Portfolio Submission for Bournemouth Art College

Project 1. Still Life

For this project I was set the task of choosing a subject and creating a variety of still life pieces. I choose to study toys and began my experimenting a variety of basic materials to create some A3 pieces such as the elephant below.

("Elephant" in biro with charcoal and colouring pencil (A3)

(3D piece based on a doll that I own, focused on abuse of the body by smoking)

I then began to expand my idea slightly, using still images of human life to inspire the layout and themes within each piece, focusing mainly on abuse of the body and also violence.

("Alco-Teddy" in pencil (A3)

In the piece below I used the Terracotta Army as a contextual reference, using the image repitition to highlight the threatening nature of teenage gangs, but keeping the piece comical with the use of a Power Ranger toy. At this stage in my foundation course I also began to experiment with the use of relevant media, so I used the spray paint to link the connection between the toy and the youth gang culture.

("Terracotta Power Ranger Army" in spray paint)

This Barbie installation piece was a conceptual piece, designed to hang on a wall as a normal piece of decoration, to highlight the normality of violence in our society.

(Barbie Installation Piece)

Some sketchbook work from this project

Project 2. Choose an artist, research them thoroughly and experiment using their techniques to create a unique project of your own.

For this project I choose the artist Lucian Freud because I admire his ability to put expression into his work and I decided that it would be an interesting experiment to bring a fine art influence into my work. The piece below is based on one of Freuds self portraits but instead of using paint I studied how he uses his brush strokes to accentuate the facial structure and tried to replicate this using a biro.

("Lucian Freud in Biro") (A2)

I decided to use what I had learned from Freud to create a conceptual artists book based on "Alice in Wonderland" as I thought the graphic portraiture style would work well with the sinister undertones of the story. Below you can see a few samples of my print experimentation influenced by themes in the book.

("Why is a raven like a writing desk?" press print piece (A2)

(Etching print, based on "The Painter's Mother" by L. Freud,
used as a reference for the design of the Queen of Hearts)

These images below are a collection of wallpapers (created on Adobe Photoshop) for the page backgrounds of my book. I studied the repeat pattern designs of William Morris to bring the book into a Victorian context. I used some of my bird print designs to make the pages for the Mad Hatter and March Hare and read the book to get inspiration for the additional pages.

 

Project 3 : Decide on a suitable project title to explore your chosen specialism (Illustration)

Chosen title : "Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll" (an advertising campaign for Sonisphere heavy metal festival)

I began this project by collecting imagery from alternative magazine to put myself inside the heads of my target market. I collaged this imagery together to produced the large scale poster that can be seen below (aimed at the raver-type audience of the festival).

(Photoshopped A2 collage for Sonisphere advertisement campaign,
featuring the three main themes sex, drugs and rock 'n roll)

I decided to create a focus point on tattoo designs, a popular decoration amongst the alternative culture, in order to create another large scale poster for the metalhead audience. I worked along the main features of a typical asian style tattoo, adding in the tongue-in-cheek snake to attract the eye and add a bit of humour to the piece. The main image was hand drawn and then coloured using Adobe Photoshop.

(A2 Poster focused on the Metalhead market)

As part of this project we were required to do a scale drawing with a 20 hour limit, so I decided to use this biro piece to create a couple of souvenir postcards.

("My friend Ash" in biro") (A2)

I liked the idea of the souvenir postcards, plus they gave me a fabulous oppertunity to stretch my illustration experience. So I decided to create a few additional pieces to produce a full series. As part of the work for this mini project I made a collection of mud monsters, inspired by the muddy fields of Glastonbury, scanned them into the computer and used them to create the squelchy demons seen in the third postcard.

Samples of my life drawing work

Sample of my personal photography work

I also do a lot of stop motion animation work in my spare time, one of my videos can be seen here if you're interested.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2NqH3svr2o