Final Outcome

This final outcome was a piece each person had to create which would represent some of the work created in this project.

I chose to use the 4 Photoshop manipulated prints, and 2 actual mono prints for my final outcome.

Initially I selected 4 different Lino and Mono prints from the project which I wanted to scan in to the computer, and manipulate on Photoshop. However after getting them onto the computer, I realised there was only one image that I could successfully add another layered image onto and distort the image, with it still looking like the initial print. This print was the butterfly Lino print.

I went online and looked at a variety of images I could use to layer onto the prints. I selected 3 images which linked to the organic project in some way, and then added them to the prints. This created 3 of the 4 manipulated prints. For the final print, I chose to distort the shape of the butterfly slightly by using the liquefy tool and some others.

After this, I then printed out the 4 images as A5 sized images. I then cut them down each print, so that the 4 digitally manipulated prints were exactly the same size. Then I cut the 2 real Lino prints so that they were the same size as each other, however very slightly larger than the digital prints.

At this point, I put the prints onto a A2 piece of paper and rearranged them until I found a layout I liked. I then added 2mm thin black borders to each of the prints and stuck them down to the A2 sheet using glue and sticky back plastic.

Below the images show how I altered the arrangement of the prints, and the final piece:

 

Final Evaluation

Introduction

This project we began is Organic 1, which has a duration of 7 weeks. Organic 1 is a 2D exploration of 3 units; Unit 3, Unit 4 and Unit 5.

‘Unit 3 – an introduction to drawing skills. This unit will provide the student with an introduction to drawing skills necessary to support creative activity in art and design.’

‘Unit 4 – Introduction to communication skills in Art and Design. This unit will provide the student with an introduction to the communication skills used in support of art and design. The unit will also develop an understanding of the role that communication skills play in informing and developing ideas.’

‘Unit 5 – Solving 2D problems. To provide the student with an opportunity to use previously acquired skills, knowledge and understanding to work toward the solution of a defined 2D art and design problem.’

The theme is called Organic 1. This theme consisted of looking at a variety of organic forms and taking inspiration from them for various artworks. I was looking forward to working with all kinds of forms such as shells, fruits, plants, and leaves. As well as these forms, I also used a variety of images of organic forms such as trees, landscapes, butterflies, and birds. I find natural forms extremely interesting as they have formed themselves and can contain extremely complex and intricate structures.

I aimed to improve and develop all of my skills. I wanted to further my drawing techniques as I had never been satisfied with drawings and sketches I have done in the past. I also wanted to improve my printing skills, mainly mono and lino printing. This is because I had only done mono printing once before which was last term during the Identity project. I had previously done lino printing at school, but I wanted to increase my skills further. I was really looking forward to working on Photoshop as I really enjoy digitally manipulating and editing images. Along with this, all aspects of photography within the project was an excitement for me.

In addition to what I was looking forward to, I also wanted to keep up with my time keeping skills, as I was really good at staying up to date with my blog posts last term. Along with this, I wanted to spend more time to work independently to create pieces of work, with my own ideas, therefore having a larger range of practical work. However, doing this, meant I had to create additional blog posts about the extra practical work I was doing. This meant I began to fall behind with my blog posts, but I did manage to catch up and get back on track fairly quickly.

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Summary of research

After being introduced to the brief, as a class, we were given a variety of organic objects and were told to take a variety of photos of them all. We had to think about composition and lighting. I set up a small studio space with both white and black backgrounds, then used our phone torches to light up the items in different ways. I really enjoyed doing this as it was a way of portraying the way we see the objects, using our own photographic eye. Along with this photoshoot, I also took time outside of college to do a photoshoot in one of the forests near where I live. I chose the forest as the rivers were fully flowing, the trees and ground were very vibrant with autumn colour and I chose a day with decent light. This was the only external photoshoot I did, with the intentions of the organic project.

I believe it is extremely important to take my own photos and do primary research because by finding my own research instead of using secondary sources, it is more authentic. Along with this, by experiencing things first hand will most likely make me remember more as I am seeing things upfront and in full detail so that I can explore every aspect and angle of my surroundings. Also by seeing objects and organisms up close, it provokes personal emotions and thoughts for me.

