Invisible Cities Project

At this stage of the course we have been put into our pathways, I have chosen Graphic and visual communication because I want to peruse illustration. Our First project is based on a book called invisible cities, a collection of made up stories told by Marco Polo to the emperor of Asia of the lands he owned which are all based on parts of Venice. The story I received was of a place called Baucis, city on stilts in the forest.

I looked for source material of fantasy cities and preconceived ideas of Baucis and from these pictures I began to draw changing a few details and adding my own style.

I then moved onto looking at scaffolding and structures with stilts to understand how to represent them with line.

Again I drew more structures with scaffolding.

Using Photoshop I merged the pictures together, this isn't the final outcome but it is the kind of random interconnection I want in the city I create.

I took Photographs in my garden of structures that all ready existed and ones I created with odd bits of wood and drew from them so that i could gather some primary sources.

Pathway Projects

At this part of the course we went into the product pathways phase where we spent one week in each each of the areas. Fine art, Graphic communication, fashion and 3d design. and produced an outcome based on a quote that we had chosen. My quote was the"only real enemy to have ever existed is an internal one"form the road to suicide.

This outcome was produced in the 3D design phase, we where tasked with creating a chair based on the quote. A chair is some thing we sit on so we could use a stable as a chair or a stall or even the floor. I decide to create a box chair using wood with perspex plastic to create a display with an apple core mounted on a nail. the idea that the apple is the internal self eating away at its self as the apple rots.

For the fashion brief we had to bring in a shirt, we put it on in different ways and then deconstructed it to create an new outcome.

For the fine art brief painted two red circles, one bigger than the other the idea that we all have a bad side with in us represented by the red and if we let it, it will consume us.

For the graphics pathway we experimented with typography.

Thomas Grunfeld And Misfits

Thomas Grunfeld is a 3D artist who works through misfits, the combination of different animals preserved through taxidermy, combined to create new animals. Bellow are example I have created using Photoshop.

The combination of a stag and a stag beetle, the back legs and horns have been change. I have used blur effects and change the contrast of the the stag's fur as well as the stamp tool to blur the two better.

combination of an elephant and an eagle.

Lion and a chameleon 

Eagle and a dog

Here using only the parts of a dragonfly I have recreated a flower coming back to the idea of repetition in nature using the wings as the petals of the flower.

Ephemera Project

Ephemera- things that exist or are used or enjoyed for only a short time.

Following a trip to the natural history museum we were tasked with drawing in charcoal from a picture we took on a large piece of paper as a class. When we finished the drawing we where told to rub it out and then move to another spot and draw from another picture that we had taken. We where then allowed to take any part of the drawing that we wanted to develop our selves. The idea behind the rubbing out was that a part of the drawing was still there like fossils in the museum but not the whole thing. This would then become the platform of a new drawing or new life. The remaining part of the drawing was torn up, some was burnt, shown in the series of photos bellow and the rest we made into paper.

Here we can see the burning of the paper, the paper is a fuel for the fire a release of energy; heat, light and sound and the paper is transformed into ash. To me this is symbolic of life, death being just a human word for a transformation, a transition into something else. For instance the paper has become ash, but the ash could be drawn with it has transformed from the platform to the drawing tool.  

Ink Experiments

As well as exploring concepts I have explored mediums in more depth one I chose in particular being ink. Looking at tattoo and Japanese I wanted to explore the potential of ink for myself.

As one concept I have been exploring is nature I decide to photograph how ink acts on its own by dropping it in water and capturing the iteration. It is interesting to see how fluids interact with each other especially if we are used to seeing liquids of the same type where we can't distinguish between the two.

For this picture I moved the camera in closer shone a light trough for better contrast to capture more details the ink as it transitions to equilibrium. 

Moved the camera back and dripped more ink in.

Took a vertical diagonal view and moved in closer where I captured more wisps and and areas of varying density where it was darker and lighter. 

This time I began with red ink, it looked like blood dripping into water, I waited for the ink to mix and then added black ink, it reminded be of oriental films and artwork in terms of the simplicity of the images the interaction formed, creating black clouds in the red sunset sky.

While photographing the experiment I notices the shadow cast on the table as a result of the light refracting through the glass, the glass and water acting as a prism, creating the increasing angular light strip but also as it was translucent the colour of the light was filtered by the ink. It also gave a ripple effect at the ink moved trough the water.

Inspired by Japanese style techniques I used a Japanese brush to paint some nature related pictures using the iconic swishing motions in ink. I like the contrast between the red and black and how it fills the space created by the solid black lines.  

I moved onto splashing and blowing the ink painting a rose and then making it look like the ink is running out or as if it was thrown at a window and the force caused the colour to leak out.

Nature Mixed Media

To continue with this idea of repetition and pattern in nature I pushed further into collage and mixed media.

If you made the world 2D and took out all the lines you would be looking at a big mix of colours, so I started with this.

The next stage was to add the lines I wanted so using a scalpel I cut out the desired shape that resembled leaves but could also be feathers or petals. I kept the cut out skeleton that was left behind because of the interesting shape it came where the lines where coloured and the negative space became the object. 

I repeated the process again with a more muddy coloring and gave the cut out pieces a more even petal shape.

