External brief- Final pieces

Final pieces for both "Craving Colour" and "Art for St. Marks" briefs

For "St. Mark's" brief only

After doing this piece I realised that it didn't really fit my project outline for the "Craving Colour" brief so decided to just use it for the St. Mark's hospital

External brief- More experimentation

For my next phase of experimentation I combined a leaf rubbing I had done with an image I took of flowers as I wanted to take a closer look at more decorative textures within a woodland environment. I was also interested in the intricate patterns within wood and bark and thought this was a good opportunity to contrast a monotonous outline with a colourful background and decided to merge this texture with one of the images I took of my watercolour piece on coral from the previous project.

Primary photographic research looking at the contrast between monotonous tones and colour in a mountainous landscape

Whilst skiing in Chamonix I was inspired by the incredible landscaped I was lucky enough to see and was particularly interested in the way the woodland on these mountains created patterns on the terrain as the dark trees contrasted with the white snow. I therefore decided to redraw the landscape highlighting the areas where the trees were the most densely packed together (black), where the rock underneath created an almost speckled texture on the surface (colourful watercolour wash) and the areas of white snow. By doing this I had almost unconsciously mapped out the terrain how I saw it within my vision for the craving colour brief. After finishing the piece I realised that the style slightly resembled that of imagery within a comic book. This wasn’t really the quality I was going for but I actually quite liked how it turned out.

External brief- Further research and experimentation

Enchanted woodland- Syon Park

Drawing systems work that inspired my next experiments for this module:

Further experimentation

After producing a piece of work in my Drawing Systems module in which I combined and reused elements of previous art projects I have done, one section gave me inspiration for my next phase of experimentation. I decided to merge a spotted watercolour pattern I painted with an image of my local woodland. I then looked at different ways I could include my vision for the craving colour brief, experimenting with making the rest of the woodland image fully white or black and white except for the spots. This was the first time I was introduced to layer masks on Photoshop and discovered that it could be a really useful tool in my practice. I decided that I preferred the latter experimentation as the contrast of black and white tones with the bright sections of colour within the image help the viewer to focus in on different sections. For me these spots of psychedelic colours almost look like portals into a parallel universe in contrast to the colourless presented in the majority of the image. This could therefore highlight the importance of positive/ “colourful” thinking on ones outlook on the world, which may help the patients in St. Marks through a perhaps difficult time in hospital.

External Brief- Research and initial experimentation

Secondary research:

Primary research:

Initial experimentation

In my research I was mainly looking for interesting textures within a woodland environment and images usually associated with this element of nature. Whilst looking I was thinking of ways in which I could combine monotonous outlines with splashes of colour and found some examples that did just this. As a first response I produced this image of an owl which I feel gets my initial intentions across. The absence of colour in specific elements of this piece suggests that the wildlife pictured is disappearing. One use for this piece could therefore be within an environmental campaign or movement that highlights the importance of preserving the pockets of woodland or green spaces within cities and the animals that live there.

External brief- Project outlines

Art for St Marks project outline

For this brief I have been asked to make nature-based art to be displayed in St Mark’s Hospital. 

‘There is increasing evidence that the display of visual art, especially images of nature, can have positive effects on health outcomes, including shorter length of stay in hospital, increased pain tolerance and decreased anxiety.’

Kirsty Schirmer, Policy Officer of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health  

