WEST LIBERTY, W.Va., May 8, 2019 — One of West Liberty University’s classes in the College of Arts and Communication created a digital portrait of President Stephen Greiner as one of its final projects.
“This image was done by students in my Advanced Computer Graphics class. It’s an end-of-the year tradition where we create one person’s portrait that we call the Face of the Year,” explained Moonjung Kang, associate professor of graphic design.
“All of my students and I are very thankful for President Greiner’s support and hard work for West Liberty University, so they picked him as the 2019 Face of the Year.”
“I’m extremely honored to be a part of this class project and I thank the students for even considering me for this work,” said Greiner.
Over the years, more than 15 portraits were made by students and include images of celebrities and leaders including: Audrey Hepburn, Michael Jackson, Steve Jobs, Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, Che Guevara and more.
“This is an enjoyable quick work that the class completes after many weeks of working hard. The students need 16 pieces of images to complete one portrait, and students just pick randomly from pieces of the original photo and work on them digitally, them we combine them for the final result.”
Each of the squares measure 10 inches x 10 inches, so the result is like a large quilt, reflecting many different digital designs. Kang digitalized the original photograph provided by media relations, then each student created patterns, gray scale, color and texture as they created the final artistic image.
“On the final day, each student brings their pieces to class and we put them together. It’s thrilling to see how the work turns out.”
Students working on the Face of the Year image this year include:
- Mady Amitrone
- Megan Belden
- Savannah Belden
- Zak Campbell
- Danielle Eddy
- Corrine Hackathorn
- Regina Menhart
- Danielle Merritt
- Shayla Murray
- Samantha Palmieri
- Lucas Shaver
- Samantha Snyder
- Taylor Still-Pepper
- William Tallman
The Visual Communications program is just one of the majors offered in the College of Arts and Communication. For more information, please visit WLU’s Visual Art webpage at westliberty.edu/art or contact Professor Kang at mkang@westliberty.edu.