Year 1 Art

For my final, I plan on creating 3 canvases which I plan on, sewing together, in the configuration below, using green thread on the Indian side of the map, and red on the Burma side, to represent the fire and destruction Rangoon faced at this time. I also on this mock just burnt holes, but they look too small and it took a long time to do. So on my final I'll cut holes out and just burn the edges, so I'll have more control and I'll be able to pick where I want to create the holes. I'll also embroider like I did in my textiles sketchbook, to label Assam, India, and Burma, so the view will know which side is which. I plan on hanging photos off the canvases, the photos I'll use to hang off are these ones: I'll use the family portrait on the left side, which is Assam, India, representing safeness and protection, and progressing to the right and the right-most photo will have burnt edges to match the burnt holes that will be in the canvas...

This sketchbook I focus on textures, using layers of paper, newspaper and tea leaves. Even candle wax poured directly onto the page created an interesting texture. I used a layer of tea stain and let it dry, I then when it dried it created a ripples texture on the page, and then using several shades of green acrylic and a metallic gold acrylic and a dry brush to create texture. This helps show the textures of the paper. For this one, I glued down ripped pieces of a map. and the bottom left is where I drew a map in fineliners, I used papier-mâché paste and newspaper to add texture, once dried I used green acrylic and a metallic gold acrylic on a dry brush to bring out the texture of the newspaper. These pages have a base of tea stain, and then a brown candle wax that I poured it on the page in a circular motion, but the texture of the wax went too lumpy as it dried, and it went through onto the pages behind it. These pages have prints on which I did using polystyrene ...

These are some pages out of my textiles sketchbook, where I focus on looking at different textures and how to incorporate textiles into my final. Drawing with finalisers straight onto fabric, I found the ink from the finalisers bleed, so I might try finalisers onto canvas to try and help prevent this. Embroidery in black thread over cream fabric, using a tea stain to add accents, this bleed a lot and lost most of the definition it had. These two pages were blue fabric which i painted with a mix of white and beige acrylic, and on the left I added dashes of red also, I did several layers until the blue wasn't coming through any more, and then I used pens to write over, on the left writing out an extract from the newspaper article and on the right writing phrases from the same article. I used a beige fabric that's a bit thicker than the previous one, which gave it more structure, and I then used green acrylic  to cover up stars on the fabric because it didn'...

I did a book focusing on colour, using reds to represent danger and green to represent safeness. Also using reds and blues to mimic the lines I've seen on maps. I used black ink over a map drew in biro and I liked the outcome but I think the black ink is too harsh in comparison to the blues and reds. Harsh straight lines in green juxtapose the messy reds and oranges. Same as above, but with biro bleeding through the bleeds blue biro lines gives the lines motion as the ink bleeds, but the hairspray makes the red biro ink very bright, and I want to keep the colour palette rather dull. using more greens and reds in fineliner and also some thread in blue to incorporate some texture.

These are some of the pages from my sketchbook focusing on mixed media. I focused on using maps and so I photocopied a page from another sketchbook where I drew a map and then ripped it up to stick on different pages to create several pieces of work. I used coffee stains at first because I thought it would be darker but in the end I preferred how it looked with tea, and tea has more relations to my concept as my great grandad worked on a tea plantation before moving. Thinking about my final I'm not sure wether I'll use any of these techniques but I do find the tea stains as a background very interesting and will develop that further in a different post. coffee marks with a map I drew and a ripped page of a book and a scrap of fabric, the map lines were continued with fineliner and coffee ink strips of pages fromm a book and a map I drew previously and some green acrylic marks also done previously, lines from the map continues throughout the page. burnt and ripped m...

Map development for background of final During my research, I came across a website (angloburmeselibrary.com) where I found many more documents and information I wanted to incorporate into my final piece. One main piece of information I found was a map showing evacuation routes on foot from Burma to Assam, India. This map intrigued me as its all hand written and contains so much detail, and someone would of had to draw this out, and in 1942, I assume it would be rather difficult to plan to evacuate a whole city, so although its just a map at first glance, the marks made represent the emotion of the artist who created it, and how some of the towns names are scribbled and messy, whereas some are neat in capitals. This shows a variation in the marks created.  I want to incorporate this map onto the background of my piece, on canvas, I've gone several trials on different backgrounds to come to the conclusion of which background would be best. I tried drawing the map over white acr...

The Statesman extract 24th May 1942 This extract gives insight into what it was like during the last days when people had to evacuate. THE LAST DAYS IN RANGOON Land of happy laughter, of colour and music, Burma was ill-prepared mentally and materially for the clash of arms.  To me personally the most heart-rending episode of the war was the ruthless bombing of Mandalay by the Japanese, Kipling’s Mandalay, which had long stood for the Burma of a bygone age, practically ceased to exist on Good Friday.  Mandalay in ruins was awe-inspiring, but equally so were the sights I witnessed in Rangoon during the closing days of February and that fateful first week in March.   The whole of Tenasserim was by then in Japanese hands.  British, Indian, Anglo-Indian and loyal Burmese troops, fighting courageous but unavailing rearguard actions, dive bombed and shelled mercilessly, has been forced back in succession across the Salween river, the Bilin and the Sittang and N...