Handmade Photoshop Assignment Reflection

Technical
The technical steps and/or developments I used in Photoshop were dodging and burning, brushes, various layers, different opacities, composition (trying to keep the images to the side and not the middle, using a few colours and placing images so your eyes move around the picture). In my photography, I tried to keep the image to the side and tried to capture images on the same level as they are. I also did not use my flash to keep the shadows in my images.
Idea or ConceptThe ideas I ended up using in this piece are using the paper element of hand-made theme. I showed this by using the pictures of my sketches and some notes on paper. I also used stamps (postage stamp brushes, creating the image of the flying bird to look more like a stamp). I ended up changing my idea of my colour swatch and not using any neon signs (even though I drove to a fair and took pictures over a weekend). My idea stayed the same throughout the creation of this image though it didn’t turn out exactly how I had in mind.
InfluencesI didn’t have any artist influences in creating this image, though in choosing my musical artist for designing the cover for I had gotten ideas from their CD label name "Light Enough to Fly" (giving me the idea to have the feathers and birds).
Composition:I used asymmetrical composition for my CD back and symmetrical composition for the front cover. For the front I put emphasis on the birds and flying by making their opacities the strongest and the colours different from the rusty browns of the background. I also tried to show the emphasis on the text by creating it a colour which stood out from the background. The back there was emphasis put on the street sign and text by creating it different colours and opacities greater than the rest of the image. Eyes move around my image by having the feathers falling from the birds and following the birds to the stamps in the sky and back around by the text. The back has movement created by the street sign, the flying birds and the text.
Motivation
What made me want to complete this piece was being able to create a album cover for one of my favourite musical artists.  I wanted to do good with this piece because I wanted the artist to be well represented in my cover design.
Critical Assessment
The elements I find most interesting and successful are the stamp-like birds who are flying with feathers falling. I find this successful because it creates movement and a focus point in the piece. I enjoyed being able to use all my own photography.   With additional time I would change my font or colour choice.  I would change my colour choice to colours which better compiment eachother. (Using a blue to contrast the rusty, brown/orange colours throughout the piece).  I would change my font to a more handmade or thick/darker font.