Western Oregon University

ART 119: Digital Presentation for Artists

Project One: Found Object Digital Collages

Students gathered objects and materials they found on their daily walks and scanned these items into Photoshop. They then

manipulated these images, creating collages that spoke to the theme of environmental consciousness.

Kelsie Blachly

Money: Another Piece of Trash

For this project, I decided that the best place to look for trash was it's

primary source; the dumpster. The items I chose stood out to me due to

their shape, value, and texture. When I arranged them, I wanted it to look

clear that the money I found blended in with the other forms of garbage

reinforcing my point that 'money is just another piece of trash'. The

images of hearts and peace signs floating above the trash symbolizes

the intangible objects that money cannot buy or heal (bandaids). Money

cannot buy love or peace; it's value is only imaginary.

Helpless Ship Battling Violent Ocean

The reasons I choose the objects I did were because they were things

that I found interesting and handy. Most of the objects I found lying on the

ground around campus which people had either dropped or they were

just objects from nature.  The reason I arranged the objects in the way

they look is because when I scanned them and saw them for the first

time, they reminded me of stuff. Such as the fabric softeners looked a lot

like waves almost like they were crashing together, so I went with it. What

a lot of the objects reminded me of stuff that had been through a lot kind

of like the, “Helpless Ship Battling Violent Ocean” approach I took. The

approach I took to my piece was trying to show how the trash was

helpless and going through hell. I think tried to convey that through the

picture I had created.

This piece was put together after seperate found items were individually

isolated and considered for their own unique correlations to other

objective forms. Overall, I am extremely happy with the simple,

straightforward message that the piece gives as well as the simplicity of

the design itself. Less is not always more, but I think in this situation,

more would have been overwhelming.

I choose to really play with the background using saturation and hue. I

like the pop of the colors and the glow of the highlights on the edges. I

used natural objects from nature and changed them to look less natural. I

challenged the average perspectives to make it more conflicting and of

interest. I wanted to do something different. I experimented with a lot of

tools and filters until I reach a layout I appreciated.

Trouble in Paradise

My piece is mostly cut-ups of the objects I scanned into the computer.  I

chose the items I found because they signify to me how easily people

toss away items without even thinking about them, even a dollar bill, like

they were nothing.  They are items carelessly tossed on the ground,

seemingly without thinking about the impact on the environment.  Some

of them may have been dropped on accident, (like the dollar), but I think

most of it was just laziness.  I arranged the items in a landscape of a

paradise, where money grows on trees and the skies are made of

doughnut wrappers, indicating how most of our society views the world

around us: candy, doughnuts, things we don’t need, and the callousness

that people have when dealing with money, like losing a dollar and not

really noticing that it’s gone.  It represents how the dollar has lost its

value, not only in the market, but in our own eyes as well.  We spend

money like it grows on trees.

Jane Johns

My project is a combination of 7 different scanned items arranged to

create a representational scene.  I chose the items initially because they

did not seem gross or disgusting and I always pick up money when I see

it on the ground.  Based on the quarters I found I thought I could make a

fountain on which to place them by distorting and combining a metal

piece and half of a leaf.  Then I took the metal chain and distorted it in

various ways and copied it and placed it on the fountain edge to

represent water.  I copied a piece of lichen and placed it at the base of

the fountain to create a natural setting.  I cut out the Ritz cracker and

modified it with the pastel pencil tool and then increased its scale to

create the base of the sun.  I then added feather cut outs along the

“sun’s” edge to act as sun rays.

The base of the fountain is a metal piece that was probably part of a farm

tool.  I think it has a earthy stone-like quality and that is why I chose it as

a fountain base.  The chains probably held someone’s keys and had

broken in two and were lost to the previous owner.  The Ritz cracker was

probably dropped by a student in front of the Werner Center, deemed

inedible, and left behind.  Once I had the Three Coins in the Fountain

theme in mind these items all became shapes and symbols to achieve

my composition.

Where Will You Stand?

where will you stand to watch it all?

watching melting fields of trees

and corrugated mountain tops

ant poison wheels soak through soil

a sponge

already saturated by the

high fructose corn quakerman

rusty leash hooks all in a row

pierce through flesh and cold crinkled foil

crushing

confining

the linear wounds exposed

our venom laced with wind and rain

a cocktail mixed

warm 6 degrees to serve

drink it up

watch the mountains fade into smoke

roots wither

the last tree falls

where will you stand to watch it all?

By Christa Keim

Hopefully the poem accompanying this piece is perceived much like the

piece itself…as sarcastic banter or image with some seriousness

intermingled. It was amazing to me how a few pieces of our trash could

“build” a machine. I think if people viewed trash like a part in an ugly

machine, they might be more anxious to pick it up and throw it away.

The consequences of the release of huge quantities of ancient deposited

carbon resources can be described in terms of “Times Arrow,”

proceeding from carbonaceous oil (and plastic), to the heat trapping

atmospheric carbon dioxide that causes the displacement and death of

some vegetation and animals. This “arrow” is suggested by my collage

which starts with plastic motor oil bottles, proceeds with live flying

butterflies and green plants, and ends with black for dead butterflies and

plants.

Footprints of Industry

In my piece, “Footprints of Industry,” I tried to convey a sense of “big

brother” looking over the viewer.  The three faces at the top of the

composition are imposing, but not meant to be threatening, in that

they aren’t complete, yet they grab your attention, while there is also

a “ghost” image present in the background that signifies a darker

side to the benevolence of the original three faces.  The footprints in

the piece are depicted by the metallic pencil sharpener shapes t

cut across the composition, signifying the imprint that industry has

on our world.  The red and blue shapes in the piece were “happy”

accidents that happened to remind me of Asian ink paintings and

Kanji, so the incorporation of those shapes give the composition a

real dichotomy of new versus old, and natural versus man-made.

