Evaluation

Evaluation

Final Major Project: Adornments

My final major project followed the theme ‘Adornments’.  I wanted to explore the different ways people choose to adorn themselves within different cultures and how we as western society draw inspiration from all different cultures in the way that we dress ourselves.

I began my project by carrying out observational drawing of found adornments. I felt my project was quickly drawn to looking at South Asian culture from drawing ethnic footwear. I gained a real interest into drawing mehndi patterns and channeled my primary research into finding similar cultural patterns.

I intended to look into the idea of material wealth as well and the importance of materialistic possessions. This I feel I only touched upon at the start of my project and did not have the opportunity to develop further.

In hindsight I feel I could have expanded on a few more different cultures before moving so strongly into one particular culture, but I know I followed my own personal interests and found out there was a lot to South Asian cultures to explore, and the connections with western culture and other cultures was vast.

I knew I wanted to somehow reflect the similarities between different cultures but also celebrate cultural diversity.  

I do feel like I have achieved several aims that I formulated in my statement of intent.  I feel I have successfully used a range of media experimentation. The project gave me the chance to undertake new image making techniques such as etching onto woodblock, photogramming and printmaking. I also feel like this project has developed my skills in portrait photography, rendering vectors in illustrator and has given me the chance to utilize my skills in Photoshop.

I really liked some of the pattern drawing I had done. Such as the mixed media collage pieces in my sketchbook that I also inverted on the scanner I felt looked visually very nice. I just felt like my project needed more to it than just patterns. I felt like I was loosing touch with my theme of adornments and only creating visual pleasing outcomes with a tenuous link to my theme.

I did research into different contemporary designers and artists that really pushed my project forward. For instance looking at BJork verspertine album cover inspired my primary research into photography and imposing my pattern drawing onto my own photos. 

I spent a lot of time rendering patterns as vectors in illustrator and I believe doing this really benefited me when it came to designing a final outcome as I found it a lot quicker after making myself familiar with the process.

Later on in my project I decided to look into masks. Inspired by the paper cut exhibition I decided to experiment with creating masks out of paper.

Looking at different ways the face could be covered/masked lead to my primary final piece idea.

I felt using photography in my project was a strength so I wanted to incorporate it in my final piece. Nina Chikrobati’s work motivated me to be a bit more adventurous with the types of illustrations I was doing over portraits. I experimented with drawing over typical women’s magazine flawless covers in an attempt to try and mock that type of culture.

I began taking my own portrait photos at home. I was really concerned that it might not work out well without a studio setting and lighting. I was pleasantly surprised with the results and really like the impact natural light had on the portraits in regards to shadows.

The first illustration over portrait experiment I carried out was done with fine-liner straight on to a printed photograph. I felt doing my final pieces this way would be quite problematic as I wouldn’t be able to adjust the size easily without distorting the photographs after. Fortunately after some consideration of other ways round it I came up with a resolution of using tracing paper to draw over the printed photographs and to then scan them in, clean them up on Photoshop and digitally impose them over the photographs. Meaning I could then adjust the colours and size as I wished.

When taking the photographs I decided to steer away from the mocking aspect in regards to magazine covers and decided to make the photographs more natural and simple. I felt this drew more attention to the illustration. I focused on making the illustrations reflect the patterns I had previously been researching and the kind of tribes body modification I looked into; merging different cultures. In an attempt to put my own personal swing on it I adorned the faces in unusual ways and blacked out the eyes to try and make them eye-catching and bizarre.

Finding the artist Hetian Patel’s work of his henna designs on the body, displayed in Nottingham Lakeside gallery, was really influential with moving my project in another direction away from just looking at portraiture. So I began creating some more final pieces using photographs of a male models back and a female models legs. I felt this broadened my exhibition adorning different parts of the body.  With my portrait pieces lacking in colour I felt it necessary to include some in these pieces. I experimented with overlaying some of my prints and this worked out really well, and I am glad I could utilize the prints I had done.

Overall I do believe my project was successful. I am very happy with the outcome of my exhibition and feel it reflects my journey well.

The first piece up...

Initially I wanted to cut out each individual portrait square and mount them separately onto foam board. It came apparent this this was a going to be very time consuming and would be difficult to get all the pieces in line with one another. Instead I was going to mount it onto a big piece of foam board but my piece is longer than A1. So I decided hanging the piece would actually be the best idea. I found some bulldog clips, hooks and fishing wire and got to it. It ended up being quite difficult trying to line them all up but I got there in the end! And actually i'm quite happy with how the piece looks clipped and hung like this and in a way I think I prefer it to how it would have looked mounted on foam board.

Back and Legs.

I decided to get some photos of a different part of the body to put up at on my exhibition. So I got a males back and female legs to draw on top of in a similar way to the portraits.

I really like these images in BW but I feel like my exhibition might be lacking in colour if I make these BW too I am trying to think of a way in which I could incorporate colour.

Exhibition space

We have been allocated our exhibition spaces so I went down to my spot in the dome with some paper and scissors to have an experiment and positioning my pieces. 
I liked the idea of having my final portraits in squares. Focusing close on the illustrations and also being a bit different from a standard portrait photo. The square sizes I made were the width of A4. I considered making them a bit bigger but when I put them on my wall with masking tape I felt they did actually look just right that size and I could visualise my images looking good that size. Not too big and in your face, but big enough to see the detail. 

