Texture Assignment

Textures
Due: Wednesday, May 14 at 8:00 am

Assignment
Using Photoshop or Painter (or both), design and paint two (2) tiling textures suitable for use in a video game, digital background image, or similar application. You may complete a third texture for extra credit.

Purpose
Texture is a key feature of all kinds of art—from painting and sculpture (including both representational and non-objective forms), to music, literature and film. Texture provides both fine detail and a sense of tactile experience necessary to make your art feel concrete and believable. Developing texture in digital art is not only a great way to enhance the viewer’s connection to an image, in many ways it is a challenging art form all its own. In this assignment, we will focus on ways to create texture using software tools, with an emphasis on developing convincing illusions of depth, appropriate color, and appealing composition. An important part of communicating texture is material indication—the representation of a surface as it interacts with light.

Procedure

• Observe the textures in both the natural world and in the art you are experiencing.
• Photograph a variety of different textures for reference and digital texture production.
• Use software brushes, tools, and photo overlays to develop two (2) or three (3) different texture paintings (see examples above).
• Use PSD or uncompressed TIF file format and work in multiple versions (01, 2c, etc.).
• Save your finished work as separate JPEG files and post on the class blog at http://sp14intermediatedigital.blogspot.com.
• Label your post(s) with your name and the assignment name (e.g. “Ammon Aaron — Textures).

Expectations

• Textures may be stylized, but they should “read” immediately, clearly portraying the surface or material represented.
• Textures should “tile” seamlessly in all directions or horizontally.
• Image sizes should be at least 1024 x 1024 pixels, or 4 in. minimum dimension at 300dpi.