The below images are from my 2 photoshoots:

Throughout this project we studied a diverse range of artists. However, there were 2 artists that I specifically enjoyed looking at most, these were Henry Moore and Angie Lewin.

Henry Moore

I really liked looking at Henry Moore as an inspiring artist for mark making. As a sculptor he creates plans, and those plans are drawings. Then he will then release his plans as an actual piece of artwork. I find this extremely interesting, as I often sketch out plans in a lot of detail. I also found his use of mark making skills interesting, as he uses a lot of the techniques that we were taught. Moores work inspired mine, as it gave me ideas about how to create shades and tones within a drawing or a plan. This lead to me using these techniques and putting them into practice during my scaling up drawing.

Below are some images of Henry Moore, his work, and the piece of work I did which he inspired:

 

Angie Lewin

Angie Lewin was another artist I really enjoyed looking at because she created incredibly detailed and precise prints. As a print maker, she uses Lino cut and creates various pieces for home decor such as curtains, wall paper and bed sheets. I have always had an interest in Lino printing and its process. To see an artists work, which contains such large scale, smooth marks was very inspiring to me. Therefore I am now wanting to create some kind of large scale print in my future work (larger than the A6 piece we did in lesson).

Below is a Lino print done by Angie Lewin, and a Lino print done by myself.

 

For research, I used a variety of platforms and sources. I mostly used the internet which lead to looking at artists personal websites, autobiographies, biographies and wikipedia pages. Along with using my surroundings, and at one stage a couple of the books I have at home.

The internet was the quickest source for information. Along with this, it is much more reliable than finding information in the media.

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Experimentation and development

There was a large variety of workshops I took part in with my class, as well as some I did on my own;

• Mark Making
• Tonal drawing
• Facial Proportions
• Perspective and atmospheric drawing
• Mixed media drawings
• Organic Photoshoot
• Scaling up
• Mono Printing
• Lino Printing
• Positive and resistant prints
• Photoshop manipulation

I definitely learned new skills within all of these workshops, however I had some basic and developed knowledge on each workshop beforehand, which I feel I have improved and built on further.

Below are a variety of images from the different workshops I took a part in:

 

I feel that all of the workshops went successfully, even if things didn’t work out, I learned from the mistakes I made. Along with this, I extremely enjoyed every workshop, which I believe is a key to being successful in lessons and with my work.

In the Mono printing workshop, I often came across issues such as over inking and not as precise marks I had hoped for. To fix these issues, I blotted my last pieces quite a lot so that there was less ink on the final acetate sheet. But the pieces I already made which had too much ink on, I still used, and played with the messy affect when working back into them. To make the marks better, I applied more pressure when making my later prints. In the Lino printing workshop I also found I struggled to make the lines perfectly precise and smooth when cutting out the lino. To fix this, I need to practise doing more Lino cuts in the future.

Another workshop, I also came across issues with, was the scaling up drawing workshop. I found, after sketching out the basic design, I couldn’t really see the piece coming to life. I struggled massively to keep working on the piece as I began to lose interest. To fix this, I pursued the drawing and pushed through it. As I added shading and definition to the piece, in gradual intervals, I had the piece held up on the other side of the room to me so that I could see it from a distance. Eventually I could see the drawing coming together, then I was extremely proud of the outcome.

There were 2 workshops I enjoyed the most. These were the scaling up and positive & resistant prints workshops. I enjoyed the scaling up drawing workshop considerably because as I was creating the piece, I had no faith. But once it came to life I was proud of what I achieved. I was also proud of myself for pursuing the piece, which taught me the lesson of seeing a drawing through until the end, before deciding against it. I enjoyed the positive and resistant prints work shop because I spent the time on my own to create the prints. Therefore I could use the space around me to the best of my abilities. I was also really proud of how realistic the outcomes were for each print. It was good for me to learn how to use the press, and what techniques worked for certain kinds of prints. Which is why I also enjoyed this workshop a lot.

