OCA Digital Arts 1 Week One

I received my material this week and have read through the first module. I am still a bit overwhelmed that I have done this and I am not quite sure what I am doing yet. I have some ideas about the assignment but am not sure how you go about submitting anything and I don't quite know what to write on my profile yet. No doubt I'll feel a bit better and less nervous about things in the fullness of time.

Today I have looked at the first project in getting started and wasn't quite sure if I was fulfilling the brief or not but I expect it is just about getting used to the methodology before starting on the assignment at the end of the first module.

These were my first attempts at project 1

For this project I chose material from gardening magazines, from a newspaper and a calendar with wonderful coloured pictures. I juxtaposed images in various ways and cropped the images in the scanner's preview pane. There were reasons other than the aesthetic that I chose the particular elements scanned in each composite. Gardening is one of my passions so I wished to convey this alongside another passion for cooking. The calendar composite was mainly a response to colour; however, the calendar's theme was travel and I love visiting new places even though I have not done much lately; so this was more an expression of a my dreams and aspirations. One of the gardening collages seemed to depict a landscape with mountains and trees combining two of my ideas for this project. The pictures from newspapers again reflect two themes my science background and my my love of food; the fish was operated on for hernia and survived! I have reached an age when a great many friends and relatives have had serious illnesses and the image of this fish seemed to symbolise my feeling of hope. I believe that good food is essential for healthy living and this is why I grow a great deal of the food we eat at home.

These were my first attempts at project 3


Again I have used some of the ideas from project 1 and these are likely to be recurring themes. I have used some of the same elements in these scanned images using some of my own art work and combining them with other objects. Both pieces of art work used were mixed media, one represents reflections in a pool and the other was an abstract of a bird the tear-drop shapes representing wings. Each of these was combined with different objects some of which had been used in project 1, the Easter Island heads and some of the garden magazine images, but others were new elements; a notebook was included in one image to represent a travel journal or sketch book; a handwritten recipe, a doily to put on a plate of food.

I'll need to do more to both of these projects before I feel confident that I have fully understood what I need to do. But I think I have grasped the basic idea

I do feel a bit in the dark about feedback on how I am doing on the projects leading up to the assignment; indeed if there is any up to that point.