This project was done over the span of a couple weeks and was one of my favorite throughout the semester. We started the project in Adobe Illustrator and created a black and white portrait from a picture of our choosing. The only catch to this was we could only use three tones to create the portrait, Darks, Middles, and Highlights. The skin tones you see are made up by the middle tone, the shadows are the dark tone, and the brightest parts of the face are the highlights (forehead, etc.). After we had created our shadow shapes – which were quite crude and blocky for most – we moved the portrait to Adobe Photoshop and brought the portrait to life. We were now able to turn our tones into color, which brought depth to the piece. After we had chosen base colors we used the blend tool and continued to the meat of the assignment. This portion was on deliberately deciding which tones we would blend and which we would keep sharp. An example of this would be at the right portion of my nose shadow (left side of the nose), which I kept sharp. Whereas on my forehead I blended the highlights, mid-tones, and darks to give a washy or flowy effect. This project was overall a super fun and informative experience because we were able to gain in-depth experience in Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop, then combine the two to finish a cohesive project.