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Reflection

Throughout the whole of the project, there were a series of deadlines to complete work each week. Over the first 2 weeks, I achieved meeting the deadlines every time, however one week, I didn’t complete my work on time. This lead to work building up over some more weeks. To sort this, I spent time after college, and on my days off, to catch up with work. I find I focus better and complete work quicker when I am in the college environment.

For this project, I mainly enjoyed doing the all different workshops, making mistakes, learning from them and trying again. I find this is the best way to improve and develop my skills and knowledge because to see the mistakes appear in my work, which I do not want to repeat them unless I intend to.

I find I managed my time in and out of the class room differently to how I did last term. This term I found my friendships in class disturbed me considerably more than they did last term. I struggled massively to focus in lessons, unless I had earphones in. To fix this, I think I may have to separate myself from them, specifically in blog work lessons, in the next project. However outside of class, I continued to work well at home, completing and catching up with blog work on my days off. I did find I get distracted easily at home, however I set myself a schedule and plan to follow each day, to make sure I was completing a comfortable amount of work each week.

If I had to do this project again, I would try to do more practical work of my own, outside of class time. This is because I would like to have a larger range of pieces, some of which I have created in my own time following my own plan which will set some of my work apart from the rest of the class. I would also try to create more of a range of work in the actual workshops we did. For example, if it was in the Mono printing workshop, I would have created more test prints and final pieces, as this would have given me a larger range of work which I can use and develop on from.

I see my work developing on in a much cleaner and smooth way. What I mean by this is I think as I now have rounded knowledge in a lot of workshops, I can now begin to push my skills and improve them as I don’t have to be introduced to the techniques and processes again. I also see my work beginning to alter into different scales, as I would specifically like to work on a larger scale. In addition to this, I do see my work becoming more refined. I think this because I am learning how to commit to a piece, developing it until I am happy with it, rather than giving up on it when I start to lose faith.

On the next project, I think I will try to keep up to date each week with my blog work without leaving any posts outstanding. This is because once I start to fall behind, I either struggle massively to stay as up to date as possible, or I feel the snowball effect which will eventually lead to me achieving very little. Secondly, I think I will try to take my attention away from my friends during lessons, and try to focus on my work during lesson time, leaving socialising for break/lunch times. In addition to these, I also think I am going to try to make more of an effort in refining and completing every workshop.

Project Presentation

Reflect and Progress

• You have used mono, lino and resist printing techniques, which one do you think is the most successful and why? Which have you enjoyed the most and why?

I think mono printing was a successful printing technique but not the most successful for me because I had full control over the whole process. It was up to me how much ink was on the plate, I had control on how much pressure was applied onto the page, and what kind of marks appeared. However, I found it difficult to stop resting my hand on the page. As well as this, it is a very messy process which I struggled with as the ink seemed to get everywhere.

Lino printing was a more successful printing technique than mono printing but I also didn’t think it was the most successful. I thought it was more successful than mono printing because I was able to precisely copy an image onto the lino, then cut it from there. I was able to make various marks, just like mono printing, however I was more limited with the tools I used unlike mono printing where I could use different tools. But the main difference from mono printing is lino printing isn’s as messy as mono printing. I found applying the ink to the lino, printing out the piece, and then washing the lino much easier than the mono printing. My prints were also clearer, more controlled and neater. This is because the ink is applied with the same pressure so there were much bolder, which I prefer the look of.

However, resistant prints are most definitely the most successful prints. I found this because they are so precise, clean and easy to do. By using the rolling press, I was able to apply even pressure over the whole print, without having to touch the piece itself. Along with this, I was using actual organic objects to create the prints, by applying ink to them and putting them through the press. This then meant the prints had a precise and realistic shape. I found this process much more successful than mono and lino printing because the prints came straight out of the press much more refined and realistic.

• You have manipulated your prints with both hand rendered techniques and digital techniques – which do you think has been most successful and why?

I think hand rendered techniques were the most successful because I was able to be much more precise with the marks and alterations I was making. Along with this, the pieces ended up looking better when they were hand rendered. I don’t think the digital prints turned out as well because I don’t have a large range of knowledge or skills on digital softwares such as photoshop when it comes to distorting the look of images.

• For your final submission you have been asked to present 3-4 finished prints. When presenting these prints, what will you need to think about to make sure the quality is there?