Lastly, the blue and green circular shapes are an interpretation of the

earth.

Gallivant by Night

I chose these objects because most of them seemed beautiful to me in

their own special way. I thought they were very interesting with their

textures, shapes and colors, they all stood out to me in certain ways. I

used a lot of objects from nature because thats what attracked me most. I

chose to create a night scene because when i was collecting most of my

objects it happend to be dark outside. This nighttime scene was basicly

just created because i really enjoy having "adventures" at night because

of the obvious harsh contrast with the day.

I decided that I would turn my distaste for pollution and the general

disregard that people have about nature, into something that people can

think about. What would the world be like if all organic material was man

made and all that was man made was organic. What would the man

made think of plant life in terms of usefulness, would it be vastly

important to machines to have flowers and other things that we consider

to be beautiful? Or would it be something uninteresting or even a

hindrance to them? Ultimately, what world do you want to live in?

Industry should not control what happens to our planet.

Earth Tree

Rather than cut objects out of the materials I chose, I wanted to

emphasize garbage as you find it laying on the ground.  Most of the

scanned material were pieces of trash I found on campus and in my

home.  People throw away billions of tons of trash and I wanted to

represent how it is slowly killing the planet. The tree that is growing from

the trash pile is a picture of a real sapling I found on campus. Even

though so much damage has already been done to the Earth, the sapling

represents hope, purity and regrowth.

Leslie Roseneau

In my collage I made a sumo wrestler and the nature surrounding him out

of garbage because there is so much litter in the world today that if we

don’t do something about it we won’t have any nature left. I made the

sumo wrestler sitting on some natural things like twigs and stuff to show

how our society, for the most part doesn’t really care. So my motto is if

you litter a big fat sumo wrestler will sit on your face. I was actually just

influenced by the assignment to go out and find garbage and there was a

ton of litter out there and it made me want to kind of flip the scenario

around.

Because I had so many items from nature itself, my collage depicts a

scene from the forest with a deer by the river. When I was gathering items

from outside, I expected to find a lot if man made things and garbage.

I had more of a city themed collage in mind so I was really surprised

when I didn’t find as much garbage and found myself drawn to the scraps

of wood or pieces of moss. I really like how it turned out and I’m glad I

decided to make my collage like the outdoors.

I also have a much greater understanding of Photoshop. I love that you

can make something seem like something else. And that it can be truly

anything you want. I love the variety and freedom that comes with using

photoshop.

Sara Schultz

Wise One

It is incredible how many unknown objects are scattered throughout our

daily existence. I had a case of shiny object syndrome when I came

across the pieces I chose, because they look out of the ordinary and

unique looking. I am drawn to items that are either non-objective or

abstract in design and to pieces that do not contain a lot of text. The

placement and arraignment of the items was determined by the forms

themselves, and I wanted to convey a strong vertical emphasis, which

focused on the natural as well as the altered textures in the forms. The

chosen items give the sense that they were used in construction of some

sort and came off of a bigger form of the same material. I get a whimsical

Feeling from these items, similar to that of a child’s toy. I do not however,

think these were meant to be children’s toys; rather they were most likely

used in the production of manufacturing buildings or some other form of

construction.

Pipe Dreams

I chose the items for my project based on the thought of wanting to create

an action sports picture.  After thinking about what I wanted to do I

decided on a surfing scene because its something I love to do.  Right

away I new that I would need something shiny to give a sense of water

and reflection so the tin foil worked perfect.  I also knew that in order to

create a surfer shape I would need something skinny and I found a

spoon that was perfect and I used a pop-can tab for the head of the

figure.  I wanted some mountains in the background so I used some

cardboard because it’s the only thing that had a mountain look.  I’m not

sure who used all the pieces before I found them but I had to borrow a

few from some classmates so I’m sure they were used by roommates.

For this project what I was trying to accomplish was to take everything

that is natural in the picture and create it with something artificial/man

made. With the things that are man made I tried to make them with

natural objects. The car is made out of a pine cone and a piece of a stick

that I enlarged. The back ground was created with all man made objects.

The blue sky is candy wrappers layered. The stars are from a rock star

wrapper.The green leaves you see are from a trident wrapper as well.

The moon is the tin foil from the other side of the trident wrapper. The

fence is the from the tab of a pop can and then dirt is the other side of a

rock start wrapper. So as you can see I reused a lot of my objects but just

in different ways. The reason why I did my project this way was because I

feel that in order to keep our society healthy and our environment clean

we need to be greener. So that is why I made the car out of natural

things. Because if we don't become more green then pretty soon our

environment is going to be all artificial.

April Wyatt

Green is All Around

In this project I analyzed the things that I found and put them into my own

little piece of art. I think it was a fun project to do. It just took a lot of time.

All things do take time though. I picked my title as green is all around

because I think it goes with my project. It represents that of keeping

Oregon green. The land is precious and important. Most of the things I

picked up from the ground were from nature itself, but there were a

couple items that I thought represented my theme. It is that of an air

freshener. French Vanilla is what it says on it. Someone could have used

the air freshener in a car. I also used some packets with writing on it that

could have been used to keep shoes from smelling bad. I used that to

make the sky.  The point of my art piece is to take care of the environment

around you so that you live in a healthy place and breath fresh air.