“Amethyst Trance,” is one of my best artworks yet. It was solely done in Adobe Photoshop and includes all original material. I named it “Amethyst Trance” because the color scheme is boldly purple (and the word sounds cool) and the piece gives off a very trippy feel which leaves you in a “trance.” The base photo I started with was the photo of myself taken by a friend with. I thought it would be fitting to have this photo incorporated in the piece because the artwork was meant for a album. I am a musical artist and I based the imagery and theme of this piece to my music style. A lot of my hip-hop and R&B instrumentals are very eerie and dark and so is this piece. When thinking of the potential color scheme for this piece; I tried to think of colors that would complement my outfit in the picture as well as the yellow background. So, I chose purple and turquoise. The purple background is a photo I took of the Toronto skyline, but I only cropped it to see the sky. Once I had that, I changed the color to purple using a hue/saturation layer. The white image on the top half of the piece is a picture of clouds I took recently. I used the colour range selection and applied a layer mask. Once that was done I erased parts of the cloud and changed the opacity. I thought it would be cool to apply an effect that would make it seem like the clouds were moving. So, I added the wind effect and it worked very well. I also applied this effect to the text. I made the text feel like it was moving with the wind as well as making it trippy. So I liquified the letters a little bit. And finish it off I added a parental advisory label in the bottom right corner as well as my signature in the other bottom corner. As I went through the process of making this artwork I thought about the CRAP principles. I think the main points of contrast are between the light and dark colors. For example, the contrast between the light clouds and the dark sky in the background. There is also contrast between the yellow aura around myself and the dark sky. I would say that there is some repetition in the clouds, but not much other than that. There is a clear alignment throughout the whole piece. I kept a symmetrical balance throughout and had everything aligned on either side of myself. I even changed the original title from “Amethyst Haze” to “Amethyst Trance,” so that it would align better. In terms of proximity, I tried to keep everything equal distance away from each other to create a sense of unity within the piece. Elements aren’t too close and aren’t too far. Overall, I am very happy with my piece and the amount of work I put in to achieve such quality.
Levi Linton 