I will think about how each print links to the other, as I’d like them all to fit a easily recognisable theme. I will also think about the layout and sizes of the prints. This is because I would prefer to have my work looking organised and formal as they are a presentation. I will present my pieces as a tryptic or a quad, as this makes the organisation of my work look pleasing to the viewer. As a tryptic, I will have to think about what order I place the 3 prints. This is because the viewers eye will be drawn to the centre print, so my best print should be placed there. If I do it as a quad, I will have to think about placing the prints the same distance apart so that they look tidy.

Along with this, I will want to put a border around each image, which should be between 2mm to 8mm in size. This is because, the border will help to make the piece look neat, however if they are small they wont take away any attention from the actual prints. I also need to think about what surface I am going to place the prints onto and whether I am going to leave the piece like that or put them into a frame.

Artist Research – Martin O’Neill

Martin O’Neill is an English illustrator and artist, living on the South East coast of the UK with his family. Although he was born in London, he is of Irish decent. He creates his work through collages, photography, paint and digital techniques/software. He has a large and diverse range of international clients who are based doing design, installation, advertising and publishing work.

O’Neills work has an easily recognisable style which is rather unique. He has a pop art kind of style, as he cuts out, alters and layers very colourful geometric shapes which usually sit on top of a black and white image that is incorporated into the piece. I am specifically looking at O’Neill’s digital skills, and how he uses software such as photoshop to create his work.

When I was using Photoshop for my work, I created layers which after being altered to certain specifications, would build up my piece. O’Neill uses the same digital technique as I did with my work. I believe that he also creates piece by hand, then scans them into a computer to be altered further then reprinted and manipulated more by hand.

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Image 1

The piece below seems to be of a boxer that has either been defeated, or has just won. Either way, his emotion can’t be seen, therefore it can only be assumed how he feels. To create this work, I am unsure as to whether he has created it all by hand, all digitally or a bit of both. I think he has created the background digitally, as there are so many layers, which are all perfectly straight lines.

I really like the colours in this piece. This is because there is such a range of colours and patterns. I also believe, the colours may suggest the boxers emotion, as they are all vibrant and celebratory, is very happy. He may be lay down with over excitement or exhaustion. I find the shapes are satisfying to my visual eye because they are all directed the same, as well as being nice clean edges.

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Image 2

The piece below is a portrait of a male, that has gradually come apart as it gets further up his head. I don’t think this is of O’Neill himself. I am unsure exactly what he is trying to suggest, but there is an implication that as you look at a person, the closer to the brain you look, the less you are aware of what is going on for that person. To know a person is almost like a puzzle and you can gradually put all the piece together to make a person, and looking at this male, we are completely unknown to what happens in his mind, therefore the pieces are missing. There is a small range of colours, which I don’t know if there is any meaning to. Most of them suggest the extremes of emotions, such as blue being sad/calm feelings and red being lust or anger.

I like the geometric shapes and and how they are scattered across the image. They are very bold shapes with sharp edges therefore they are clear and strong. This picture plays on a variety of my emotions. Initially I feel frustration because I cant work out what message O’Neill is trying to portray. Then I begin to identify other emotions such as what the male in the image is feeling, either misery or happiness, which makes me feel conflicted about the positive and negative emotions.

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I would really like to work using this technique of having my own style, such as the black and white image then pulling it apart with geometric shapes. I would also like to further my skills on photoshop, and develop the knowledge to alter an image like these pieces.

Photoshop Experimentation

Today we were continuing to develop our mono and lino prints. However, this development was to be done digitally on a software program called Adobe Photoshop CC. Initially I selected 4 of my prints, as images I wanted to manipulate, but once getting them onto the computer I then decided I only wanted to use one print (image below) as the only piece I was going to manipulate. However I wanted to manipulate it over and over again in different ways.

Once I got the image imported onto photoshop, I then went onto google images and searched for a variety of different organic images which I could use as a layer on top of the butterfly. First I chose to search for colours that could be seen upon the vibrant wings of a butterfly. I came across a blend of purple and blue. I thought this would look good to incorporate into the butterfly as it is vibrant and a nice blend of colour.

