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!

FMP

Although I have pretty much decided my final piece designs and images I am still carrying on with my research because this only brings my knowledge and development in my sketchbook. I recently found another article related to makeup and models/stars, Lydia Bright, Towie star did a campaign against makeup for a company.  She put on one weeks makeup in a matter of 2 hours, ofcourse makeup was done my makeup artists, however the irony of getting a celebrity who lives with makeup day and night to campaign against makeup was the point I found really interesting. I have bunged that into my research just as a finding that supports my project.

FMP, final piece ideas

Of course I have not been updating my blog as regularly as I am required to however I have been working on my project,  especially FMP. I have been settling my ideas for the final exhibition, for this I want to display a number of paintings. My focus will be around the idea of manipulation and how this can distort the beauty of models if it done a step too far, mixing this in with the idea of plastic surgery. I am using images from the internet, not because I don't have primary sources but because my focus is on professional models which can be found on the net. The reason I want to use this medium is because it shows my skill and passion, I can't wait to paint, lots of painting to do and good results to show!

Self promo

Abit of a late update on my blog about my self promotion project, however I concluded the project last weeks session. During the past two weeks I have been working on designs and fonts trying to put together something really simple and bold, I used Dafont to get my text and Microsoft word to put it altogether.  The reason for me not using Photoshop or illustrator was because I haven't used it before and it is not something I an comfortable using, however the results I achieved using word were just as good and praised by my tutor. I think I have succeeded in the project brief as I have managed to pull out all the required documents for the promotional materials in a good design that is relevant to my specialism. 

FMP

In the two weeks Easter holidays I haven't been working much on my FMP as I have been focusing on my self promo,  but the first day back in the studio I decided to work on my FMP. Based on my research of artist Phillip. T who has done a series of photographs on extreme plastic surgrey, from this the idea of plumped lips spurred in my mind. It is now becoming a trend to plump lips so they are enlarged, ofcourse this can be done using botox or plastic surgrey however currently women are finding other temporary ways to plump their lips; using bottle lids. Using this method means you get enlarged lips in the matter of  some minutes and no permanent or expensive treatment is required (however it only lasts about 4hours). I tried to plump my own lips as ab experiment, I wanted to photograph and see what the difference is. Although I am completely against plumping lips because I think natural lips look much more beautiful than fake puffed up lips which look sore. Anyway my experience was awful, it was really painful to plump my lips, as I was sucking my lips into the bottle lid it really hurt my top lip. I continued to do it till I was satisfied with the difference and then photographed myself with rather enlarged lips, I wanted to paint this as one of my pieces for the final result however I may use a digital version of a model as my project is based around the manipulation of models and how they are altered.

FMP/Uncanny exhibition

For my FMP I have been looking into distortion and how beauty is manipulated by the media therefore our perception of beauty is distorted; this development was based on the advertisement I found made by Dove beauty campaign. I really liked this and created some similar experiments with eyes of models flipped upside down, this made them looked very uncanny and strange, distorting the entire perception. I then went on to paint this edit I made on the computer because I want to produce more paintings so that I can present my portfolio with the style that I wish to take foward. Once I had created the piece (which was not yet quite finished) I was told about the sublime and uncanny exhibition that Mark held at the college, so this my work fitted in perfectly so I decided to enter it for this small exhibition within college. I was great to see people looking and admiring work, it was also brilliant that my work was on the poster for the exhibition advertisement.

Painting
The painting side of the work was amazing as always, I used oils for the work which worked great. I have been using oils for a couple of my paintings now and I feel like they work amazingly well. At first the picture looked very strange because I was painting the eyes upside down but towards the end of the work it began to look normal, as an experience I found this very odd abd disturbing to think how something so distorted can start to seem 'normal'.

FMP

For the past two weeks I haven't updated my blog as much but I have been working constantly and regularly on my fmp work. Mainly doing experiments and looking into developing my work; recently I have looked into artist Wes Newman and Ahmad Rubat's work and then produced my own experiments inspired by the pair. I really enjoyed working on Ahmad Rubats style, maybe because it is a little different to my normal style which is painting; it gave me a chance to play around with some computer skills and making powerful edits which I was impressed with. I have also been working on some new ideas for development, focusing not much not painting but other mediums, I want to experiment with the following ideas:

- photographs with Barbie/thin model images stating 'am I perfect now?' (Body parts like:- stomach, breasts,  thigh gap)

-tearing the face off your own face (taking makeup off based on an image found over the net)

-video myself putting makeup on then wiping it off continuously (preferably lipstick)

-photograph people with plumped lips, achieve this with lip plumper (based around the idea of surgrey and botox)

FMP Ahmad Rubat

Today I worked on my FMP, I started to make more work based on the artist Ahmad Rubat. He a fine artist, specializing in digital art, one of his series is based on how social media can hide our true personality.

