Pose a question....

My visual communication project had turned into a kind of psychological experiment. I made a 12 page  booklet with no particular theme, random collages (a page of which is shown above.) I then asked people to look through the booklet and write down - what they thought the booklet was about (if anything),what pages they liked the best and why. The aim of this exercise was to find out wether people  perceived any messages in the art work, even though there were no messages intended by me. I got some interesting responses - one man thought it was about the objectification of women, others thought it was about the decay of society, others thought it was grotesque - all the responses are presented in my sketchbook. The question that is posed is - Can this work be defined as communication? messages are being taken from the work (which was obviously created by my) however i did not intend to communicate anything in particular. This questions the boundaries of what communication is.....any thoughts?

Reality Shackles

Photo shoot I mentioned in earlier post. The music is intentionally discordant...hope you like it :)

Life Drawing 3

This drawing method is quite disorientating as instead of putting in the dark tone i had to put in the light tone. For a first attempt I think it is quite successful however if i were to do it again I would use much softer more subtle lines to get better detail. I am happy with the proportions of the figure on this drawing.

Photography Change of Heart

In photography I had a sudden change of heart. I was doing a project called 'The Night before the Morning After' which was going to be based groups of people on wild nights out and then show the horrible hangovers in the morning. After exploring this idea for a while I decided it might end up looking like an advert for sensible drinking. I didn't feel the project was personal enough either. I decided to try concentrate on a certain feeling I get - the feeling of being overwhelmed by reality, questioning the fabric of reality, and feeling trapped by the lack of answers about the nature of reality. I did a photo-shoot in a bathroom, I adore the decor in this bathroom (see above) I set up the camera on a tripod and got somebody to take the photo but move the camera slightly, I think this effect works showing the turmoil of  questioning reality. I presented selected images from the photo-shoot in a slide show which gave them a narrative. in the pictures I swallow the 'reality' pills and become trapped in handcuffs,  I then try to escape.....but cant.The last photo in the slideshow is me curled up in a ball suggesting I am tired of trying to figure out this life!
The second photo is just a bit more light hearted. Its me experimenting with lighting and props in the studio, I thought it was reminiscent of Terry Richardson - slightly obscene.

Textiles Turn...

I have really been on a journey with my textiles project. I started off with a lot of ideas, feeling quite lost. I persevered and spent a lot of time working on my final piece - not entirely sure what it would look like in the end. It turns out I am very pleased with the final piece, it is abstract and interesting to look at. I am going to continue by putting some different yarns into the piece.

Life Drawing Round 2

Okay....so it not as good as last weeks, however it was still useful to me. I have practiced constructing a drawing using only lines, no tone which I not my usual method of drawing. It has taught me the importance of getting the basic structure of the subject right before putting any tone in. The proportions of this drawing are not quite right, her lower legs is a bit wide. Also I think in trying to draw the contours of the body using line I have made her look too skinny, it looks although her ribcage is poking out, however these lines were just to try and give the picture depth and a three dimensional feel. Although I am a little disappointed with this drawing I have still gained a lot of knowledge from doing it.

Screen Prints

My textiles piece has evolved into a cross between Rebecca Earleys printed textiles and Debbie Smyths yarn drawings. The main foundation of the work is a piece of MDF - A1 sized. I have  covered the MDF with some fabric I screen printed. The design I used for the screen print was a photocopy of a wire structure I made earlier on in the project. I have never used the screen printing method before, essentially it is a design transfered on to mesh.Ink is pushed into the mesh causing the lighter areas of the design to let the ink pass through, whilst the darker areas stop the ink getting through. The result is a stencil like image that can be reproduced many times.This method is shown above.
So... the stage i am at now...my MDF is covered in screen printed fabric. I have traced an images of some chaotic electircal cables on an indian street. I am going to place this tracing on top of the MDF board and put pins into all the relevant points of the tracing. I will then tear off the tracing paper which will leave an almost dot to dot outline of my image. I will then 'draw' this image out in yarn. I predict the outcome will be an abstract piece, hopefully it will be visually exciting, I will keep you posted :)