The information resource for printmakers
The information resource for printmakers
| Crocodile Oasis
Most of Marks recent work involves the fusion of contradictory components such as wild beasts and household furniture. A bizarre landscape of the mind inhabited by horses in high heel shoes being ridden by wardrobes and exotic armchair tigers prowling savage jungles. They are created using a combination of cutting and pasting photographs, scanned drawings and a variety of tools found in Adobe Photoshop, Paintshop Pro and Fractal Design Painter. Then they are printed using the latest digital technology. In 'Crocodile Oasis' Mark has used only five elements - the sky and the desert came from a CD photo disk. The Victorian bath, human skulls and crocodile were torn from three different magazines in the dentist's waiting room.
All the elements were finally pieced together in a new four layered Image. The Sky and Desert being Pasted into the first two layers then Scaled and tonally adjusted. With the Gradient tool the colour of the clouds near the horizon was altered. The third layer had a selection of skulls Pasted and scattered around using the Clone tool. The crocodile/bath was pasted into the fourth layer. The image was completed in Fractal Design Painter where shadows were created and all the elements touched up using an assortment of brushes.
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Artist
Mark Millmore describes how he made the photomontage 'Crocodile Oasis'
using images scanned from magazines and a CD photo disk.
The
bath and crocodile were scanned into Adobe Photoshop and the unwanted
parts Cleared away. A New blank canvas was made containing two layers,
the bath being pasted into the first layer and the crocodile into the
second. Next the crocodile was Horizontally flipped and the two images
Scaled and Rotated until they made one creature. Using the Lasso and Eraser,
a perfect fit was attained by trimming away inappropriate areas.
The
next step was to give the creature some character and this was achieved
with detailed work using Adobe's drawing tools. The Clone brush seamlessly
blended the two objects and a little adjustment to the Contrast and Colour
Balance gave a natural quality to the whole. Areas such as the eye, teeth
and legs were altered using Scale, Smudge, Blur, Dodge/Burn and the Airbrush
tools. The layers were then merged and using Filter/Distort/Wave, the
creature was bent, stretched and twisted in order to give a feeling of
movement.
