Final Project

The home stretch.

Remember Unity and Coherence!

Of all the topics we’ve covered so far, this one is the most difficult to identify and explain. I’ve spent my entire career trying to acheive unity and coherence in my work. Sometimes I nail it and sometimes I don’t. Coherence is about more than just balance, more than pattern, and more than figure and ground. Coherence is the bright shining moment when your work comes together. The subject is working in concert wiht mark and line and patterns and textures aren’t competing for attention. Color and value strike the right emotional chord and transparency elicits just the right aspect of time and space you were going for.

If you continue taking art classes or just continue making art on your own, you will eventually find your own path to unity and coherence. The one tip that I can give you is that if you  don’t  acheive unity and coherence, treat each week of this course like a checklist:

  • Are figure and ground distinct enough or should they merge even more?
  • Have I chosen the right surface and chosen the right placement of my subject inside the frame?
  • Are mark and line distinct enough? Are the lines working overtime and making the work feel heavy?
  • Is pattern taking up the right amount of attention? Do I need to tone it down or increase it?
  • How are my color values? Should I add or decrease the contrast?

 

Then, begin working on your final project. Together with your midterm, this is only 25% of your grade, so don’t panic. As long as you’ve been turning in most of your work, you’ll probably be fine. This course isn’t about MASTERING art. It’s only about getting the most basic aspects of 2D design down, so what I’m looking for isn’t the Sistine Chapel!

Your Final Project

OPTION 1: Go to this address: https://myportfolio.com/  and click “login” in the upper right hand corner. Use your Adobe credentials to log in.

OPTION 2: Complete your mid-semester project in Adobe Spark by turning it into a final project, filling out the remaining topics from the course.

Basically, just take your midterm and turn it into your final…

Basic Beginner Stuff

Follow the prompts to help you get started.  Read the following!

See What You Can Do with Adobe Portfolio

Build Your Online Portfolio in Minutes

Share and Explore Portfolios

This should be enough to get you started, but if you run into trouble, for goodness sakes ASK ME FOR HELP!! That’s what I’m here for.

What I’m Looking For…

 

I want to see what you’ve learned and completed all semester. If you’ve failed out of the conversation in Slack, you can redeem your grade by making sure you write enough that I really understand what you know about each of the topics. Also, make sure your Pinterest boards are up to date. Those boards give me a quick visual estimation of what you understand about each of the topics.

Helpful Links

My Portfolio: a great example of a “D” Final Project. I have lots of photos but NO text that explains why I chose the photos I did.

Change Your Layouts  (if you really jack up your layout, you can always use this link and click “restore default layout” to get things back in working order.)

See below for videos.

Minimum Requirements

 

At a minimum (to get a C), your project must have the following:

 

 

  • At least 12 images that you created  that display evidence that you understood concepts covered in this course. Do not use the images you created for the “emulate” assignments. I’d rather see the things you created from the “create” assignments. Remember, the pieces don’t have to be GOOD, they just have to prove that you understand the basic concept from that week.

  • Text that accompanies each image with the title and medium as well as text that helps me understand why you chose the image and what’s happening in the image. You’ll be fine if you’re writing the kinds of things that you’ve been writing all semester in the discussion threads, only using your own work.

  • An overall design of the portfolio that is thoughtful, creative, and something you’re proud of. This portfolio should represent you as an artist as much as possible.

  • The link to your complete portfolio must be submitted to me by  I recommend testing the link with a friend or family member. MAKE SURE IT’S PUBLIC AND VISIBLE.

Techinical Tutorials

If you’re using Adobe Portfolio, these videos might help.  

How to Get a Professional-Looking Online Portfolio

Some simple things.

How to Create Your Online Portfolio with Adobe Portfolio

1 hour long, but worth it if you really want to know all the details.

Shorter Tutorial

He reviews use of Lightroom (which you’re probably not using) but most of it is on Adobe Portfolio.