For this project, I wanted to use materials that meant a lot to me. I decided to create a collage of pictures that focus on my heart problem and what is central to me. I used a picture of my backyard as the background because home means everything to me. When I lived at home, I would go outside and ponder on life. I would always wonder why I had a heart problem and how it has affected my life. I used a picture of my family because they have always been my biggest supporters and have dealt with a lot. They also hold a big place in my heart. The third picture I used was the heart by the CUB. I used the heart because my blog is going to be about my heart problem, so I wanted to include it. I specifically used the heart by the CUB because Pullman is my second home now. It means a lot to me, and I wanted it to be included. The text I included was to signify that all the pictures mean a lot to me.

When I started this project, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I added pictures that meant a lot to me, and I kind of went from there. I selected the top 3 pictures that HAD to be included in my blog, and what looked great together. I thought about the color theory when I included the pictures. I knew I wanted the background to look vibrant, so I hued it a bit. I wanted the heart to be unique, so intensified the colors and darkened it. For the family picture, I didn’t do anything other than crop out the background. I wanted it to look like the pictures people have with cheesy backgrounds. 

I went through my google photos to choose the photos I wanted to use. The hardest part of the project was making the picture of my family just include ourselves. I first used the Marquee tool to crop the picture. I then used the magic eraser to erase the background of the picture and only be the background of my backyard. I surprisingly spent the most time around my dad’s head. There were two other heads around his, and I needed to erase theirs without making my dad’s head look weird. When I first started with the family picture, I was using the lasso tool. This method was frustrating me because I would move my hand and part of the picture I didn’t want to be selected would get erased after I clicked crop. I had to be extremely careful, but after discovering the eraser tool, I didn’t have to be as careful. I also looked at what tools Adobe Photoshop had from one of the links provided, and that was how I discovered the erasing tool. I would recommend looking at all the links and going back through the tutorials provided before starting a project, as a refresher.

Jessica Castro took the picture of my family and I. I text messaged her if I had permission to use the picture, and she said yes.