Connections

Lee, Nikki. Connections. 10 July 2016. iPhone. Pixlr. 1280px X 857px

This piece is to showcase the connection of life between two living organisms, human and plant. The plant is the thorny limb of a bougainvillea tree resting on the entire length of my arm. The pink blooms end at subjects face. She leans into it to smell its scent. The bleaching of the image allowed creating a focal point on the connection between the two subjects. A lot of  detail was lost in the bleaching but the shadows on the turned leaves and the crevices of my face and neck remained. Intensifying the shadows created a perfect outline, enough for the viewer to see what is going on and who is in the image.

Layers of Purity

Lee, Nikki. Layers of Purity. 4 July 2016. Pixlr. 1982px X 2691px.

This portrait is the first piece where I began to go outside of my own image collection. There are tons of free stock images to experiment. When I came across this image, the big innocent eyes drew me in and I just wanted to play around with the features without ruining its original look. Layers of Purity is simply what the image is. A pure face with layers of duplicates of the same pure face. The background is a sort of Andy Warhol filter going on where each image is a different color. In the Pixlr app, you can turn the intensity of the filter up or down. As I turned it down to see how the single image compares to the strength of the four images, I liked how the four images became a part of the background with a central focus on the foreground. In the end, it worked out and allowed me to create a cool title for the piece. 

Maiden of Caledonia

Lee, Nikki. Maiden of Caledonia. 30 June 2016. iPhone 6+. Pixlr. 964px X 1286px

The Maiden of Caledonia is the story of a woman who is waiting for something to happen. She is beautiful and dressed up as if she is waiting to be taken to a ball. She also resembles the look of a goddess, Venus perhaps. She is surrounded by Victorian vintage style including her dress, the edge she stands on, the background and even the border around the image all match to give her this elegant historical atmosphere. Her skin very pale which in other times was considered beautiful. The canvas overlay filter on the entire image makes her look slightly painted and vintage which is the goal.

Sensual Disillusions

Lee, Nikki. Sensual Disillusions. 13 June 2016. iPhone. Pixlr. 601px X 800px

I've always been a fan of messing up pretty things, the rebel way. When I first finished Sensual Disillusions, it looked perfect, neat, and vintage. Right before I hit save, I decided I wanted something more. I couldn't just let it rest at pretty. I wanted it pretty AND messy. I tried a paint splatter like filter. Now it was vintage with new age rebellion on it. 

Petals of the Burning Sun

Lee, Nikki. Petals of the Burning Sun. 13 June 2016. Samsung Phone. Pixlr. 825px X 1500px

I have never been a fan of the color orange. In fact, I've avoided it in most of my art pieces. To me, this color seems loud, too loud. In my opinion, it's louder than the color yellow. I always felt that it takes away rather than add. In this art piece when I ran this picture across a couple of color filters, somehow orange stood out. All the warm colors such as yellow, red, and orange, just mixed so well. The colors also reflect the gentleness of a child which is indeed my niece at such a young age. The world is still new and beautiful to her. She gazes at the sky with wonder and I wanted the colors to match that wonder. The muted flower overlay further represent her innocence, beauty, and girly spirit. The yellow-dotted stripe going through the center is like a sun ray and I added the light bubbles to give that look of sun powerful light reflecting the overall mood. 

Beneath Whispers

Lee, Nikki. Beneath Whispers. 11 June 2016. iPhone 6+. Pixlr. 1011px X 1000px

Beneath Whispers circles around a human's submission to the world around them. This form of submission comes for many reasons, fear of an uncertain future, shame, low self-esteem, and guilt to name a few. In this piece, we see the woman hiding beneath her own hands hiding away. She doesn't smile, nor does she show any sign of anger or fear. Just a stagnant look of waiting. The sketch filter makes her appear lifeless and out of context. She is safe in confinement, a nonrisk-taker. The broken lines along the edge represent instability. The black hides the rest of the detail of her body. All that is illuminated and obvious are her hands and the profile of her face. 

