Henry - T-shirt and Art Piece

My t-shirt design was inspired by my favorite quote from Henry David Thoreau: "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." I went to high school in Concord Mass., where Thoreau did a lot of his writings, and I was able to walk on the same trails in Estabrook Woods and around Walden Pond that he traveled. I loved the woods because they were a place where I could get away and reflect by myself in peace.

For my design, I started with a green/brown background color that reminded me of the woods. I found a portrait of Thoreau and used the cutout filter, and changed the blending mode to "linear burn" so that the color from behind bled through. I then pasted in 4 images of the same tree that were flipped horizontally and vertically to create symmetry and messed with the opacity. Originally, I wanted to use the whole quote, but, in the end, I liked it more just sweet and simple. I made the font color the same as the background to incorporate the Gestalt principles. 

This is one of my favorite videos created by an artist naemd Blu. I find it extremely creative, though I dont know what it all means. Somethign perhaps to do with shape-shifting, reincarnation, or death. Graffiti Animation (couldn't upload the video, so click the youtube link)