SKILLS SHOW

For the past two days I have been involved in the skills show at BSDC, where I held a small live drawing event alongside my peer who was doing a 'have a go' mono print workshop.

During the course of the two days I made illustrations of 4 women, each representing different seasons with their unique lip colours - spring, summer, autumn, and winter. For the portraits I used pencils and colouring pencils (specifically for the lips), I chose the models from the internet and decided to draw them on A3 size.

The process of the drawings was great, I spent a lot of time on the actual drawings even though I could have worked faster I didn't on purpose because I wanted people to be able to see my skills.

On the tuesday we had school groups coming around to see the work which was a great turnout because they were really impressed by my work I have to say the second day was a little disappointing as we didn't get many people however I did get a commission out of the show and also many positive comments which always boost my confidence.

FMP Large Final Piece

During the two weeks I haven't updated my blog, I have made a huge progress on my large painting, this will be the star of the show at the exhibition for my display.

I started with the basic skin tones and because the size is larger than I normally do it was a little challenging however I really like the fact that I am pushing myself. I have now began to add finer detail on the hands and a lot more detail on the face and so far I am really chuffed with what it looks like.

I did have to overcome some challenges during the process such as the skin came out too dark so I had to use a couple of lighter laters in order to get the correct shade.

FMP Final Piece

In the past two week I have been extremely busy with my final pieces, I have completed 3 of the a3 size paintings and still working on the large one.

So to update I have finished the slim version of the woman paintings of which I have already completed the plus size one.  I did project the image to give me a guideline but the finished result looks different to the reference image, although this may be a bad thing I like the fact that I add my own style and touch to it and change it abit. Once the canvases are displayed together at the exhibition it will resemble the idea of a mirror so hoping for a good outcome at the show!

The process of the painting was good like always as I was using oil paints; however it was pretty difficult to make the women look slim and keep her face looking the same as the plus size image.

Plastic Surgery marks

On Thursday's studio session I wanted to do some practical work for my sketchbook so based on the theme of plus size women and how some wish to slim I worked on some surgery related experiments.

Firstly I got images of the model I have been using for my experiments and made a print of her face without any alterations; then I used her lips which were enlarged to stitch back onto her face (on the print). With this work I wasn't really trying to get any particular message out but unknowingly I think I created something that had a lot more meaning than I initially intended. The stitched lips gave a sense of surgery marks, almost representing that they are fake and had been retouched in order to fit into the perception of 'perfection', the experiment turned out way better than I thought visually and conceptually. 

I wanted to carry on working with stitching to represent plastic surgery because essentially that is what happens, the face gets cut up and then altered to get the 'perfect' feature. Continuing on with this development I sewed on some enlarged eyes onto a print of thw same model, the reason for selecting this feature of the face was because women like to have large eyes, even men prefer women with larger eyes. Big eyes are seen as a bonus point for models because it gives a look of innocence (similar to a babys large eyes) or even a doll and this is why women get eye lifts done, this essentially lifts the top part of the eye giving the eyes a larger feel and younger look. Anyway I stitched the eyes on and this again turned out to be a really good experiment therefore I carried on developing my idea.

At this point I just wanted to do more experiments with the same idea but didn't know which particular facial feature to focus on, so I thought people get surgery done all over the face trying to correct different parts. I decdided to do sections of the face, so I stitched on sections of the face onto a black&white print I had made earlier. The sections really showed up as I printed them in colour and purposely used a red thread so it would be more visible.  This was another great experiment but I feel like the other two are the best. 

Plus Size women

Based on the article I found about plus size clothes I made some experimental prints, mainly because I wanted to do something practical in Thursday's studio session. I used images of the model and the women wearing the same clothes and tried different experiments to show what the size difference is, my aim was to be able to vividly portray both women layered on top whilst being able to highlight the wrinkles and size of the plus size woman.

Firstly I tried to paint thinner both images on top of each other but this didn't work as well as I expected it to because it wasn't very obvious to what I was trying to show. I moved on to mono print, after I had made a print of the model onto some cartridge paper I tried to mono print the outline of the plus size woman's body on top. Again this didn't work as well as I had imagined in my mind but nevertheless I did create some prints that were worthy to put into my sketchbook and reflect on.

FMP Final Piece

In the past week or so I have been working on my FMP final pieces, I have already completed one and started another. This one is going to be part of another painting which will virtually be the same, its the same women but a plus size version vs a slim version. The reason for doing this painting as one of my final pieces is because I wanted to portray the differences between the two sizes and by displaying the two canvases as mirrors (in essence the plus size women would be looking at herself in the mirror desiring to be slim). This plays an uncanny element to the whole composition because she is staring at herself and also touchs on the idea of beauty and how women want to be slim because this is more desirable within society.

The painting process has been great as always, I have used oils on canvas for this one and I feel like I am improving evert time I work with oils. They blend amazingly well and great a rich glossy finish, although majority of the painting is complete I will come back to it and add finishing touches before displaying it in the exhibition.

Ikon Gallery

For the past two weeks I have been really busy doing my final pieces for my FMP work, however in my spare time I thought it would be useful to take a visit to Ikon gallery in Birmingham.  Although it was a quick trip I did view some of the work, unfortunately one of the exhibition room was closed due to renovation but I did get to see some work. Its a really small gallery but really inspiring and contemporary which was great!