Nu Art (3 of 3)

INSPIRATION

I am a part-time DJ and in my spare time while making art, I am sometimes influenced by different ideas that I have while DJing. This piece is a good demonstration of what DJing feels like to me when I do it live, in front of an audience. 

MECHANICS

I was having a rough time getting used to the patch tool so I instead started working with the clone stamp tool to recreate portions of the city (Seattle, WA). I made sure that it was authentic looking enough to where I could successfully display a DJ setup over the view of this city at sunset.

AESTHETICS

For aesthetic purposes I decided that the color of the setup have blue undertones to establish the cool blue mood. I next made sure that as the viewer looked at the city below the DJ setup, that there was no distracting parts or anything drawing attention from the entire image, 4 corners, center and all

MUSIC

Music Recommendations:

Moondog- Frog Bog

Miles Davis- Move

Yesterday's new Quintet- The One Who Knows

Herbie Hancock- Sly

Moondog- Surf Session

PEACE.

.

Continued (2 of 3)...

INSPIRATION

Infusing different types of media is a specialty of mine, and in this image I was able to incorporate a very natural group of leaves, vines and flowers into a circuit board.

MECHANICS

Little by little, over the course of a month I put layer styles over the outlines of plants that I drew previously. Originally I had no idea where this piece was going, although now I am glad I still kept it. The circuits behind it represent a larger computer which encases the plants in the center of the image.

AESTHETICS

I always like to add text to decipher the when and where of the art projects I make. In this one image I used a unique font I discovered on the internet as well as multiple different hues going from pale leaf green to dark emerald.


Continued...

Wildebeast from the east

Whats up?

Making progress getting used to my new portable DJ setup, I finally figured out how to record my Kaossilator in Virtual DJ. Thanks to my partnership with my band mate, DJ Adsynth, we can now collaborate and create  original beats.
Moreover, The magazine Culture Aficionado (Issue #2) is scheduled to be released in the first week of June. I have a line up of 5 issues to be released throughout every 2 week interval, this summer 2011. Please stay tuned to this blog and other blogs like this, for new updates on art, including how to make certain types of art in Photoshop CS-CS5. I will also be including new music links and/or recommendations in each post.

ART

INSPIRATION

This piece came from myself watching too many Twilight zone episodes, reading too much Ray Bradbury or possibly watching 2001: A Space Odyssey a few too many times. It is reminiscent of a computer of the future, although the tribal-looking intricate patterns scrawled behind it add a touch of visual distortion. 

MECHANICS

I was in somewhat of a daze when I made this piece at 3:30 am, although that may have worked out to my advantage. I used a couple different gradients to synthesize 3 large optical scanners and in addition, the markings behind these have also been filled with a gradient.

AESTHETICS

I wanted this art piece to look as if you could not tell what year it takes place in. I was attempting to create a photo that was not only futuristic but also modern.

Continued...

Mega blast from 1989

Hello all,

So now that I have a good amount of art posted on my portfolio blog, I have decided that it is time to expand my abilities into other fields, such as a media-based magazine titled Culture Aficionado, a clothing line including T-shirts and Boardshorts and also a mixtape as well as future studio album from my band, Standard Deviants. For now, enjoy this mega-sized post of art and music recommendations from none other than myself, Abstract Thought.


ART

INSPIRATION

I like to make art with instruments on occasion, this is a good example of a recent idea of mine that I embellished into an art piece. Guitars are just plain awesome in my opinion and with what I've learned in Photoshop, its always fun to manipulate and create something from something else.

MECHANICS

I started by keeping the guitar centered within the surrounding paint splatters and grungy edges of the image. Next I shredded the top part of it and played with the color and hue options a little bit. Finally I added more grunge layers and colored renders shooting out of the strings. 

AESTHETICS

Solely for aesthetic value I added a different layer on top of the original guitar layer to incorporate them both into an eerie off-white color guitar that blends better with gradients under blend modes. This image was originally meant to look less gritty and more neat, although that soon changed.

INSPIRATION

My girlfriend has an awesome lenovo laptop and sometimes wen I am bored I like to use Photoshop CS5 and make a background for her desktop or a little art piece she can look at whenever she wants. This piece was too cool to let go, so I saved it to my email and downloaded it later.

MECHANICS

Using different liquid brushes and a set of brushes I saved on my 16gb flash drive, I lined the corners with several watery looking renders. Some of the text in this piece is upside down or modified, while others are just layered with other shapes. The greenish looking cloud in the middle came from a smudged gradient oval.

AESTHETICS

This image was originally going to be much more subtle at first, although I enjoyed distorting the different shapes of various hues. A good portion of the images on this blog are very reminiscent of the project above.

INSPIRATION

Space art is definitely a hobby of mine when it comes to the types of art I make of a daily basis. This piece is an outstanding example of a star in space with an emerald hue. I like to sometimes go online and look up different types of space art and then attempt to make my own variation.

MECHANICS

Most of the stars I make come out to a specific style. No matter what color they are, they appear to be fluid and plasma mixed together inside of a large sphere. I strive for this effect and I also make different effects similar to the fire inside of a star.

AESTHETICS

For good measure I added some abstract looking splashes and sprays of green as well as a lightning bolt or three. I was aiming for a realistic looking small star with a ring and vivid outer glow.

INSPIRATION

One day I was looking online at gadgets and I viewed a couple online images of circuits and microchips and immediately I wanted to create or make art with similar intricate lines and patterns interlacing. I took that idea and decided to start in Photoshop and see what I could do.

MECHANICS

Certain parts of this image, you might notice stand out and in addition to creating a group of rectangles with glowing edges, I also added circuitry lines and dust on the other parts. I made sure to keep all of the layers organized with a grid and guide lines.

AESTHETICS

This image was made on my girlfriend's lenovo laptop and probably sometime at around 2am on a weekend night I completed it. I started using more detail when it comes to illustrating shapes and images by hand. I like the way that an image can be more subtle and less intense if I spend more time on it working out the kinks.

INSPIRATION

This image is another piece I produced in the middle of the night on a Saturday on my girlfriend's lenovo laptop with Photoshop CS5. I wanted to experiment with the grungy looking brushes I picked out for my flash drive and also the paint splatter ones I downloaded just recently.

MECHANICS

Lettering and objects with gradients are fun to work with and juxtapose about an image. For the most part I use text for my lettering from a font book, although sometimes I like to create my own letters from scratch by drawing them  by hand or pen tool.

AESTHETICS

Brushes, stamps and tire markings were added in the distance to take out the plainness of the white background. For aesthetic value I also added a couple area codes that I have lived in.

INSPIRATION

This piece was created because of an intense dream I had. In this dream I was surfing a massive wave, although I had no idea where I was. It looked as if I was surfing a wave which happened to be off of an island full of junked surfboards. This is the image that resulted from that dream.

MECHANICS

I made sure to blend the different layers of the wave, and the top crest, a separate layer entirely is also displayed with a outer shine and inner glow. The surfboards were drawn by hand and placed all around the sand bar in view. 

AESTHETICS

I made sure to keep an eye on the amount of waves visible in this image, incase it might look too repetitive or boring. The wave layers were drawn with pen tool then applied to look as natural as water flowing in an ocean.

MUSIC




GENRE: Hip-Hop

Binary Star- Reality Check

Gang starr- Moment of Truth

Slum Village- Reunion Feat. J Dilla

Living Legends- Black Glass

KRS-ONE- MC's Act Like They Don't Know



Big ups to LBizzle and Butterkn!fe Beetz

PEACE