You Pick Three : Symmetrical Balance, Value, Cubism

          For the second project this year, I was relieved to find out that we had a longer time limit to complete our work. We were required to choose three cards: a principle of art, element of art, and a art movement. My cards happened to be Symmetrical Balance, Value, and Cubism. When I first saw Cubism, I wasn’t that excited, because I don’t really like the Cubism movement and I wasn’t quite sure how to create a photograph in the Cubism style. After doing some investigating on Pinterest, I found this cool looking tutorial on low-poly photography. The whole image was made out of triangles and it looked very complex. I shot a photograph of four tomatoes and went quickly to work. I mainly used Adobe Illustrator to create the triangles and Live Paint; I used PhotoShop only to give the image more contrast and saturation and to make it symmetrical. Since my required element and principle were symmetrical balance and value, I still used other elements and principles within the final piece. I used the following elements of art: shape, color, value, and texture. I used shape, color, and texture in all of the triangles that make up the entire image and value in each individual triangle. Finally, I also used the following principles of art: contrast, pattern, and symmetrical balance. I used contrast in the contrasting colors of the background and the tomatoes and symmetrical balance and pattern in the way I split the image in half, so each side was symmetrical.
          When stepping back and looking at the final photograph as a whole, it is easy to tell what I did well and what I need to improve. I can see that I did a pretty good job making the final image still look like tomatoes, even though the image it totally made up of triangles. When I was finished, I was very surprised by all of the detail that you could still see. I also think that the texture that the triangles made is awesome because it almost makes the image look 3D in some parts. Finally, I think that I did a pretty good job creating a makeshift photo-studio in my living room so I could get the plain background. I just laid a poster on the floor upside-down (so the white back was facing up) and taped another to the side of my couch in front of my living room windows. The lighting was awesome there and I wanted to take advantage of it. When I look at the final image, there is one thing that stands out to me that I think that I could improve. I would have liked to make the triangles more different sizes throughout. In the beginning, I was making the more detailed spaces smaller triangles and the spaces of more solid color larger, but as I kept working, I just wanted to get the triangle making over with (and I think it was making me just a little crazy). If I had more patience, I think it would have looked even better with all of the varying sizes.
          When looking back at my process and the final product, I can confidently say that creating a low-poly image will drive you insane! But all of the time and headaches are worth it to see the end, because the final product looks very cool. I even plan on printing this photograph even larger after critique! Then it will be easier to see all of the different sizes of triangles and all of the detail.