Exhibit 9 - Advanced

I was very inspired by the tutorials shared in this week's lesson. I chose to follow an "Ashes and Embers" tutorial because the energy from the fire effects was interesting and eye-catching. I used the tutorial to create a motivational poster. I used a dancer as the focus of the design because, despite being a static image, the dancer conveys motion. I also like how his body is pointing forward, I think it acts as a subliminal message of "moving forward". I chose a thick block text as it creates a feel of strength and power. The size of the text and how it takes the whole width also conveys this idea. The plain black text felt a little boring compared to the dynamic image underneath it, so I chose to add some brush strokes using the same brushes and colors used to create the embers in the image. Speaking of the embers, they are the most eye-catching element in the design because the bright orange contrast to the cooler tones used throughout the design.

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I used a large number of masks, gaussian blur filters, wave distortions, and free transformations to create this effect. It started out with stretching the left side of the subject with free transformations and motion blurs. Layer masks and work paths helped control and change the blur and bring out the desired shape.  I also used special brushes that I was able to download from the tutorial's webpage. The bright orange embers were made with different color overlays. Different shades of orange helped make the embers look realistic. 

 

The image came from unsplash.com and the tutorial came from graphicriver.net.