Moths! – Final Project

This project was my final project for my Drawing and Imaging class. This task involved selecting a past project that we had done in class and further developing it or expanding on it in some way. As one of my favourite projects to work on in this class was our Gestalt principles assignment, I chose to expand further on this work.

Process and Ideation

I chose to expand on the Gestalt principles project as I thought the symbolism and the conceptual meaning of the work could be developed further to create a narrative between my initial iteration and the work I would create for my final. I decided that I wanted to visually depict the action of overcoming my fear of moths that I had highlighted in the initial piece, and transform the imagery using colour and a different composition, such that it takes the focus away from the darker, barren imagery of the moths in the original work, and instead foreground their beauty as unique aspects of nature.

I wanted this final project to also be a series, therefore I chose to create 2 additional compositions of moths in Adobe Photoshop using the same process as in my Gestalt principles project. Below is an image of all four moths in their original state.

After completing this, I wanted to add colour to each of the moths, which I accomplished using gradients and clipping masks, resulting in the moths shown below.

Finally, the last steps in the process were to place these moths on individual artboards in Adobe Illustrator and add backgrounds as well as text indicating the scientific and common name of each of these moth species. The final work is shown below.

Final Work

Below is an image of my final work showing the four images that formed the Moths! series.

As seen above, I added a subtle background of leaves reflecting these moths in their natural state, rather than with the black background of empty space in the initial iteration that is devoid of any context for the moths’ existence and instead places emphasis on their structure. Moreover, I tried to limit the colours used in one background to those used in the gradient of the adjacent moth in order to create a sense of cohesion in the overall composition. Additionally, I added text in the corner of each image indicating the scientific and common name of each of the moths as well as a logo above the text of a map of Singapore, both to highlight the personal connection that I have to this piece, as well as (in a more explicit sense) the geographical location where these species can be found. Finally, the name of the series itself – Moths! – which is modified from the title of the initial iteration to include an exclamation mark, is an allusion to the transformation of the composition itself and the symbolic meaning it contains.

Challenges and Surprises

A challenge I faced in working on this piece was using colour, especially in the gradients as I hadn’t used them before. I think it was difficult at first to decide which colour pairings to use to create a harmonious gradient for each moth but also create a colour scheme that was visually cohesive. As I was working on this, I eventually decided to opt for the two pairs of diagonally opposing moths to be in either warm or cool coloured gradients respectively, as I believe this was a relatively simple way to achieve a balanced composition.

After finalising the colour of the gradients in each of the moths, I had to work on the backgrounds of each composition which posed the challenge of how to create contrast with the foreground while avoiding overcomplicating the appearance of all four moths in series. While I did experiment with solid coloured black or white backgrounds, as well as different patterns I could have used other than leaves, I found that these made for either a very plain appearance or unnecessarily made the images too busy. I eventually decided to reuse the colours I had employed in the gradients as it tied all four pieces together while also keeping the compositions interesting.

This is where I encountered a surprise in creating this work. I think I had initially thought that including the leaf silhouettes would be the thing that overcomplicates the piece and adds too many elements for the viewer to digest. However, looking at the finished work I think its organic nature poses quite an appealing contrast to the geometricity of the moths. I think this really taught me how I can incorporate more unique elements into a composition while also maintaining a sense of unity.

Reflection

Looking back on the work now, there are some aspects I would like to rework and fine tune a little more just to enhance the overall impression of the work. I think I should find a different way to integrate the Singapore logo into the compositions as I think it gets a little lost in the background in its current state. Moreover, I think in the image of the Eumorpha fasciatus moth, I could have reduced the opacity of the leaf silhouettes a little more just so that it matched the “lightness” of the leaves in the other images. Despite this though, just like my initial iteration, this project taught me a lot about composition and how to construct an interesting yet balanced composition, which will help me in both digital and analog works. Moreover, since I used both Photoshop and Illustrator in this composition, I learnt more about how to balance work between the two softwares and what aspects of a finished work can be accomplished more effectively in either one. Moreover, I really enjoyed working on creating a narrative between the initial iteration and my final work, as I think it was an interesting way to integrate meaning into the process of a work, rather than only in the final itself. Additionally, I also liked the idea of creating new forms out of different shapes (i.e. turning bones into moths) as I think that even though this is quite a common technique, there are some interesting metaphors that can be extracted from the act of providing a whole new structure (or “skeleton”) to an existing shape, and I am excited to experiment with this in the future.

Work from:
Drawing + Imaging with Professor Josephine Vargas