This exercise is about reviewing our work from the whole unit, but instead of focusing on whether it fulfilled the brief, we are to select images we’ve made based instead purely on whether we enjoy the outcome aesthetically or conceptually. These come together as a portfolio of our work from the unit.
It was interesting to look back over the entirety of my blog, seeing all the work I’ve created. There was more than I thought! I had mixed feelings about some of them, because I knew there were shortcomings in terms of fulfilling the brief, but they felt much more like my art than some of the more outcome-oriented work. I have, at times, felt constrained by fulfilling externally defined briefs (although I acknowledge that this was one of the aspects of the course that drew me to study it). Also I am, in general, more interested in illustration than graphic design as a form of visual communication and I hoped to be illustrating stories in books or other kinds of publications more of the time. As it turned out, the only bits of illustration in the course were the initial self portrait assignment and bits I squeezed in although they weren’t, strictly speaking, part of the brief. Despite this, I did really enjoy some of the work, and it’s refreshing to look back at it as it is in itself aesthetically and conceptually.
I’ve made quite a wide selection. The course materials mention that this selection is relevant to assessment, so I decided not to narrow it down further until I know what that means. Here is my selection.
Firstly, contact sheets from the long list:
The following is from the first edit I kept more in than seems reasonable in the expectation that I will be given more criteria for the next edit.
This was my first assignment. I like making books and with this one I particularly enjoyed including bubble wrap in the binding alongside more traditional paper and board
I like these thumbnails that I did before we were introduced to the idea of thumbnails I just thought of them as little sketches I like their liveliness I like the finished design, its brightness and the doodle representing the filament of the bulb.
Collages. One of my favourite take-always from this unit is working more with collage. I enjoyed using fabric as a collage element in two of these. I like the colour palette of the Hope collage. It was my first experiment in working on cream paper, something I have continued to explore.
My photos of black and white kitchen items tended to focus on pattern, reflection and tone. I like this degree of abstraction. I enjoyed these images so much that I did a side project of using them with coloured paper on a series of collages and digital manipulations (below).
Next are selected pages from a book I made about synonyms of the word ‘shape’. I can’t remember why we did this, but it’s the slightly odd kind of specificity that I do explore from time to time, so I felt very at home with it. The experiment with red, white and black ink on brown paper worked out well. I don’t think we were asked to make books, but it makes things more fun to turn them into books.
If I had to choose a favourite image from the unit it would be the one at top left below. I love macro photography and the instance of this altered medicine bottle in the warm low lighting and against a background of dark brown handmade paper created something which is truly beautiful. With many art forms we use stuff (paint, paper, metal etc) to create something tangible. With photography we behold (look deeply) and do our best to capture what we behold with the use of a technical instrument, the camera. It is mostly about the beholding.
These photos were part of my collection investigating line. I like them for the different kinds of line in them but also as a record of a lovely few days in Bridlington.
This little book grew out of my unhappiest part of the course. I was struggling with the camera’s design to see like the average eye, which my eye isn’t. Also these photography electives gave me nothing to touch or hold. I had photos digitally on my camera, I uploaded them and edited them on my iPad and then I uploaded them to the internet. At no time did they have physical form in the world. This little book with the bits of drawing extending the images beyond the frame gave me a way to get my hands on my art - something I hadn’t realised was so important to me.
These photos were about capturing daylight. The tall edit shows the compression of houses using zoom to flatten the depth of field. I like the impossibility of the illusion. The lake photo caught the at,o sphere of the overcast sky by leaving out the sky, so that the exposure of mid tones was correct.
The stone exercise was one of my favourites, again being drawn to the close up photography which gives me a view on the world which isn’t available to my limited sight. I was also fascinated by the photos of water in movement and the illusion of almost sculptural forms when capturing a moment in time.
These were interesting in terms of composition. The top two photos are some of my favourites, revealing different visual elements and perspectives by framing the image in only one ninth of the frame. I would like to return to this technique as it put things into the frame that I gadnt noticed. So often we see the main feature and neglect to look at its surroundings. I would like to follow this approach into other media.
It was also fun to look back on my photomontage of footpaths.
Sketches. I find something appealing in my overlapping blackbird line drawings. None of them were too precious to be overlapped with others. The page of so many thumbnails is intriguing. The colour sketches associated with childhood are pleasing. It could have been good to look back on these as I planned my poster aimed at children.
This was a step by step tutorial, an approach I don’t always enjoy. This one, though, was a revelation. I loved the process of it, combining positive and negative space and inverted images. The outcome was appealing to me. The final outcome was a photograph where not everything was glued down so that shadows emerged, adding a mid tone. The impermanence of this final version was interesting.
More collage. These were such fun to make. I also like them as a set, with the humour and ostentation contrasting with the speed and out of control feeling of the Roadrunner collage.
These are the colour wheels that were not part of the brief. I wanted to see how they would work with coloured pencils, using two different ranges of primaries. Each was created from five pencils: the chosen primaries and black and white. It was time consuming compared with the paint, but revealed a new way for me to work with coloured pencils. I love colour so it makes me happy to look at these colour wheels.
Lastly, the thumbnails and colour visuals from the work I just completed. Colour visuals were a new technique for me, and I found them so helpful as a stage between thumbnails and final piece. These were easy to do in digital as they were designed to be printed, but they could work equally well in collage to photograph placement of elements in different arrangements before gluing down. I learned a lot from my tutor’s feedback by doing this process.
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