This is the image I found:

This is the first on my digitally manipulated images. For this one, all I did was put the 2 images together as separate layers, putting the colours on top of the butterfly, then reducing the layers opacity to that each layer can be seen through the other.

I altered the contrast and brightness on the butterfly layer, as the I wanted the butterfly to be bold enough beneath the colours.

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The following piece I created I wanted to use leaves as I thought they would also work as they are easily identifiable organic forms. However after I began to play with the various affects, it became apparent that the leaves were too contrasting, so it was really tough to make out the shape of the butterfly underneath them. I decided to start changing the saturation of the leaves, and after many changes, I reversed the colours of both images, so when they layered, they then looked like a negative photo in the background, but the butterfly itself still has natural coloured leaves visible.

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Then I decided to see if I could actually combine an image of butterflies, with the butterfly print. I found this image:

I thought the above image would be really good as it was filled with a range of vibrant colours which wouldn’t clash because the print is mainly black and white. Once I actually got the 2 images together, I just played with a range of pre-made filters of opacity and contrast alterations. I selected one which worked really well. I thought this because the butterflies are visible in the black part of the print, but not so much on the map section. I really liked this affect as it puts more focus onto the main print, rather than the background. This was my favourite manipulation because this had links between each layer as butterflies occured on both layers. Along with this, I really like the vast variety of vibrant colours. The image below is the final piece:

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Finally, rather than adding layers to this print, I decided to distort the box around the butterfly and the map. I decided to do this because I wanted at least one alternative technique for my final pieces, than always using layers on Photoshop. I also slightly increased the saturation of the image, which seemed to turn the inked section a dim shade of purple instead of black. The image below is the final piece:

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Student Exhibition – White Stuff shop

(The image above is my piece that was on display at the exhibition)

Level 2 Art and Design Exhibition

White Stuff Shop, Finkle Street, Kendal.

Friday 4th – Sunday 6th December.

Opening night, Friday 4th December 6-8pm.

Prints and cards were sold to raise money for the Bendrigg Trust. The artwork on display was a mixture and a collation of work from the Organic Part 1 project, which included a range of drawings and prints.

 

Bendrigg Trust

The Bendrigg Trust is a residential activity centre specialising in high quality courses for disabled and disadvantaged people, of any age or ability.

Peer Critique

Reviewed by: Theo Maher.

This task has helped me because all the feedback I got from Theo was really helpful and positive, which gave me a boost of how proud I am of my work, what I have been achieving and what I am set to achieve.

It has also reminded me to revisit some posts to make sure that they are all as good as I can make them.

It was really informative to speak to another peer about my work, because it gave me another opinion on my work along with alternative ways to create and write my blog posts. It was also really helpful because I was getting advice from someone my age, which I think is a good way to receive feedback, compared to getting feedback from a tutor. This is because we think in a similar way, as well as we are on a similar level to how we give and take advice.

I have set myself the following targets:

• To revisit the
• Make a key terminology list for each project and post it onto my blog
• Complete unfinished blog posts

I also got the following positive comments:

• My blog posts are informative, clear and creates a helpful step by step guide to each workshop
• Lots of images are used which helps the reader to visualise what I was doing
• I have used key words and specific terminology appropriately
• Scaling up drawing end result looked so realistic ad the depths and dimensions were shown really well
• Mono prints are aesthetically pleasing and looked delicate
• Appropriate use of colours

Theo also mentioned how I have inspired him by how much work I achieve on my blog, along with how long and thorough my posts are.

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As Theo reviewed my blog, I also reviewed his in the same way he reviewed mine. I spent time looking through his blog, which was missing some work. This helped me because I then realised how difficult it is to keep up with how much I am achieving if I don’t make or complete blog posts about my work.

Theo was also missing a lot of description to his posts, as well as explanations for the process of each workshop, this also made me feel obliged to keep putting processes into my blog posts therefore it is easier for others to understand how workshops work.

As I was reviewing a peers blog, I was very aware and careful of how I came across when giving criticism as some people do struggle to take advice, so I chose my words carefully.

