Throughout making this cover for the Writers' Block magazine I learned more about the program (Adobe Photoshop CS) I was using and I have built to the knowledge I had already had about this software. I have begun to understand more about the filters on adding them to the layers and using them to distort or manipulate the picture into making it appear as what I want.

I can now make just about anything I want. I can make Washington look like Lincoln, I can make a cow on a batting cage, I can make you look like a goat.

I am very skilled in using this program and it didn’t take long.

When my art teacher Mrs. Johnson told me I would be making a cover for a magazine, I thought this would be pretty easy. Now in most pieces like you are reading you would expect the writer would have written, when I was told I would be making a magazine cover, I thought this is will be very tough. But no this isn’t most pieces this is mine and you are still reading it because I have caught your attention and that’s a good thing, isn’t it?

Let me go back a little bit and tell you how I begun my journey on the CS program and art itself.

Throughout the year in my 4^th block class I have been given assignments to do. The first 7 assignments were fairly easy and below my skill level, most people believe that to get better you have to challenge yourself with more complicated task yet that is true and I believe it, I finished my work so quickly that I had extra time in class to play with the program and make whatever I like. The reason I have adapted to this program like I have is because I taught my self instead of reading the website or asking for help every time I don’t know how to make something. Even though teaching myself takes longer it is easier to figure out other things while trying to fix a problem. If I was to be looking for a certain tool to make something even though I might come by a lot of tools I don’t need but I will experience how to use them and what they are for if I might need them later to make something different, so as you can see new things were old.

Throughout my life I have been very influenced by art. The time I really started to be changed by art was 07/01/1988(my birth date).

Art has really changed the way I am. For example I hate it when people trace, I hate it when people make fun of abstract art. On the computer art has deeply changed me, I am more expressive when it comes to making computer art pieces. From my experience in art it has taught me to look past the focal point and all around for the hidden thought. I now look deeper into whatever it is I catch myself starring at continuously wondering when I am going to go on with my life and ignore the fact that I don’t know what I see but yet I understand it. Art has put a big separation on the timeline I sprint by every day. I’m not only talking about class room art, this is about art everywhere. If you don’t understand what I am talking about just refer back to reading this paragraph again.

From the beginning of this artistic pathway I have taken, I have encountered many obstacles. Like drawing a certain object correctly for the fist time, or making that perfect shadow that one time. Or throwing away a piece of paper that has nothing than a scribbled mess of aggravation written all over it, and yet still missing the trash can trying to make failure a success. Art has really made me who I am and the person I see every morning and I am proud of my artistic ability and what I have grown to. I’m not sure how to end this, but can anything really end anyway. Its just like my art, I’m not finished until I sign it.

                                                                                                                                                                                                               Joshua Harper,  2006