For my sketchbook, I feel that I managed my time really well – I achieved what I set out to do, I also included the majority – if not all of the key elements from my project brief. For example, I incorporated the letter design idea and carried it through to the end of my project - I created 2 final piece design sheets that featured the letters including their stamp deals with my signature carved into them. However, this design has recently changed and been updated to a symbol of a moon instead because it is a lot less obvious and feels like less of a lazy idea than it would have been previously, it also holds more personal value to me and I feel that that is an important aspect to my work seeing as this is my final major project and I wanted to make more of an effort with subliminal imagery- it gives people more minuscule details to take notice of, rather than skimming over my work and seeing all they need to with only a glance.
To gather primary research for a project based around 'Fantasy' was my most troubling aspect of this FMP, although I managed to find good sources for Japan, manga and character design painted on a nightclub's walls and doors- a few doors featured a Japanese Geisha and there were huge monochromatic prints of manga pages spread along the walls of the inside rooms, so I found much needed research in unlikely places. The rest of my primary research was a lot easier to come across, I took the majority of photographs while on walks around outside, forests with winding tree branches surround where I live so it was easy enough to gather plenty of images regarding creepy tree branch images and floral patterns from outside. Because I was including images of women with piercings and all black eyes, I didn't expect to be able to gather many primary research images for the latter- but luckily enough, the app; Snapchat released a filter that allowed me to take photos with all blacked out eyes and I, myself have piercings that I could capture images of to include in my sketchbook. I had to think outside of the box for this project in those regards and it is something that I ended up enjoying.
As for secondary, I found that very easy as I had already got my selected artists in mind- artists that I had followed online from as early as 2012. I ended up narrowing them down to 'Fukari'- a well known name online- most famous for her original character designs and comic panels including said people. And also Justin O'Neal- another online artist who has his own website as an online portfolio for his character design work as well as recreating famous faces such as Wednesday Addams in his own, unique style. All hand done, then worked into using a graphics tablet for some. Through this project, I also discovered new artists while developing my secondary research. My favourite new discovery being a secretive artist from Instagram/Tumblr nicknames 'Papeebs'. She mainly dabbles in monochromatic line art which I suspect she first draws free hand and then later scans into photoshop to neaten the lines and sharpen the images- a method that I also use often.
While I was experimenting with textiles, I discovered how much of a difference creating different textures makes to art. As a result, I used batique frequently throughout the project and also most recently- on my final piece. I used the batique to create my backdrop and also to create a silhouette through the dark inks for my main features- the wolf and my original character; Fia. I allowed the batique to settle in small, thick dots around the page to replace distant stars in a night sky and have decided to keep them rather than iron off the wax because I like the 3D element of it. The wolf aspect was heavily influenced by a Fukari piece which I did a critical study of in my sketchbook featuring a young girl with blue hair with her arm around a huge wolf with a bone mask on. I loved the height difference and how the huge, shaggy haired wolf made the girl look so small but her facial expression contrasted it so well because she seemed completely unfazed. This is how I decided what I was going to do for my final design- it spurred me into creating 2 A2 sketchbook pieces of the wolf alone and another design development sheet because I felt confident painting a new subject (other than people or nature), so I developed the design of the wolf and made certain that I was going to keep it similar in size to that of the one featured in Fukari's piece and the scale would be the same between it and the girl (Fia). I, however, decided to use a tie-dye style backdrop for the piece with partial dark coloured ink- but only in the top quarter of the piece to contrast the colours of the wolf and the backdrop itself. The method of creating the backdrop came through experimentation in the textiles room- while painting inks onto small samples, the newsprint that I was using to prevent the inks from going through onto the table absorbed the different colours and when dried, created a smooth blend of warm oranges with random splashes of blue in patterns that I could not recreate by hand, so I used calico and painted onto that instead using the same colours, blending as best as I could and by luck, the result was very similar.
I do not feel that I had any constraints on my design, I planned out how much money I had remaining on my blue card throughout the project (how much calico and silk would cost as well as the A1 frame for my canvas), I also booked into the workshops on the days that I knew I would be needing it to develop and work on my final piece(s) and the design sheets that came before it- on days I could not book in or left it too late, I made space on my desk and continued on with what I could using that work space alone, I also left a good amount of time to work on it because I knew that it would be the most time consuming part of my FMP and did not want to rush what I felt was the most important part- the end result of all the 16 weeks spent leading up to it. Although, if I had more time I would have liked to create some more in depth artist sheets to showcase more of their diverse work and perhaps created more ties within my own pieces to theirs, as well as featuring more artists in my sketchbook and more of their critical studies to practise drawing in unfamiliar styles.
For this project, I do feel that my sheet work was my weakest point, I did not plan around my research file work well enough, instead I assumed that I would have it all done a lot quicker than I actually did end up doing it, although I kept a time management diary as I went along, I should have written future plans in it also to make sure that I was clear on what I was supposed to do and get the file work done so that I would not have to rush my other sheet work and would have spare time to increase the pages in my sketchbook and annotate it more.
As for my blog, I do not think that I used it to document my work progress as well as I should have, instead I documented it through writing in my journal when I could have provided visuals to accompany the information as evidence that I was doing the work that I claimed to be. Therefore, I do not think that I took advantage of my blog and did not use it as effectively as I could have, I did however use it as a platform to get my research file done, as a result of a lack of access to Microsoft Word at home- where I do most, if not all of my written work for projects, aside from sheet annotation.
Overall, I have enjoyed working on this FMP, I am happy with the subject that I chose and feel that it allowed me to play to my strengths- I allowed myself to be free to draw from my imagination and also to develop my own art style through experimenting with other people's that are similar but simultaneously very different to my own. Still, I would like to improve on my own, unique style- it is still in development and most likely will be for my next few projects, depending on the amount of freedom that I am allowed. I would have also liked to have planned ahead with certain aspects such as the written work side- the business cards, the CVs etc. Rather than assuming that I will get it done, if I could do it again, I would plan ahead, write down in detail what I have to do, when and how I will do it and tick it off the list as I complete it. It would save me a lot of stress and I would then not have to force myself to rush through work just to get it done by the deadline and have to present pieces that are not to a standard that I am not proud of.
No comments:
Post a Comment