Artist research – Ellyn Weiss and April Richardson

Ellyn Weiss

Ellyn Weiss is an artist who creates a variety of artworks in various styles. However we are looking at her specifically for her print work and how she works back into her pieces using mixed media. There is no personal and background information available about Weiss, which has left me to assume how she creates her pieces.

Looking at her work, Weiss is inspired by colourful parts of her surroundings for example flowers. She initially starts off doing mono prints, water and inked backgrounds or paintings, and then works back into them using a variety of media such as sewing, collage, inks and paint. The range of colours in each of her pieces are every vibrant and contrasting with each other.

Weiss sometimes makes marks using the cross hatching and stippling techniques. Otherwise she will usually work with outlining certain shapes within each piece. She uses a lot of geometric shapes which are adapted to her own style. I like Weiss’s work because of the vast amount of colours she uses throughout her pieces.

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April Richardson

Along with Ellyn Weiss, there is little information available about April Richardson. It seems as though Richardson is inspired by natural and organic forms found in the environment. She uses a variety of vibrant and and dull colours in most of her pieces which offers up some contrast in every image. The colours she uses also alter between cold and warm blends. usually the cold colours are blues and fading greens, and the warm colours are sunset oranges and yellows.

Generally Richardson will create a mono print onto a coloured background to start with, then she will start to apply layers to build the image. The layers can vary between different mono prints, collage or drawing/paintings. She made a statement on her website that states she will ‘apply thin layers of ink and paper, scrape or tear it away, and then rebuild layer after layer to achieve complex depth and texture. Sometimes presses leaves or flowers directly into the surface’.

I really like April Richardsons work because of how she layers her designs and I wish to work more using layers to build up a piece.

 

 

Applying mixed media to prints

This lesson was about working back into a couple of our recent prints, and adding different media to finish off/complete the pieces. We have previously worked back into pieces with mixed media and this lesson had the same purpose. I was really looking forward to working into my basic lined mono prints and my positive prints. I only chose 3 of my prints to work into. This is because I could only find 3 that I didn’t mind adding media to because I liked a lot of the others as they were.

We had a range of media to work with, such as;

• Felt tip pens
• Colouring pencils
• Ink
• Paint
• Thread
• Collage

I started out by adding basic brown coloured pencil to a simple outline of a leaf which was created as a mono print. I chose to use brown pencil because I wanted to create a typical leaf, as I didn’t have many ideas to start with. Here is that print before and after the media was applied:

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After the mono print leaf, I then chose to use the same process of colouring in another simple lined mono print of a bird. I chose to colour it in blue because I thought the blue would contrast well with the yellow streaks in the background. I used both light and dark blue pencils, this is because I wanted to create a little bit of darker shades in the wing and tail feathers. Again, I only used a pencil and no other media for this because I didn’t think it needed many alterations except some colour.

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Next, I chose the brown leaf positive print. I decided I wanted to do something other than colouring it in, so I chose a print which I knew I would have to cut out. For this I had to collect specific equipment.

• Cutting mat
• Scalpel

To use the scalpel, permission had to be requested of either of the tutors in the room, as they had to be aware that I was using one. Along with this, the tutor also had to make sure I knew how to handle and use a scalpel.

After some discussion with my tutor, I decided I wanted to cut out every other section of the leaf, therefore having a alternating pattern at the end. Here is the piece as it developed:

 

After it was cut out, I then wanted to find a background which I could add behind the piece. I found a variety of backgrounds and looked at each one, however I didn’t think any of them looked good enough. Here are 3 different backgrounds I looked at:

After I put the piece on top of a book page, I decided I really liked the look of it so I decided that would be the background I was going to chose. However I then couldn’t decide whether to tear up pieces of book pages then stick it down, or simply stick it onto a page. I placed the piece on top of both torn backgrounds and just a page, and I decided I wanted to put it onto the torn background. This is because I thought the torn background looked less organised, which even though nature is beautiful, it isn’t always perfectly straight and organised. I chose to put writing as the background because I thought it just gave the piece a better look than something like a floral background would. This is the background before it was stuck down:

This is the final piece. I really like how this piece turned out as it has kept a natural kind of look, yet seems a quirky. I also really like working using layers, therefore I am fond of this piece.