I decided on having two A3 pieces as well. One of a back and legs and one of the portraits with eye contact. These pieces I wanted to include colours hopefully. I did an experiment using my textured printed background as an overlay on one of the portraits of Lydia and the outcome looked really interesting so my plan is to have a go doing the same thing with the body photos. 

Finals

I decided to create all of them in black and in white. Some I think worked better in white then others due to the shadows on the face. I think they all look quite striking in black though, and a bit creepy together as a series. So I think i'm going to use all black for my final piece. I could go half and half and use both. I wanted to do two or three of each model but the amount of time that went into doing these made me realise this was a bit unrealistic. And actually I think if there was 16+ images all portraits on my exhibition wall it might look a bit too much and take the focus away from the originals.

I still feel like I need something else up on my exhibition wall. I have done several printed backgrounds in the printing room that I havn't utulised and I feel there is other things I've explored in my scetchbook that would be worth considering as a supporting final piece to these.

Tracing Paper

After some consideration of the best way to draw the illustrations onto the face it came to me that I could use tracing paper so I could digitally impose them onto the face. Meaning I can get the exact shape I want the contours the face but I can also adjust the colours/size etc after if I wanted to. This is an example of one of the pieces of tracing paper that I scanned in. The first one is the actual scan of the drawing. I printed off the image of Jess just on my standard printer at home A4 and used some A4 tracing paper over the top to draw the illustration on. The second image is the inverse colours of the original. I really quite liked it and thought it looked quite striking as an image itself. With this I played around with the blending modes creating the white lined piece that is below. I really like the outcomes of both of these so I'm not sure whether to do them all black or all white. I like the blacked out eyes but that doesn't really work with the white lines. 

Portraits

Printed Backgrounds

I decided to create some big simple shapes inspired from some of the patterns I have been looking at at take them into the print room to create some random printed backgrounds. Heres an example of some of them. I'm not really sure exactly how I will use them yet, but I guess they could be good background to draw onto.

Creating my own.

I took some photos of Jess and had a go at drawing over my own photos. After doing this it made me realise this is something I really want to incorporate in my final piece. I enjoy taking portrait photos as it is and really like the idea of being able to use my photography. I think the blacked out eyes on these illustrations make it really eery and eye-catching. There is something kind of freaky about the images. They almost don't look human like, and almost like new-age adornments. I want to draw patterns inspired from the kind of drawing I have been previously drawing (Henna patterns etc) So essentially I'm merging different cultures and putting my own spin on face adornments and masks inspired from what I have been researching. 

My next challenge is trying to get photos of different kinds of models... and whether to have them making eye contact with the camera or not. Also these illustrations have been just drawn on with fine liner. The previous patterns I had done as vectors but these are a lot more complex so I'm unsure how to do them digitally. If I do them as fine liner drawings over photos its problematic if I want to change the size of the images after. 

Magazine Covers

I really liked the drawing I had done previously on Jess' face with the vector patterns digitally. Looking at Nina Chakrabarti's work it inspired me to go a bit more crazy with the drawing I was doing. I liked this idea of drawing on top of perfect, airbrushed images. Almost defacing them in a way. It reminded me of when you were younger and you used to draw all over the models on magazine covers with pen. The drawings have quite a comical aspect to it in that way, and a nostalgic... but also I like the idea that really it's mocking the magazine industry and these flawless models that people aspire to be like. 

I went to the college library and photocopied several vogue front covers (being the only fashion magazine with these kind of photos we had at college). The close-up photographs worked a lot better than the mid shots as it was easier to draw on more detail.

After doing this it inspired me to maybe mock up my own magazine covers with these kind of illustrations over the top. After some consideration I realised it wouldn't be worth creating a magazine (plus I didn't think I'd have enough time) As it would mean having to create a purpose for it, an audience/context etc etc. And really it would take away from just actually mocking model photos.

My back

Using the same photos of my back I drew on these with fine liner... using patterns from a book I bought called " Mehndi Designs. I wanted these drawings to bear a bit more resemblance to Hetian Patels work. The first one does more so than the second. I used repeated pattern like her does. 

I kinda feel like this one actually looks like an adornment, a piece of back jewellery more so than a tattoo, which is quite nice. 

Using the photogramms

It came to my attention when sorting out my sketchbook that I hadn't really used my photogramms in any way. So I figured they could work using them on the same photos. So I again experimented with the blending options on photoshop and I do think they turned out pretty well. Obviously a bit different to the brushes I had made. I quite like the lace one that has covered my whole body. They almost look like projections onto my body. And the lace one covering all my back makes it almost look like it's part of my skin.

My back

Inspired by Hetian Patels work I decided to take a photograph of my back and try overlaying the patterns I had made into brushes and try overlaying them onto my back. I think they worked a lot better than on the face actually. The back being a bigger canvas for them. I tried different blending options. I do really like how these turned out and think they could be a considered final piece idea! I think next I will have a go at drawing directly onto the photographs.