'Fauna': Photography (continued)

I further experimented with photographs but through a more 'hands-on' approach. The means of productione of negative images made me feel significantly disconnected from my own work and because of that, I was dissatisfied.
This alternative style I decided on was vaguely inspired Andy Warhol's use of single colours to often remove the original shape and/or outline of an object in the image. I worked on two different approaches towards the style: physical and digital alteration.

Both methods involved outlining a number of areas from a selected image and then replacing those areas with a flat space of colour. For the 'physical' alteration, I printed out the photograph and then cut away the selected areas with a craft knife, before sticking the photo onto another card with a particular colour painted onto it. The digital alterations had the areas 'cut out' as well but instead the colour as added in digitally, with any physical samples printed out onto canvas-like paper.

'Physical Alterations':

'Warhol's Gull' (2010)



'Warhol's Pigeon' (2010)

Out of the interest of observing contrast in 'physical' and digital alterations, one of the original photos was used for both methods ('Warhols' Pigeon').

Digital Alterations:

'Warhol's Baboon' (2010)

'Warhol's Pigeon' (2010)

While attempting to print sample images of the digital alterations, a rather unexpected result was produced. The two images were printed over each other creating a bizarre but somewhat amusing 'hybrid image'.

'Warhol's PigeonBaboon' (2010)

Despite this experimentation, I never came to a decisive enough piece for produce from this media.

'Fauna': Photography

Photography was proberbly the most experimental media I worked with during the 'Fauna' project. I have already taken many photos in the past (in hindsight, many would have worked at least as a point of reference) but I had taken a different step with my first attempt in this workshop. I was given the opportunity to develop negatives.

Rather than work on actual photographs, I produced drawings on a specialised sheet of paper, which was then scanned onto an acetate-like sheet, working in place of a filmstrip.



Draft images for Fauna Negatives

From the sheet, a few were selected to attempt making negative images, as produced using Jessops resin-coated paper. At least four of the drawn images were actually used and many more attempts were made, from which only two were ever finished.
Looking back on them, they appear more interesting than I initially presumed them to be.


Fauna Negative: Iguana

Fauna Negative: Kookabura

Second Project Brief: 'Fauna'

As my second project brief, I was to produce artwork focusing on animal life. Much like the 'Collections' project, I was also introduced to some additional workshops available to participate in during my time at college. This time the workshops were photography, textile printing and digital imaging (in particular, photomanipulation).

In all honesty, this unexpectedly became a rather luckluster artistic experience for me. Despite the enthusiasm I often have for the subject matter, the same could not be necessarily said for the media I felt forced to work with (at least, for the time being).

Final Piece for 'Collections' Project

For the first three project briefs, we were initiated into set pairs of the available workshops. The first two during 'Collections' were sculpture (primarily focused on plaster and clay) and metalwork. From either one (if not both) of these two workshops, I aimed to produce what would serve as the final major artwork to conclude the brief.

As a reference to the concept of collections, I had looked through a few museums and made sketches of a number of the objects on display (namely from the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London).
The final piece was to be based on the obersavtional drawings I made from the visits I made to these museums. More specifically, I 'borrowed' patterns from objects that were of interest to develop a way to incorportae them into my own design(s).

At first, I attempted to produce something from the sculpture workshop. Developing around the common design in collage artists or those centre their work around collections of material objects, I was going to produce a diorama of sorts, using a book as the main focus.

Although likely not necessary, I decided to create a book myself. Keeping it as simple in design as possible, the 'book' was made from card folded to resemble the cover, its pages were plain printing papers cut and folded to the appropriate dimensions.


The design for this was inspired by a small piece of text I wrote in sculpture workshop. As a class, we were set to write up something based on an object we saw in one of the museums (my being based on a book):

"A book of religious significance. Although written by man, its words are heralded as if bestowed upon from some divine deity. In reading its words, it is believed that one could understand all that there is and seek the truth in attaining paradise."

In addition to the text, Untitled (Medici Princess) by Joseph Cornell worked as a reference.

Marker pen sketch from original design for piece...

Although there was progress, the central book for the piece was mostly complete and the figurines (sculpted from clay) had been fired, the entire piece was ultimately unfinished. At the same time as I designing this piece, I began work from the metalworks workshop. It was from this piece in particular I chose to incorporate patterns from the objects I observed from the museums. The chosen patterns were then produced and/or reinterpretated into the art piece through some initial techniques I was introduced for the workshop.

Final Piece for 'Collections' Project (continued)

Samples from metalwork techniques (top to bottom):
Acid etching, mark making and oxidise with borax.

From these techniques, I produced a simple design to incorporate a selection of patterns from the museum drawings I made. In favour of simplicity in design, all pieces were produced on square cuts of various metals, each square increasing in size when placed in a sequence.

I then brought this design to come full circle back to my initial idea centred around collections: my CDs. I thought of making the squares stand behind one another to form some kind of small CD rack. Needing a base, I chose to use a empty jewel CD case to make the backtrack to my original concepts clearer.

However, upon doing so, I've felt that the pieces lost their original interest. In all honesty, it certainly did not help that I had too crudely pieced it all together, using hot glue to hold the squares onto the CD case. I had originally thought of cutting into the case with a Stanley-knife to make slots that the squares could simply fit in to. Having attempted this with a sample case however, the method proved too impractical, not to mention most likely dangerous.

Plates 1-7 (2010)

Overall Evaluation on 'Collections':

Although this was my first project for college, I still felt I was at a fairly shakey start. At the time I was working on this, I hadn't even written out an evalution. However, having now significantly developed my skills in comparison to the time, I have been able to look back on this and see what I may be able to develop still from this experience. For instance, regarding the CD Blocs, I later considered the concept of producing 'impoverished paintings', artwork produced from cheaper, thrown away materials like cardboard, scrap metal and plastic and styrofoam. Ideas backing this up were further developed as I began to expand on other themes (namely coming from later projects 'Colours & Harmony' and 'Myths & Mysteries'). I also still have the clay figurines, which I will most likely attempt to incorporate into a future project.

Building my Portfolio

It's been over a month since I last posted to this blog, with good reason. Despite having an extensive collection of works already produced, very few even had a digital format to present them online. Over the past few days I've been taking photos of many of my older artwork so I should definately be able to quickly cover what I made up to the end of my Foundation course in college (being about a year ago from now).

Collections: 'CDScape'

Source photo for CDScape (2010)

I experimented further with the method that produced both CD Bloc pieces while taking inspiration from the simplistic painting style of Patrick Caulfield. Though, unlike CD Bloc, I based images of the CD placement on observation rather than direct tracing.

This also meant the resulting piece was significantly less abstract but nevertheless stylised.

CDScape (2010)

As interesting as this was as an experimentation, this was not as fulfilling an artistic expression as the CD Blocs felt. However, looking back on this with some recent developments in style, there is potential in this, perhaps, in some slightly different form...