Final Collage on Wall! STEAM Away!
This final assignment was the most challenging yet. My goals for this assignment was to create a STEAM collage for our Divisional STEAM as well as for a variety of Maker Spaces that have been popping up all over the place. STEAM is an extension of STEM and includes Arts as well as the original Science Technology, Engineering and Math. It's and educational program that is student and "maker" focused. Students use inquiry and questioning to explore within the broad areas in the STEAM acronym.
My thinking was simple: using The Stocks for free stock images ( a wonderful resources BTW), I collected images related to each broad area theme area and used a variety of shared clipping masks to highlight the portion of the image i wanted to use. I initially sleeted a text that looked somewhat "futuristic" and used that a single letter as a clipping mask for the final boarder constraining the images within the letter shape needed.
Note: I later figured out this was a mistake because I couldn't manipulate the text in any way unless it was an outline. Sigh. This necessitated going back and releasing all the letter shaped clipping masks and turning the text-based letters into outlines. This really should have occurred earlier.
Once the text was in outline form I could morph and reshape it appropriately to conform to the wall curves. Then I discovered my second error... Although this one I know I was going to encounter. Because I used none vector based graphics , indeed to make some adjustments to the final image after warping it. Nothing too major. The masks were fine, but the images need to be moved back into place in some cases and sizes needed to be adjusted. I am sure this could have been avoided if I had used vectors throughout. I just don't have the "chops" for that just yet.
Techniques used: I used extensive use of clipping masks using a variety of shapes and overlays to create interest. I also used layers and dartboards to keep things organized. Locking and targeting layers was a godsend as it really allowed me to zero in on what I needed to work on without messing up other elements I didn't want to disturb or that I was already happy with. I tried to work with the perspective tool and had some success but found my self starting over more often than not. Clearly I need more work here. I am getting more confident with the one tools but that has essential come with working on the Zen of the Pen exercises - beastly though they are.
Challenges: I am still struggling with the perspective tool. I finally figured out how to move it around and set it up.... But not accurately for the drawing I am working on.
I feel I have growing in a number of ways over this course. I have learned how to look at things more minimalistically - I have the icon and poster activities to thank for that. I have gained confidence in using the pen tool and bezier curves which is clearly a necessity and I have overcome my fear of the feature set in illustrator. Doesn't quite seem so daunting now.