After looking at his I wanted to make similar work but focus more on beauty and editing that is done to models to enhance their beauty.  I started making some experiments based on this idea and the outcome was really pleasing, because the instagram frame showed a completely different person than on the outside. I made these examples of Microsoft Word so I was pleased to have done good editing without using photoshop. I searched the net for before and after makeup models and uses these images to create the edited instagram posts. I really enjoyed making these edited images because the difference is stark and it shocking to see how opposite the images are.

I want to make more on celebrity posts and look into developing this idea somehow.

FMP- Wes Newman

Based on the artist Wes Newman and his series of tape and rubber bands I decided to make some work in response, based on the whole idea of distortion and how retouching beauty (models) cand distort beauty or atleast your own perception of it. I started by giving tape to my peers and asked them to wrap their faces with it, I took the same approach as Newman and then simply took photographs of these weird distorted looking humans, at first it was funny but looking at the images it seems very disturbing and hurtful.  Furthermore I experimented with cling film, I wanted to add my own medium to it so it wasny directly copied; it was a good experiment but I preferred the tape because it kind of distorted the face more which is what I was trying to indicate.

FMP

From my last weeks experiment of projecting open eyes onto real closed eyes, I developed and improvised (as my experiment didn't go as plan and kid of failed) I cut out the asertate eyes and stuck them onto Toms closed eyes and photographed the process, I think it was a good experiment considering the disappointment I had with the projection.

Social enterprise

In the Wednesday afternoon period we all worked on getting some research done for the social enterprise project, we worked on bumping up our research on all the topics given in order to complete the unit. I think the period was a successfull session where we all managed to get a big chunk of research completed and put it together as a group.

Self-promotion

In the morning session of Wednesday I worked on my self promotion brief, I had already ordered some sample packs so that I can have some research on the different types of paper that companies provide for business cards. I wrote and reflected about these sample packs in my sketchbook and found really interesting busiess cards. I also started planning out some logo ideas and colour schemes which I liked from the sample pack. I selected a mute, vintage type colour schee because I really like these choices of colours, I feel like they  are friendly and inviting and not intimidating like shocking bright colours.  However I plan to bumb up my research into logos, cvs, and other promotional materials so I can conclude the research and actually design my own materials.

Unofficial Format festival

Today was a busy busy day at the studio, as none of the fine art students work was selected for the format festival we decided to make our own mini format exhibition in college. Firstly we booked a small space for our exhibition and then we got the official posters of the festival and wrote over them in order to make them ours. We wanted to be controversial because we were disappointed that not one fine art student was selected.  Nevertheless we had little snacks and drinks for our opening and in the matter of 30 minutes we had over 70 people coming to see out mini exhibition. Although it was a quick desicion and short deadline I think we managed to make a great little exhibition; we learnt a lot from this quickly organised exhibition and I think it was a success because our work is on display and people did actually enjoy it. One thing to reflect on is to have our name plaques so that the artwork is recognised by the artist name. 

Nottingham

Took a trip to Nottingham today, for some inspiration; quite an eventful day, unfortunately the surface gallery was under construction so we couldn't access it however we went to Nottingham contemporary gallery and seen the nature exhibition,  I think it was useful to see some work that is not the medium I normally use and experiment with different subjects. One of my favorite pieces was the liquid poured over the mobile phone, not 100% sure what the meaning was but it definitely caught my eye.

FMP beauty

I haven't updated my blog for while now but I have been working and experimenting with different ideas relating to beauty. Some of the things I have just seen online and thought were very creative, for example this advert made by Dove about retouching beauty and whether it distorts your perception of it. I like how the eyes are flipped and the lips, at first glance it not very noticeable just looks very strange but once you look closer it seems very odd and disturbing after some time.  I have been experimenting and making my own versions of these faces; I think its a great development especially because I'm looking into how retouching beauty cn distort it. I think my next step is to paint an image with the eyes flipped.