Year 3 Degree Project by Elaine Hedges

This is the first completed layer of which will be approximately 6 layers, made up of an array of colours and patterns, overlapping and interweaving, ranging in size.

I’ve created a series of sketches prior to all my cutouts in order to influence my ideas of patterns I’ve liked, and also to test how the colours would interact together.

I like the idea of vibrant and bold jewel-like colours to contrast together in separate layers, dominating the eye and contrasting against white backgrounds. The colours as they are displayed against the white will always through this hold the attention of the viewer. The increasingly complexity of each layer will also be a source of fascination.

I’ve run into some issues with my larger piece. Due to the size of the piece it can’t fit comfortably onto a work table and due to this I use the floor to lay it on and cut out whilst sitting on it and working around the piece methodically.

I’ve come back to it after christmas and found numerous foot prints on the black paper. People have been walking very callously on my actual work instead of treating other peoples work with respect.

At first I was very upset about it, but now i’ve decided to adapt the piece to be presented on the floor when the time comes for the whole degree show.

Once all the layers have been added I plan to put a thin sheet of plastic over the piece and keep it on the floor. Through this people can walk on the piece and interact with it like a mosaic without potentially destroying it. Its an interesting idea for something very delicate and time consuming to be walked and trampled on.

I began this piece very early on in my project and it has been a very slow work in progress ever since.  It is the first layer of the largest scale piece I have created to date and I chose black as the base colour because  my work area is predominantly white, so it creates a vibrant contrast.

This piece was created to be circular because I wanted more of a challenging aspect in my work, and the larger the circle, the harder it is to keep the symmetry of the design.

The problems I have been faced with is getting a large enough piece of paper in order to create it. So i took rolls of black paper and stuck them together painstakingly in order to create it.

The pattern is mostly influenced again my religious art, especially Islamic in which circles feature very dominantly. One of the main  features of Islamic art is its use of geometric designs which I have adopted and used in my own work.  By using the circle as a shape, the geometric patterns as the design and the layers that I can continue adding again and again I have created a sense of infinity, and endlessness.

This is the first piece that I attempted this year. It is compromised of four separate layers of paper and card and cut into assortments of different symmetrical patterns.

The Patterns have been inspired by an assortment of different Patterns that I found in day to day life, religious patterns such as Islamic art and church patterns which I have taken photographs of.

I chose to create layers because each layer can completely alter the whole piece, depending on its colour and the complexity of the pattern.  Through using layers each piece is never truely finished because I could always create another layer.