Surreal Self Portraits

Rene Magritte and Laura Williams are both surrealist artists with similar styles. They both take frozen motion snapshots and play with the reality of size. Some of their surrealist artworks have a childlike wonder to them. This is especially true with Laura Williams since many of her portraits incorporate her subject in fictional settings that you’d see through children’s stories. Rene Magritte has a pattern of creatively disconnecting certain body parts of the subjects in his painting. A common theme in Laura Williams’ portraits is that she will alter the size of herself into fictional scenarios or alter the size of subjects around her. 

As one of the tips for taking surreal self portraits states, sketching a rough draft idea of what you want to create is a good blueprint for what your expectations will be. While the sketch doesn't have to be to scale or be the final product, it will help lay out the groundwork. Another good thing to keep in mind is to have a general idea of what you want to create for your surreal setting or situation. What kind of perspective do you want? What will you photoshop into your portrait? How will you convince your audience that you’re in a surreal portrait while posing?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQUtXuTm5AQ

I can use this video to look back on when I’m at the editing stage of this assignment. This video will help me since the example portrait was made on the same Photoshop app that I am using. The video provides a step-by-step guide on how to make a surreal self portrait. It also reintroduces me to some photoshop techniques that I am rusty on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltx0BTsnZmM

This video walks me through someone’s thinking process while taking self portrait images which I think will come in handy when I try to think of inspiration. It also showed a little more photoshop techniques.