Year 1 Art

At the beginning of the year, I found myself slightly lost when it came to ideas and techniques I wanted to investigate more. I definitely had a lot of weak areas also, the main one being time management, as between 3 A-level subjects I struggled to manage all three conveniently, I found myself focusing on art a lot, as I found the workload quite heavy, but as the year progressed I found it easier to manage as a spent my time more wisely. I began focusing on planning my work as soon as the task was given, a good example of this is the unit one journey project. When we first got the task I was confused on what to do, as I'd always taken art quite literally in the past, so I thought of doing something to do with biology and evolution, but settled on doing something quite personal and emotional relating to my great-grandad and his journey from Burma to Assam, but he failed to make it. Before we started that unit,  we did a lot of workshops which helped with developing techni...

For this project, we were told we had to incorporate textiles into our work, my previous final on the 'unit 1 journey' project I used embroidery and I found the technique quite effective, so I wanted to explore it further. Firstly we experimented with a variety of printing techniques, including monoprinting and collographs. A section of prints I did, which I analysed on a previous post. I found these prints quite intriguing, especially the top to, as I found the reminded me of abstract skulls, or portraits, so I decided I wanted to focus more on portraits, and faces, and maybe even including some photography, which I've never done before. Following on, I drew some sketches of skulls, using a reference off pinterest, in different styles. I found I liked the cross-hatching, as the lines create harsher and darker tones, which match the sharp angles on a skull, as well as the curved lines, to match the rounded shape of the top of a skull, I then photocopied the s...

The second workshop we did was printing, we did monoprints (addition, subtraction and relief), collographs and embossing. For the collographs and embossing we used a press. This piece i did on some old music paper I had, I used subtraction monoprinting and I dampened the paper and this was the look I got in the end. This piece I did on dry paper using addition monoprinting, This is my favourite piece by far as it slightly resembles a face, and has a mysterious feel to it. This was the final outcome of the experiments I did on printing, the top 2 are monoprints and the bottom 2 are collogrpahs. I did a small print of an eye on top using relief monoprinting, the middle piece is the plate I used for the collograph, and ther bottom one is a emboss of the above stamping plate.

During these workshop sessions, we did two separate things, the first was collages using materials we found on a walk, and the other was printing. Collages The first workshop we went on a walk through the park, to study the textures which could inspire us for some experiments. I collected mostly leaves, and some daisies to incorporate into my experiments. Whilst out, I took some photos of some textures which interested me: The sharp edges of the leaves and the few in focus add depth, and the leaves are arranged in very neatly in rows. The earthy colours of the tree bark mixed with the layers it creates adds a layered effect, which could look interesting in a collage. The shininess of the wax on this leaf I found quite inspiring to create a reflective collage This photo interested me as its mostly shades of beige but layers can be seen, also the weathering as the layers are peeling away.   For my collages, I first wanted to do one inspired by the shiny l...

I've decided to change my final, to make it more simple, but organic and raw at the same time. Following my reflections after my first final, I think 5 canvases would look more effective and bold than just 3. I plan to do more developments in a sketchbook, in a similar style to my mixed media book, overall I think these pages look more effective, as the colour palette is limited to browns and earthy colours, making the piece look more organic and aged. I used some fabric which was cream, and stained it with tea to create the more beige colour, I then used crumpled up newspaper dipped in the same tea to add more texture and to break up with blank white page. I used a page from another sketchbook which I photocopied and glued down over the fabric, I used a mix of the ink I made from tea and black fine  liner to continue the lines across the page, continuing from the map, making the piece flow together more, as with my previous final I focused more on replicating the map inste...

Developments from line research After researching Rachel Perry, I created this experiment by using all the pens I had in my bag at the time. I also did a tally of the pens I used to keep count and to know the order of colours, similar to how Perry presented one of her pieces, Chiral lines 24. The vibrancy and boldness of the highlighters contrast the thin and dark biro, which makes each line stand out individually, as the colours clash. I followed the same techniques as Perry, using both hands to create a 'whole' piece. On the right, the lines are tighter together and each one follows the previous very closely, I think I achieved this as I'm right handed and had more control over the pens I used. On the left, the lines aren't as close together, as the go further out onto the page than the right. They're also not as smooth as the right, as my left hand isn't as stable as my right.