Flourish and Wither



Week 3: Wordplay

The two pieces from this week convey a play on the words “flourish” and the antonym “wither”. I stared with the major background and added a simple overlay to each piece with the flourish line art and the window. As I added more layers I used the Quick Selection and Eraser tools to place the elements into the photos. With each layer I blended with the different lighting tools to create a unified feeling. With the “flourish” piece I used the Brush tool to paint as an emphasis on the colors of the flowers and tomato. For the “wither” piece I used the Gradient tool to create a darker, browner atmosphere to incorporate the idea of decaying. In both of the pieces I used the retouching tools to refine the different layers especially with the greenery in both backgrounds. The text was the last added layer to each of the pieces, and in both I wanted to make the text a part of the background. The “flourish” text was duplicated and I changed the copy of the text to an overlay and decreased the opacity to make the text standout more but still flow and blend with the surrounding area. However the “wither” text was simpler in order to convey the earthy idea. The pieces were fun to create especially after being more familiar with the different options on Photoshop especially once I made a decision on the words I wanted to use. I landed on these words after I had begun taking pictures around my yard. The idea really came to me when I took the photo of my old playground set that has been unused for more than fifteen years. After doing this project I feel very confident in producing great pieces in my future projects.