Therefore the objective of this brief is to produce art that will help build a soothing atmosphere within the hospital and intern help aid the healing of its patients or at least make their stay in the building more pleasurable. For this project I intend to produce1-4 images based on the woodland near my home that I often go to in order to escape the stresses of city life. My piece(s) will consist of a mixture of my own photographic images and illustrations inspired by the nature in this environment. Most of the illustrations used in my final piece(s) will be created with watercolour. This is my favourite medium to use as it best allows me to echo the bright colours I encounter within nature and, as it is water based, allows for a calm and soothing transition of these colours. I think that the visually relaxing nature of this medium might help aid any physical or psychological discomfort patient might experience. When showing the deciding committee examples of my previous work so that they could get an idea of the quality and medium of the pieces I will produce, they thought that some images were too “wishy washy” and some had too many dull/grey tones within. I will therefore need to be careful to stick to a more detailed drawing style and use lots of bright colours. The almost imagined environments created from my merging of both real and illustrated images will also allow patients to be transported into “other worlds”, enabling them to escape any stresses they might experience in a hospital environment. As I will create the end product(s) on Photoshop, they will be digital and therefore could be printed in any size that bets fits with the other pieces within this “menagerie of modern nature”.

Examples of previous work shown to the committee at St Mark's hospital:

Collecting visual stock- Examples of my previous work submitted to the committee at St. Mark’s Hospital as an example of the quality and medium of the work I would produce.

Batsford Prize- “Craving colour” project outline

The only directions for this brief are the title. The direction is therefore quite open however each entry has to fit into one of the categories for example Applied Art, Fashion or illustration. For this project I aim to produce a series of decorative images focusing on scenes and textures within nature and using colour or the lack of it to highlight certain elements within each piece. In order to better direct me in my practice I aim to produce pieces that can be used as art work on walls or surface patterns designs, fitting more into the applied art category of the competition. The compositions of the illustrations and digital collages I produce will be partially coloured with some areas retaining their initial outlined base. To create this contrast in pieces that have been created using a photograph as the main contributor to the image, some areas may need the addition of a black and white filter and therefore Photoshop would be the best software for me to use. The colours used in the pieces will not necessarily be those that are usually associated with the subjects. Instead the colours I will use for the majority of the images may be unrealistic or overexagurrated to stress the title of the brief. I don’t want the colours to be constrained within the lines as I want to create the impression that they are escaping from their subjects. Watercolour may be a good medium to use in order to do this as it will allow me to easily create a wash of colour over outlines. Therefore the subjects themselves will be “craving colour” and the viewer can imagine the colour finding its way to a position within the boundaries of the lines.

Contemporary contexts Final piece and review

After the issues with my previous experimentation, I decided to go back to the watercolour piece that abstractly represented how I envisioned the polyps that make up coral to look and decided to expand on this. Throughout the project I envisioned the final piece to illustrate the contrast between what healthy coral looks like in comparison to bleached coral. By doing this I hoped that viewers would make sufficient efforts to mitigate the impacts of their everyday activities on global warming and its resulting effects on sea temperatures and the destruction of coral reefs. I therefore decided to paint the piece with colourful polyps progressing into less colourful ones to show that this is what will happen to these underwater environments if we don’t take better care of them.

Primary visual research for further developmentation:

Even though I liked the outcome of the final piece, I still felt like it needed more information to better illustrate the message. Walking across an English beach I took pictures of various imagery and textures that might be good to add to it but later decided that this might make the piece look too cluttered and busy so I chose to leave it how it was.

Contemporary contexts- Further experimentation

I thought about different elements to the argument of reef preservation, such as why coral is dying and the effects of this on the local communities that rely on these environments for necessities such as food and money. One factor that affects the health of the reefs is over fishing and unsustainable fishing methods. This reason particularly stood out to me as it seemed very self destructive; the people who needed the reefs the most were one of the main causes for their destruction. 

I thought it might de interesting to sew into the final image on what ever material I choose to do it on, be it fabric or paper, as it might work to illustrate a fishing net. I kind of made this technique/formation of stitches up as I went along but thought it actually made the sort of pattern of lines I wanted to create. However it doesn't really resemble a net's lattice formation and therefore it might be useful for me to experiment more with different stitching techniques.

Still not sure about the effectiveness of the imagery I had made so far, I started experimenting with illustrating the colours and textures that resemble dead coral in the same sort of cell like blobs I used earlier in my experimentation.

