Post Modern Portrait

Post Modern Portrait – the process

Last spring I attended the MU Art Ed Symposium and participated in the Dirty Pictures Workshop Olivia Gude presented. I wanted to capture the play and spontaneity similar to that I experienced that day, but decided to give the experience a digital spin. So, I grabbed a pair of dice from my desk drawer, opened my computer’s picture library and invented an image selection game. Starting with the most recent images I selected whatever number I rolled, and then proceeded selecting images which I placed in a folder. My age was the determining amount for the total number of pictures. If I got stuck in the middle of a chunk of the same type of images I skipped forward and I reserved the right to roll again if I landed on an image that I just didn’t want to use. (My game, my rules!)

I ended up with a folder of images that I didn’t know exactly how I was going to use, but they were a pretty good representation of family, friends, projects, places, events, and me.

Then I ran across this magazine cover and loved the look of the mosaic of images.

I downloaded AndreaMosaic, http://www.andreaplanet.com/andreamosaic/ a free photo mosaic generator and began to play. The program is a little clunky, and I’m definitely a digital immigrant…took me a while to figure it out.

This was my first attempt, all of those little squares are my pictures…

Then I read through my blog, reflecting on my thinking thus far. That motivated me to experiment using my paper doll self-portrait.

I searched, Gudesque, for familiar shapes, and noted a number that resembled hands. I printed a copy and outlined them in black chalk and tried coming up with some text, but I just couldn’t seem to sum up everything I wanted to say in a few brief words. So, I headed back to my blog and there, early on, in my “tree”, I came across this description “I am also greatly influenced by random people with whom I feel a special connection. I’m struggling with how to put this into words, but when I find one of them it feels as though we were molded from the same mold or as if I’ve encountered one of my people. This connection transcends age, and gender, and involves more than them just being a creative individual. Even if they are very different from me I value and treasure their thoughts, this hard to describe link encourages me to broaden my perspectives.” AHA! This is the exact vision of myself I want to reflect in my teaching! I want my students to become my people, or at least expose them to our ways! 

Wanting to tweak the image a bit more and to add the text digitally, I turned to http://www.picmonkey.com . I played and played, using up three days worth of valuable plan period. I didn’t do much work with students in the room, I just couldn’t concentrate. I did, however, manage to work under the observation of fellow staff members. I left the hands as suggestions, and if you look closely, you can make out “I’M HAPPY” buried in the layers. I really like that!

I loved the colors in this version, but could never replicate them, sometimes that happens. 

This was my final version, but I'm still drawn more to the first. Any suggestions?