I think today’s media session was quite successful. I was struggling for a while to find someone to wear my shoes but it turned out fine and Valentina modelled for me. As far as the pictures go they are very simple. I just found a great background and took pictures of the shoe. Very straightforward. I am not the best at photography so I wanted to keep it simple and rather do something interesting in post production. I still know barely anything about editing moving images so it’s very much a trial and error process but even more than that, it’s a slow process. I’m simply too slow to create something decent in the amount of time we were given in class. Others might be able to but I’m not. I’ll have to work on that. I prefer planning, going over and trying different things, without rushing myself over this spontaneous quick approach. Especially in a medium I’m very new to. It’s a very different way of working for me. I hope that as I get more familiar with editing I will be able to execute projects faster and better.
I wanna talk about the shoes themselves for a minute. I had a lot of fun creating my shoes. I’m happy that I went to a thrift shop instead of Primark (which I refuse to enter for numerous reasons that don’t even have to do with this project) because I found a very interesting pair of sneakers instead of basic white ones. Very 2000s -2010s hip hop music video vibes. I made a ruff plan (picture included below) which I followed for the most part. It started going south when I tried to execute my idea of emulating Monets Lilies with beads. I tried it on paper and it looked great (picture included below) buuuuut it looked so so so bad when I tried it on the shoe. I had to take all the beads off and was left with one glue stained shoe so I decided to cover the part I had “ruined” with the pieces of material that were left from the cutouts I did. It turned out ok and actually added to the whole semi deconstructed look I was going for. I am also very happy that I decided to ruff up the sole. After I painted it gold it just looked super kitchy and I hated it but after some stabs with scissors (no exaggeration) and a few coats of watered down ink it looked old and weathered which I really liked. I think the gold (looks more like brass now) came out great in the pictures. I think the part I am most happy with are the actual lilies I made using Satin band, ink, feathers, beads and a whole ton of hot glue. I just tried a few things until I made something that kinda looks like a lily. I really enjoyed that process. Though if I had to critique myself then I would probably say that if you take the lilies away nobody would be able to tell who my artist is. The lace is cute and the gold too but neither of those are things anyone would associate with Monet. His influence could be more prevalent. Still I’m very happy with the way they turned out.
