Week 15 Special Edition- Mark Rothko

"The Subway Series" "The Retrospective"

Craft- He juxtaposed large areas of melting colours that seem to kind of float parallel to the picture plane. He was a different painter from everybody who used violent brush strokes. The way this painting looks is that the paint is not even on the picture plane and it is kind of floating above the plane. Kind of three dimensional in a way.

Concept- Rothko was only interested in portraying some sort of human emotion in all of his paintings and to get some sort of emotion out of his fans. When people would look at his art, Rothko would want them to have some sort of emotion come across their face and he would know that he had achieved what he wanted.

Composition- The first thing that I see is the fact that the colours seem to float above the painting plane. The second thing that I see is the people walking down the stairs and the fact that it is some sort of subway. The third thing that grabs my eye is the people in the back, seems to be some sort of ticket sales going on there probably for the subway.

Week 15 Special Edition- Vincent Van Gogh

"The Potato Eaters"

Craft- The dark and thick color was used for pictorial effects as well as philosophically to say something. The picture seems dark and trolled rather than being painted. There is total union from painter and painting. Van Gogh wanted to have a painting with figures in it and he completed various sketches of it before sending reverse lithograph prints to two different art dealers. The heavy brush did its own manual labor which is the meaning that he is trying to portray in this painting.

Concept- It is a resume of everything that he had felt and thought up until this time in order to make him a revolutionary artist. Manual labor is the main meaning that these people are peasants who dig up the potatoes and then eat with the same dirty hands.

Composition- The dark colors make you ultimately begin looking at the oil lamp hanging in the middle, the next thing that I see is everyone's expressions. After that you see the hands and what they are eating and you see that their hands are dirty as they eat the potatoes. The dark overall colors really kind of depress the mood and make it more of a sad and down kind of painting, but it has a fantastic meaning to it. 

Week 14- Websites

http://sxuhero.com/vc2s12/gjpfinal/

http://sxuhero.com/vc2s12/gp/

Craft- In the first link, I drew up 20 images and colored them all in with colored pencils to get the best looking image out of it. The 20 images tell a story with two different twists to take you through the story. After all of the images were done, I scanned them all in and put them into Dreamweaver to finish the website. The second link is nine images portraying writing an article without using any words. I drew up the nine images and colored them in in Photoshop using the paint bucket tool and the eye dropper to get all of the same colors for all nine images. Following this I put all of these photos on to Dreamweaver as well to finish the website up.

Concept- The first link is twenty images to tell a story about going to a Bulls game and the different paths that you can take that may or may not turn into going to the Bulls game. This is twenty images to portray that very story with two different twists. The second link is nine images and that portrays writing an article with just illustrations and no words. The colors are all done using Photoshop and in the first link all of those colors are done using colored pencils.

Composition- In the first link, the first thing to see throughout is the overall story and how the different choices can turn into getting to the Bulls game or not getting there. The thing to see in each image is how each one of them change and all of the different colors that are used to really enhance each image. In the second link, the first thing to see again is the overall story of writing an article using just illustrations and no words. Then throughout is the same colors being used as well as how each character interacts with one another.

Week 13- Final Photos

Craft- These are the photos for the final project. These pictures I drew up to tell a story with two separate twists in it. I also colored each one of the photos to really bring out the photograph.

Concept- This is a 20-image project portraying a story of a man who is coming home on a plane and his audience has some decisions on which way he can go in the story. This leads you down a couple of paths to either good things or bad things.

Composition- The first thing to see is the colors in each one of the photos. Then the next thing to see is how the photo ties to the next photo and so on and so forth. This whole project tells a story and that is the ultimate thing to see is what the story is all about.

Week 12- Nine Illustrations colored

Craft- These pictures were all hand drawn and then colored in using Photoshop. I used the paint bucket tool and dropped color into the different layers (light, medium, dark). This got the color into the background, the most important items and the second most important items.

Concept- This is nine drawings with no words to illustrate someone writing an article. The colors that I used were what I thought looked good to symbolize this illustration.

Composition- The first thing to see is the light blue colored items and then the medium blue colored items second. This way the light blue items stand out the most over the rest of the items.

Week 8- Final Black Swan

Craft- I took the photo that I had for the Black Swan movie poster and I added a lot of text that is what was on the movie poster from the actual movie. I used a lot of photoshop tools to add the black around her eyes as well as her lips and crown. All of the text is photoshoped as well.

Concept- This is a very close equal movie poster to the Black Swan movie poster. The Black Swan movie poster has Natalie Portman on the cover who looks very white and has the same makeup that I tried to portray here.

Composition- The first thing to see is her eyes because that really stands out. The next things to see is all of the text and then finally the lips and the crown. The eyes definitely jump out first and foremost though.

Week 11- Color added to Illustrations

Craft- Putting this together involved changing all of the colors to red, orange and yellow. After that, I found some colors that really worked together and I changed everything to different shades of blue.

Composition- The first thing to see is the bright light blue things in each of the nine pictures, then the second thing to see is the next dark blue colored item in the pictures and finally the background dark blue color.

Concept- These nine steps explain how to write an article without using any words. The next steps were to draw everything out and color them in. Then when you look at each picture, you see the bright blue items first and then you see the darker blue items second and third. This concept is controlling your eyes to see the brightest thing first before anything else.

Week 10- 9 Illustrations with no words

Concept- All nine of these photos illustrate me writing an article without using any words. These were the best things that I could think of that would really get my point across on this 9 step process be about writing an article.

Craft- I drew each of these nine drawings up and thought about if this was the best way to illustrate writing a sports article. Once I figured that it was I drew the pictures out like I had envisioned and this is what I thought of to best symbollize writing an article.

