I must admit I am not the most artistically inclined, and my design may be a bit basic, but I believe it represents myself and I believe once I’m able to add color and shading it will come out more how I’m picturing. This is very much a work in progress and any tips anyone has about how to sketch better as a person without much artistic
All posts by ggolic
Tourette’s Collage Final Draft
In my first post about this collage I really wanted to convey to you just how much the topic I’ve chosen means to me and why I am so passionate about the subject, and I would once again like to describe the pictures and understand
The picture on the leftmost side of the collage is meant to represent what the general civilian more than likely thinks Tourette’s actually is: swearing uncontrollably, as you can see represented by the symbols over my mouth. The one percent I’m showing is there to provide the information that less than one percent of those who suffer from Tourette’s Syndrome have coprolalia, the name given to that specific form of TS. The media focused only on those who’s tic is shouting obscenities and that has led to TONS of misinformation being spread about the disorder.
The middle shows a Venn diagram that I created in Microsoft word, which as you can see is made up of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression, and Tourette’s syndrome. As we all know, Venn diagrams are meant to show relationships between things and in this case, relationships between disorders. All four of these conditions are considered comorbid disorders, which describes when one or more conditions occur at the same time as another disorder in the same person at the same time. Basically, if you have TS, you are more likely to also have OCD, ADHD, and/or depression.
And I have to thank Caitlyn and Teghan for their input, which helped me improve upon my design. Caitlyn pointed out that the Venn diagram might look more appealing if I created it on the computer. I think that advice definitely helped improve the finished collage.
The picture on the right is representing the basal ganglia, the part of the brain researchers think is affected by TS.
The lower center photo was changed to a proper teal ribbon instead of a solid teal space. Tehgan pointed out that the space seemed kind of random and out of place, so I managed to find this picture and purchased it from shutterstock. As I said in my last post, the teal ribbon represents Tourette’s Syndrome Awareness.
Another change I made from the draft of my collage to the final product is I increased the resolution of the photographs in order to make the images sharper. This was another suggestion made by Caitlyn and I believe this change helped considerably.
The ultimate reason I made the decisions I did in terms of what I revised was very simple. After looking back at my collage, I realized that it had a number of flaws and those feelings were mirrored by those in my group. My classmates were able to identify a number of things that I was considering revising myself such as doing something more with the lower third of the collage. Though, I hadn’t thought to increase the resolution in order to make a more crisp picture, but that was something that after I tried it, I knew it was simply better that way.
Tourette’s Syndrome Collage Draft
Photoshop has always been a program that interested me, though it’s also quite intimidating. Luckily, the tutorials we were required to view really did help a lot, and I surprisingly did remember a few things from when I took a “Basics of Photoshop” class in middle school. Creatively, I decided to put this collage together the way I did because I felt it was the best of my ideas to fit 3 photographs into one.
As you know, my topic is Tourette’s Syndrome, as I am a sufferer of the disorder myself, and that was obviously the main creative focus of this collage. I would like to explain a bit more about what these pictures actually represent. The picture on the leftmost side of the collage is meant to represent what the general civilian more than likely thinks Tourette’s is: swearing uncontrollably, as you can see represented by the symbols over my mouth. The one percent I’m showing is there to provide the information that less than one percent of those who suffer from Tourette’s Syndrome have coprolalia, the name given to that specific form of TS. The media has latched onto the swearing aspect of Tourette’s syndrome and that has led to a lot of misinformation being spread about the disorder, and I really hope to help fix that
The middle picture in the collage shows a Venn diagram, which as you can see is made up of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression, and Tourette’s syndrome. As we all know, Venn diagrams are meant to show relationships between things and in this case, relationships between disorders. All four of these conditions are considered comorbid disorders, which describes when one or more conditions occur at the same time as another disorder in the same person at the same time. Basically, if you have TS, you are more likely to also have OCD, ADHD, and/or depression. In my case, I have all of them.
The picture on the right is representing the basal ganglia, the part of the brain researchers think is affected by TS. And as for the lower, teal-colored box in the center, it represents the official ribbon color for TS. As you all know, many disorders have a ribbon color associated with it, so I thought it would be a cool creative choice to add in the color that represents Tourette’s Syndrome.
All of these pictures work together to aid in my purpose to educate people about Tourette’s Syndrome, and I hope that my sharing of my story as well will help other sufferers come to terms with their disorder, as I have.
In terms of how I made the collage, I used the polygon lasso tool to create the shapes each photo would eventually be placed in and used the line to segment them from each other. What really made this possible was the use of layers to cut off specific parts of each photograph in order to fit them into the shapes.
Topic-Tourette’s Syndrome
Something people wouldn’t know by looking at me is that I actually suffer from a neurological condition called Tourette’s Syndrome. I know that the first thing most people think of when they hear of this disorder is swearing uncontrollably and things like that, though that is actually very rare. I think a lot of people are uninformed about this disorder and understanding is the biggest helper of compassion in this world, so I view educating and supporting people is what needs to be done, and is what I would like to do here on this blog.
The reason I’ve selected this topic is because I myself suffer from Tourette’s Syndrome, and have experienced everything that comes with it firsthand. And because of this, I do consider myself to e somewhat of an expert on the subject. Collecting original material for this course will be very simple since I have Tourette’s Syndrome myself, and also know quite a few people whom have the disorder as well that would be happy to share personal photographs and videos and things of the sort. I myself also have plenty of pictures and videos that would be relevant to this topic, with an almost unlimited potential to obtain more. And because this is a topic I have become so knowledgeable on, i really hope to help others both learn about TS and for those who have it, i would love to be able to show support for them.
There are a number of great websites that I hope to emulate here in my blog. I would like to link a few here.
https://tourette.org/blogs/resources-support/life-tourette-syndrome/
http://tourettenowwhat.tripod.com/message_board.htm
https://tourette.org/blogs/about-tourette/debunking-myths-misconceptions/
Gage Golic 