Locating Unit: Week 2

This week I have mostly been continuing to research my themes of curves, movement and sculpture.

To do this I have been spending time in the library, especially focusing on finding out more about contemporary sculptors. Artists whose work I have been particularly interested by include Antony Gormely, Tara Donovan and Helaine Blumenfeld. They all create installations and sculptures which incorporate curves and interesting lines. I am also inspired by the way sculpting is a really physical art form and involves lots of moving around to create the pieces. I plan to try to be more physical with my drawing to create some gestural mark-making, rather than just being sat at a desk, which is what normally happens when I am drawing. I am hoping this will free up my drawing style.

Books providing inspiration.

As well as this, I have been editing my photographs from the Yorkshire sculpture park and printed these off to inspire some drawing and to put in my sketchbook. One thing I learned last unit was that it’s really important for me to print off my photos and have them physically in front of me when I am drawing and designing, otherwise I just forget about them, or end up drawing from a computer screen, which I don’t think creates such authentic results. Having printed my pictures off, I was tempted to cut them up and start collaging, and I think this will influence my design work. Especially with the fashion live brief, working with paper to produce small-scale visuals of how my collar/ final neckpiece might look will be very helpful. This isn’t something I have tried much before, but I think 3 D modelling should be really beneficial and could spark some new ideas in terms of drawing too.

Edited photos from the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

One of my favourite sculptures by Barbara Hepworth is actually a prototype of the piece, Winged Figure (1963) made in 1961, and it is on display at the Hepworth Wakefield. With this as my central image for my mood board, I began to consider the character for whom I would be designing my collar. This led me to think of icons of the mid-20^th century and other art forms such as film and literature. Perhaps the most iconic film released in 1961 was Breakfast at Tiffany’s, so I decided to use Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly as my character to base my neck piece around. In her most iconic outfit, the pearl necklace she wears really stands out against the black dress. Elsewhere in the film, she can be seen wearing fabulously mid-century jumpers with very structural and stylish necklines. Therefore, I thought she would be the perfect character to inspire my collar design.

Winged Figure 1961, by Barbara Hepworth.

Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly in the 1961 film breakfast at Tiffany's.

This week I have also been collecting imagery for my Fashion, Form, Fabricate mood board. Images for this have come from the internet, scans from library books, drawings that I have done so far and fabric samples. I have found it quite tricky to put together a board which really conveys the images I have in mind, but in the end, I want it to suggest clean-cut, tailored lines, which can be manipulated into curved forms. I want my collar to be quite simple but bold, so with that in mind I have started with quite a cool, muted colour palette, but I do plan to introduce some pops of colour, such as brighter greens and mustardy yellows to brighten my designs up.

Putting together my mood board.

I also visited the Whitworth museum this week to gather more inspiration. I was fascinated by the exhibition of prints by Barbara Brown. Her designs are kinetic and energetic and her use of curves is evident throughout many of her fabric prints. I will be referencing her work in my project as not only does she use movement and curves in her work, but she is also a key mid-century print designer.

Frequency, Barbara Brown 1969.

In terms of my drawing, so far it has been quite basic. I have a sketchbook of drawings from the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and the Hepworth Museum, but as it was such a cold day, I found sketching quite hard!  I have mostly just done some basic drawings inspired by the lines and shapes in my photos from the weekend, but what I’d like to do next is mark making using sculptors tools and other unusual items, so this is what I will do over the Christmas holidays.

Some of my drawing so far.

My other plans for the Christmas break will be to source fabric samples for my mood board, create some A2 drawings and collages and continue drawing from my photos from the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. I will also be getting out in to the Lake District to get lots more primary research, and hopefully visiting some exhibitions.