Composition- The first thing to see is the first drawing all the way through the ninth drawing. In the first one, the most important thing is the people playing basketball. Second- interview process, Third- Writing the article, Fourth- Giving article to someone to be edited, Fifth- That person giving it back to me cleaned up, Sixth- Photos, Seventh- Layout, Eighth- Proofreading and Ninth- Article is complete. 

Week 9- Illustrations with no words

Craft- I took a nine step process of writing a sports article and I turned it into an illustration. These were the best pictures that I came up with and the best illustrations that I could think of to use to symbolize what I was talking about.

Concept- This is an illustration of how to write an article with very little to no words. The best thing about these pictures is that it really accurately describes how to write an article with just pictures and no words. It is a cool concept to be able to illustrate something with no words and still get your point across.

Composition- The first thing to see is number one and then go on all the way until you get to number 9. Try to figure out what message the illustrations and the pictures are trying to convey. Your eye should immediately go to number one to follow the sequence of numbers and that is where it should start and then finish up at number 9.

Week 7- Studio Pictures (Black Swan)

Craft- These are the studio photos that were taken for the basic movie poster photography. The movie that I am trying to portray is the Black Swan. I have my model wearing black eye make-up as well as the crown to symbolize the movie poster.

Concept- This is a replica movie poster of the movie Black Swan. Trying my best to get as close to the movie poster as possible with the make-up, lipstick and crown.

Composition- The first thing to see is the black eye make-up, then after that the crown on top of her head. The next thing to see would be the lipstick as well as the eye color once I get that changed over to red like the movie poster.

Special Edition- Fire Photo Transformation

Craft- I made a pattern of fire hydrants in photoshop and then I transormed one of the fire hydrants and made it bigger and also a different color. This makes that yellow fire hydrant really stand out above all of the red fire hydrants.

Concept- This is a pattern of red fire hydrants with a big yellow fire hydrant blown up which overtakes the pattern.

Composition- The first thing to see is the big yellow fire hydrant and then the second thing to see is the red fire hydrant pattern. The yellow fire hydrant that is blown up really overtakes your eye and makes you look at that first before everything else.

Week 6- Fire Photo Transformation

Craft- I took a photoshop image of just the fire hydrant and made a pattern out of it. Then once that was done, I changed the color of one of the fire hydrants and made it stand out.

Concept-This is a pattern of fire hydrants and there is one fire hydrant is out of the ordinary and is yellow instead of red.

Composition- The first thing to see is the out of the ordinary yellow fire hydrant. The second thing to see is the pattern of all of the fire hydrants and how it is a horizontal pattern.

Week 4- Fire Photo Creativity

Craft- Got a picture of the fire alarm here at the VAC and then deleted all the surrounding pixels so the image of the alarm was isolated. Used several tools to delete all of the pixels including the elliptical and the rectangular tool along with the quick selection tool.

Concept- This is an isolated image of the fire alarm that shows none of the background in it. This image was on the wall, but with the deleted pixels, the fire alarm is alone.

Composition- The first thing to see is the middle part and then the part that says fire on it. Thirdly, the little black dot that is down on the bottom is the final thing to see in this image. Also, with the background being deleted, you see the obvious no background being there.

Week 5- Fire Photo Collages

Craft- In the case of the last picture on here, I put all of the signs in a pattern and then put the one down in the bottom left so it stood out because it doesn't look like it belongs.

Composition- The first thing to see is the out of place sign down at the bottom and then all of the words saying use exit afterwards. The third thing to see is to look at the pictures and the fire signs.

Concept- This is a pattern first and foremost with something that is out of place. It is kind of a wild design and really isn't shaped perfectly to be a great pattern, but the concept of having the sign out place was what I was shooting for in this one. 

Week 3- Fire Photos

Craft- The picture that I am talking about is the one in the upper left of the chimney. This was a picture at my house after I had burned some paper and cardboard. The ashes are all from the burned materials and I took a picture after the fire ended.

Composition- Well first and foremost, the initial thing to see is the fact that it is a chimney. Then you see the ashes inside and the sticks from the matches I used. You can then see the ash trays that are in the chimney and the marks all over the walls from the several fires we have had in the chimney.

Concept- This is a picture of the chimney in my den after a fire. It shows all of the ashes and burn marks from the various amounts of fires that have occurred in that chimney.

Week 2- Abstract

For the first assignment, I just went and made a bunch of different designs in photoshop. This included strips down the side as well as little paint blotches here and there throughout. Then I decided to draw lines all across the page so I would fill up the entire white space.

The techniques that were demonstrated in class were to use different colors, paint brush sizes and different layers in photoshop. With using this technique it helped us make something out of nothing because each screen that we filled up was completely blank and white at the beginning of each new layer. This was a really cool technique to use because it helped to design something instead of sitting there and drawing something else up yourself. It just ended up looking like something and that is how "Spaghetti" came to be.

I came up with the name "Spaghetti" as my title because of the yellowish lines that are in the front of this piece. This design looks like spaghetti with those yellow stringy lines and that is why I had to title it that. This basicall was something that was not supposed to be anything and turned out to look like something. 

"Spaghetti"







Week 1- Introduction of myself

My name is Greg Pilafas and I transferred here to Saint Xavier from Moraine Valley Community College. I went to Moraine Valley for three years after I went to high school out at Lockport Township High School.

I am a junior here at SXU and I am a mass communications major. I am the senior sports editor for The Xavierite here on campus and I also work for WXAV which is the college radio station. I do a sports talk show with a few other guys on Sunday nights between 6 and 9 p.m. I also broadcast the men's basketball games here for WXAV whenever they play. Writing has always been a big passion for me and I am super glad that I can continue to write in the newspaper and see my name in print each week.

This visual communications class will help me work better at the paper so I can make different designs involving photoshop to make The Xavierite look even better than it is.