Red Depths

Lee, Nikki. Red Depths. 12 June 2016. Canon. Pixlr. 640px X 940px.

This piece is one of my faves because of the ominous look with the split light. My Canon camera creates lovely high-def images. Even when the images are distorted through filters and color adjustments, the quality is still visible to the eye. In Red Depths, I thought red was perfect because it straddles the line between happy and sad. The image can be perceived both ways depending on how the viewer wants to look at it. The muted triangles and dots are a decorative feature. They give the overall image an entertaining look though they are barely visible. Red Depths to me represents a moment of thought and indecision. 

Butterfly Free

Lee, Nikki. Butterfly Free. 12 June 2016. Canon. Pixlr. 667px X 1000px

Butterfly Free is a piece I dedicated to my niece. She's nearly two-years-old and has the wildest spirit, like me. She's constantly in search of new corners to explore. The world outside her door is literally her playground. What I love most about it is her focused attention to something beneath the camera lens. Her expression is serious but innocent. 

Neobi of Peace

Lee, Nikki. Neobi of Peace. 12 June 2016. Canon. Pixlr. 1000px X 750px

Neobi of Peace is a playful piece of playing around with the negative filter. When I first ran this picture through it, it seemed that no other filter could give that dramatic look that the negative did. After that, the image seemed flat without some sort of spark to it. I discovered two filters that were equally perfect but the blue rays added to the alien look of the image. The quote, "Escape is Beautiful," was added in to allow the reader to put a story together between the character and the quote. What is she escaping from? Why is this escape so beautiful? Where is she going? I bleached out the rest of her physical detail and the details in the background to keep the focus on the subject.

Prisms Like Diamonds

Lee, Nikki. Prisms Like Diamonds. 11 June 2016. iPhone 6+. Pixlr. 535px X 640px

Prisms Like Diamonds originally began as a selfie with my hands. I was obsessed with the way my hands looked whenever I snapped the picture. The iPhone captured the shadows my raised veins created against my hand causing the light source to split, one side dark the other bright. I played around with the filters and ran across a couple of them that allowed the image to be swarmed in rainbow colors and pixelated diamonds. After rotating and flipping the filter across the image, I found that they work best as the focal point, just as my hands were in the original. The colorful diamonds somehow weren't enough to make magic, so I found another filter which created hard lines of triangles and prisms as seen in the bottom left corner. The diamonds and prisms are similar in shape and design so it felt perfect to place them together. The colorful diamonds creep all the way up the hand perfectly displaying the entire color spectrum. 

Perfection

Lee, Nikki. Perfection. 11 June 2016. iPhone 6+. Pixlr. 480px X 640px.

This piece is called Perfection. It surrounds the quote at the center of the piece that states, "Perfect is not attainable, but if we chase perfection, we catch excellence." In this piece, I felt the quote was great to use because it shows chaos. There is split imagery and the directions are undefined. The eye tends to chase different marks all over the image instead of a steady flow. If the viewer studies the image hard enough, they can see the image of the woman fading and becoming into view at the same time. As the upper face fades, the lower face comes into a clear view. The purple and yellow are complementary colors to each other. As the whole of the image is shrouded with yellows, oranges, and reds, the quote becomes the focus as it is highlighted in purple hues. Even the word "selfie" in bold lettering is blended, almost disappeared, in the background. 

The Damsel

Lee, Nikki. The Damsel. 11 June 2016. iPhone 6. Pixlr. 506px X 640px.

The Damsel tells the story of a woman wanting to be saved from being wanted. The woman is surrounded by dark and cool colors to give a sense of dread and entrapment. The light source at the center of her face and bleeding down her shoulder and hair highlights her broken emotion and the sensuality she portrays as a woman in a man's world. The cracks and scratches along her face reveal a sense of brokenness underneath beauty. Her dark stare avoiding the viewer shows unease and shame. Her upper body fills the frame to give the viewer a more intimate closeness to the woman; inviting her into her story so there is no mistake of her feelings and thoughts.