I also thought about making a poster for the final piece as I thought the use of words might enable me to communicate my message more effectively. I really liked the watercolour + salt technique I had used earlier and wanted to incorporate this into the image some how so decided to experiment with making typography out of it. I am not very comfortable with using fonts and typography in my work as I don't have much experience in this area so thought creating my own might be a good solution. 

Although I think this could a good way of communicating this particular issue, I didn't feel that this was a path I wanted to take with my project and decided to focus more on trying to make the imagery speak for it's self.

Contemporary contexts- More research and experiments

Alexi Wynn Williams 

Alexi Wynn Williams sculpture, Echoes of the Kill, is an oversized butcher’s block with a forest like installation of wax forms rising up off it. The forms were created from filling the negative space of lungs with molten wax, poured directly into the airways of dead cattle and horses. These casts were then put through a maceration process which uses acid to dissolve the flesh and reveal the wax forms.  The viewer approaches the work without knowledge of what they are engaging in.

Echoes of the Kill blurs boundaries and explores the boarders of where something stops to exist in one way and takes on new meaning. When I saw this with my current project in mind, I immediately related the colourless sculptures as bleached coral. Even though this may not have been what the artist intended to portray, the detail that came out of producing the structures in this way echoes the beautifully intricate formations of corals and helps people to see that they are worth saving for future generations to appreciate. 

Laura Jones

Laura Jones's Paintings aim to raise awareness of coral bleaching within Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Although these events are undeniably sad she wanted to bring hope to fact that we are able to stop these processes and highlight the resilience of the reef. People aren't always able to see the affects of global warming on coral reefs and the ecosystem that relies on it. By making this almost alien underwater world accessible around the world, Jones's paintings, along with the work of the other artists I have looked at, almost act as a campaign to get people to think more carefully about their actions and their affect on the environment.

The use of acrylic in her painting work well to bring to life the unusual textures one may see when diving and the bold blocks of colour seem to highlight the strength and resilience of the Great Barrier Reef.

See more at:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/dec/30/bleached-laura-joness-hope-for-the-reef

After all the research I did and facts that I gathered I found it difficult to put all the information into imagery that really conveyed the message I was trying to get across. There seems to be so much that I need to include to make the image make sense but I know that if I include everything the end result will just look messy.

As I was a bit stuck for ideas I thought it was better just to create imagery and see what happened so obviously I started by trying to illustrate an image of a reef. I then experimented with making it look bleached by editing it.

With both this painting and the previous one I used watercolours with a wet on wet technique to make the colours merge and subtly blend as they sometimes seem to do underwater. I also used salt as it gives the dried paint an interesting texture which almost reminded me of the different textures od coral. I also thought there was something nice about using sea salt to create imagery of the pace it came from, almost putting it back into its original environment. Although it doesn't realistically illustrate what coral looks like, the pattern is a abstract interpretation of what I envisioned it to look like after finding out that they are made up of hundreds to thousands of tiny creatures called polyps. This formation almost reminded me of how everything is made up of cells and I tried to replicate this in the image.

Adding an illustration of a diving mask in my imagery was one way I thought of showing the human interference in the survival of these environments.

I experimented with layering the different imagery I created on photoshop and using different blending options. This particular blend of layers was quite interesting as it changed the colour of the cell/polyp like pattern to flaming oranges and I thought the association of heat with these colours hinted at the main cause for coral bleaching, global warming.

I didn't really like this outcome as I thought it was a bit too busy and messy as all the colours seemed to blend too much together. Within the senses of the mask I turned the coral illustration to black and white to show how this is what reefs will turn into if we don't change our actions to stop the bleaching process.

I felt that this composition was slightly more successful as it gave a comparison between a healthy coral reef and a dead one, again showing what will happen if sea temperatures continue to rise and other human actions don't change.

However I do think that the mask needs to have some colour within it and the whole image almost annoys me a bit as I feel like it is too flat and maybe I should have cut the strap out.