Project 2, Week 1

Over the past week and a half, I have been working on my concept for my next project. Moving away from the black and white, natural theme of the previous project, I wanted to embrace colour and shape. This led me to imagery gathered on a recent trip to Lisbon. The decorative shapes and bright colours inspired me to be bolder with my visual research and drawing and this is something I am keen to work on. As discussed in one of my previous tutorials, I have a tendency to lean towards blue and green colours, so I am planning to use bright colours in this project, like pink, orange and yellow.

Colour and shape inspiration from Lisbon.

My main concept for the project is ‘combinations and colour’ and this encapsulates my aim of combining usual materials to create my own ‘new’ materials. I will then work on manipulating and moulding these materials to make 3D sculptural pieces. I felt that in Project 1 I thoroughly enjoyed working in 3D, but due to the short time-scale of the project didn’t resolve my ideas fully. I plan to develop my final pieces for that body of work with Project 2.

I began by painting and drawing from my research using gouache to gain vivid colours. I don’t tend to go straight for paint, so this was a challenging exercise for me, but one I have enjoyed, as it has encouraged me to consider colour more thoughtfully and has made me excited to use bright colours again. Although I was embracing working with paint, I soon felt like sampling, so put the sketchbook work to one side in favour of working with found materials. Being more disciplined with myself is something I would like to get better at. Moving into fabric quickly has helped me gather momentum with this work, and spur new ideas, but I plan to return to my sketchbook for a few days to fully explore shape and colour before progressing with sampling.

In terms of sampling, I have been stitching, embellishing, gluing and varnishing fabric, to try and change their qualities, for example making soft materials hard. This has had varying effects. Varnishing dyed cotton didn’t change the structure of the fabric much but did have a darkening effect on the colour which altered how it then sat with other materials, which was interesting. It’s been interesting to bind materials like plastic and bubble wrap. I have also been heating and melting some plastic/mesh material and I love watching that process. Additionally, I have worked with resin and modelling clay to blend materials. These samples are fairly basic at the moment, but I’m just seeing how they work at the moment and building a bank of combined materials. I will assess these to see which are the most effective, and then take the processes into more refined sampling.

My samples being made, and on the wall at Uni.

As well as combining materials, I have made my own paper, and am keen to explore the possibilities of making my own material, perhaps by melting or blending materials like paper and plastic/Perspex.

Making my own paper.

Mixing resin to apply to fabric.

                                                                     

Embedding fabric in modelling clay.

Artists who have inspired me so far include Dionne Smith who works with paper, cloth and embroidery and expressive and textural mark-making, Ben Nicholson’s paintings which incorporate considered blocks of colour and Ophelia Pang’s bight and playful printed designs.

As mentioned, to progress I plan to return to my sketchbook to work on colour and shape, with paint and collage. I will then go through my samples to work out which processes I will take forward, and if they are suitable for manipulation and laser cutting. I would also like to dye my materials and research further into the process of making my own materials.