I combined all of the cut outs I did including another one where I repeated the process for making the fish scales. This was a great experiment for me as I rarely use collage and mixed media and as I result I have found new ways of adding new dimensions to my illustrations.

This final mix media experiment was inspired by the spirals in a snail shell, and using a mathematical set of numbers called the Fibonacci sequence where the following in the sequence is a result of the sum of the two perquisite numbers e.g 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13... the sizes of the spirals stay proportionate. I filled the spirals with parts torn from magazines.

Nature Illustration

From all of the drawings that I had done before this with an outdoors nature theme trending the area of my experimentation was going to related to nature, how can I represent nature through illustration and how can I enhance illustration through things we find in nature.

To start off I did a concept illustration of nature, the style inspired by Japanese tattoo artwork for its bright colours with my own twist to it. To me nature is wild, random and bursting with colour. If you visit a florist or a nature garden your senses are overloaded with colour and smells. My picture dosn't make much sense because water is unlikely to come bursting form a tree trunk with a giant coy carp riding a huge wave but what I was trying to get at was how nature is interconnected just as this drawing is. Nature is made up of hundreds of eco systems each animal, plant and insect playing its part like cogs in a pocket watch to keep it ticking. 

While drawing the concept of nature illustration I noticed something, Repetition. Flowers have many petals, fish many scales, and birds many feathers. Contrary to common belief of nature being random, it has a habit of repeating its self. I took this as an opportunity to to further explore illustration, first by  drawing the carp again and giving it a black outline only.

I added colour, only to the scales as this is my point of focus using one colour as this emphasises the repetition. 

Here I brushed a piece of paper in black and red ink to give an interesting pattern, I cut the paper into scale shapes and stuck each scale on overlapping them. This gives a scale textured effect so now the illustration is more than just something to look at, you can touch it as well.

Using some brown paper form a gift shop which was decorated with cherubs and music notation I did the same thing again, this has less of a texture and the edges of the scales are less defined. 

For my Final experiment I gathered leaves from outside the front of my house. Using pva glue I stuck them down. This doesn't have nearly the same amount of repetition to it except for the colour of the leaves. what is interesting the the overlapping of the smaller pieces leaf and the edges formed that are almost scale like.

Instillation

Using only the A2 drawings that we had to draw accurately we had to create an instillation, we could photo copy it, invert the colours, enlarge and make it smaller but we had to use the drawing and could only cut along the lines be had draw. Folding was allowed.

 

Here are a series of pictures of the instillation that I created it has a bit of a Polynesian feel to it, some of the parts looking like totems and masks, the wood grain of the sling shot contributes to this. 

A2 Drawings

Drawing is effectively just making lots of marks until you've created something. The question is which marks do you make and why. These are some drawings I made using charcoal and pencil.

In this picture I represented nature through mark making. How do you perceive nature? For me it is free flowing, quick random marks, swoops and swirls, swishes and slashes nothing straight and rigid.

I took an item from my assemblage project, the sling shot and did two pictures trying to represent it  though to different contexts, the first being childhood. The end picture is the one bellow.

Young Children use scribbles, strong marks, bold with more of an emphasis on the main features as oppose to details.

Here I tried to connect the picture to nature, the item is made of wood so I gave it roots at the bottom. The handle of the sling shot still has that trunk like shape which is why I made the connection to a tree.

The next challenge was to do a drawing as detailed as you could, measuring with a ruler and scaling up to get the size accurate as possible. next we had to find a object that related to our original one, I chose bark.

Box Art and Assemblage

The First project that we started for Art Foundation was the Assemblage project where by we had to fill a box with items that had significan value to us, memory triggers, things that gave us nostalgic flash backs. For the purpose of this I decided to make my own using materials at home, partly because I didn't have a good enough box but also because the act of making things with odds and ends is something I did a lot when I was younger. Wether that be tree houses, barricades or other amusements, the act helped me to connect with the past. The items I filled the box with where photos from a holiday in spain, youth football team and my Army Cadet Force detachment about 4- 5 years ago. Hanging a bag containing a rosary, im not religious but my uncle brought it back from Brazil when he was on a retreat while he had cancer, he is still alive and when ever I see it I remember all the times he visited as I was growing up. The wooden object is a sling shot without the sling and elastic (it broke) but this is another link to my child hood and what I used to get up to. The poppy, I made when I was 7 at school during remembrance, I dedicated it to my grandfather who served in WW2. He died when I was 5 or 6 so this is a trigger for some of my earliest memories and moments I shared with him. I wear glasses so they where something I had to include as the are part of my identity and are a vesel that I use to see the world. The rank slide shows the final rank that I achieved in the ACF, when I look at this I remember all that I have achieved from when I joined in 2008 and left in 2013, every thing I learned and the friends that I made as well as the person that it made me. The ps2 memory card still holds memory of games I played when I was younger from about 10 years ago, I have a great love for gaming and the worlds it allows you to explore as the people that you meet and play with around the world online. This is also for me a representation of how things evolve, technology and experiences both virtual and real, communities around the world becoming one who in the past where at war, enslaved, persecuted and isolated because technology doesn't discriminate.