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To begin semester 2 I had a tutorial where I discussed what my plans were for my studio practice for this semester, and I decided I wanted to document my day-to-day life through my art. Which involves the work I had previously started last year as I still want to get my personality through in my art.

I began this by using a pizza box I had from lunch and drew into it the Cathedral in Bury St Edmunds as I had visited the Cathedral a couple of days before and taken some photos. Through my week I normally take some photos on my phone to document what I have been doing and so I would like to use these in my work. I also plan to incorporate the date into each piece as it will link them together and also keep track of when I did each piece of art. I want to not worry  about the reason behind my work so much as I feel it often stops me doing work as I think too much about the reasons behind the work.

Last summer I began learning some calligraphy by watching others writing on instagram and then practicing each letter until I developed a few styles I liked. I would like to use calligraphy in my artwork as I really enjoy it and I think it will work well with the theme of documentation. I could use this to write lyrics of songs I am listening to at the time or songs I am learning on guitar, I could also write sections of books which I am reading in my spare time.

So far I have completed four pizza boxes with drawings and writing inside which relate to what I have been doing through the week. I have also done a little watercolour painting of a slice of pizza. Each box tells a different story, and some have more detail than others. My most recent relates to my weekend back at home: my brother getting engaged, having a games evening and songs I am enjoying at the moment. I think once I have a lot of illustrated pizza boxes they will begin to look more effective on the wall. This could link to pop artist Andy Warhol and his repeated cans of Campbells soup.

As well as pizza boxes I want to begin exploring other ways of documentation and introducing new mediums into my practice.


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Last semester I began with a new subject matter, one which I felt would keep me focused for the entirety of level 6. The subject I chose was basing my practice on myself and so making my art personal to me. I wanted to get across in my work my personality and how I don’t like to be centre of attention, and so I began last semester taking photos of myself but without my face being in the images. I did this by having my back to the camera or by covering my face with a hoody or my hair. I am interested in using photography in my practice as it is a medium I have always enjoyed and want to explore it further. Some of the photos I took were long exposure photos taken with an infrared filter which allowed me to take long exposure photos in quite bright light. I went back to where I used to live in the countryside and set my camera up on a tripod to keep the camera still and used a timer setting so that I could take my own photos.

I had the idea last semester to possibly expand on my idea to things that interest me and so building up a profile of myself through my art. This is more of what I have begun focusing on this second semester which will be explained more in my next blog post.

 

Through doing the drawings of myself, there were some interesting conversations started between other students on my course. Some people don’t know who the drawings are of, and a few have asked if they are of my sister. I like the element that people who don’t know me very well wouldn’t particularly know it was a self-portrait but people who know me well would know they are of me. I also like how generally people want to know who the person is in the images, does it matter who it is? Does that impact the viewer more or less by knowing?

 

Before Christmas I had been drawing as my main medium along with some photography. Drawing has always been my favourite way of working, and last year I got into large scale drawings using charcoal which I really enjoyed as they were really free. I like how you can easily smudge the charcoal and redraw certain areas of the drawing if it isn’t right or the composition needs changing. Working large scale has worked well for me so far as I stand up to draw with the paper on the wall and so it makes me stand back and look at the drawing more than if I was doing a small drawing, by doing this you can see the whole image as a whole and see if the drawing is working well or not.

 

I plan to try out some different techniques of working, because although I love drawing large scale, it is not always very practical and I would like to explore other ways of working. In first year I really enjoyed printmaking and I have wanted to return to that medium as it links closely with drawing and you can do multiple prints of the same image to then work back into in different ways. I also like how with a print you can’t see what the final outcome will look like exactly until you have been through all the processes. I may also try some painting as this another medium I have enjoyed in the past. The medium I use doesn’t really effect the subject matter and so I would like to explore different techniques if possible. It is also my last year at university and so I want to make the most of the facilities they offer.

 

For my dissertation I was looking at the different roles of drawing and so I could link what I found out into my own practice. One of the main points being using drawing as a way of planning future pieces of art.


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