For my mashup I started with a digital illustration of a smiley face I created in Illustrator. I then went on a walk and took a picture of trees to use as a background image. I started a photoshop document at 300 x 300 pixels with a dpi of 72. I shrunk the image and graphic down to fit and to get a lot of compression. I then applied too much diffuse glow and grain to add to the messy feeling created by the compression. I then scribbled on a napkin and made a scan of it with a broken pdf scanner I have. I shrunk that down and applied the same filters to it. Finally I exported it as a jpeg in the lowest quality possible to get even more compression and artifacts.
This piece shows my feelings in the first weeks here because I’m confused and not sure what’s going on. Things feel messy but I am smiling through it and trying to keep good faith.