however, people often fail to recognize that many others are struggling beneath the surface as well. The little girl I used as my subject matter ultimately represents the vulnerability and stress that we all feel as a collective society, but often choose to repress. With that being said, it is imperative for us to reach out to our loved ones and check on them, because this unprecedented time leaves people facing unparalleled mental and physical challenges that are often unnoticeable from the outside.
First, I uploaded an image of a sad little girl. I wanted to make sure I either found an image that was already black & white, or I wanted to manually create this effect because I thought this tone would contribute to the mood of sadness and despair that I was aiming for. Next, I added an image of a storm, as I wanted it to represent the depression that has emerged among this unprecedented time that infects our minds. To illustrate this, I layer masked some of the girl's head out so it looked like the storm (or the sadness of this time) was consuming her thoughts. To add a more 3-D appearance, I went in with a black brush at a low opacity and added some shadow and depth to the area of her head that is cut out to make it look like the storm is actually insider her mind.
Next, I wanted to add a component that illustrates the COVID aspect of this project, so I uploaded an image of a mask. As shown above, the mask was originally not on a face so it was an awkward shape, so I warped the image to fit the child's face and layer masked it in. Also, the strings stuck out in an unnatural way in the original image, and I wanted them to go around her ears, so I layer masked in new image of a mask with strings at a better angle. Additionally, the mask was initially a very bright blue that detracted from the rest of the piece, so I added a curve to tone down the saturation and make it darker. With all of these components combined, it allowed for the mask to look more realistic on the girl.
Next, I uploaded a picture of COVID molecules that I converted to a smart object to put in her eyes. After uploading the image, I layer masked it into her right eye, and then repeated the process for her left eye. I decided to make this decision to incorporate this image into her eyes because I wanted to show that this pandemic influences the way the world looks today, and how it often consumes our lives in negative ways. Next, I added an image of quarantine tape to represent the quarantine aspect of COVID. I converted this image to a smart object and then used the object selection tool to select the yellow tape. Then, I added a layer mask to remove the background. After that, I manually went in with a black brush on the layer mask to remove some of the tape to give it a 3-D feel - like the tape was going both in front of and behind the girl. Finally, I added a layer for shadows, in which I used the black brush at a low opacity to darken some areas of the tape in order to add more depth.
My final project for the Mental Health Awareness competition is shown above.
