Saturday, 1 February 2014


Blurring the Lines
This photograph was taken as part of a photography project during my foundation year at Falmouth.
I took this image using a long exposure and zooming the lens in out as the picture was taking. I really like the effect that this produced. I took the image and edited it making the shadows more apparent and adding a contrasting green effect which has quite a nice effect of the colours and the tones that have been captured in the image.

Anorexia Project
This is an A3 acrylic painting that was done on canvas as part of a project i looked at the way people who are anorexic see themselves. The painting was part of an Installation including the painting below. The two paintings where mounted on a wall at an angle to give the illusion that the anorexic sufferer is looking in the mirror and the painting below is what she see's (an overweight women). The installation also included a short documentary on anorexia and the causes including stories from people who suffer from the illness. I really enjoyed this project as it allowed me to look at the causes of anorexia and the extent that people suffer because of their weight issues, and therefore my installation was sort of like an anorexia awareness campaign as well as my A2 final piece.

Anorexia Project
This is the second painting in my anorexia based installation. This is also an A3 acrylic painting done on canvas. Although the whole theme of the project is anorexia the painting raises questions about obesity and the problems it has on our society. The painting above was influenced by the works of Jenny Saville and the way she represents overweight women as the main focus points in her paintings, such as the painting 'Branded' which she did using oil and mixed media on canvas. In 'branded' Saville shows the women grabbing herself in a very confident manor. Whereas here i am portraying my subject as shy and uncomfortable as if she is ashamed of the way she looks which in my view works well with the theme i have. 

You Know You've Got You're Daddy's Eye's 
This painting is one of the first big scale paintings that i ever did and it was such a great experience. The acrylic painting was done on a 30" x 40" canvas. The painting took a week of solid work and i am really pleased with the outcome. I really enjoyed this little project as i was able to focus on the painting and nothing else and seeing the painting finished showed me that all my hard work was worth it. The subject for this piece is my dad, i was looking at forgotten spaces of the body and had previously taken a photo of my dads face and from the photo produced a drawing which is below. I then decided to paint this and although i feel the drawing contains far more realism which with my work is my overall aim but i am really pleased with how the painting turned out and am working on paintings at the moment on a similar scale to this one at the moment. 

Daddy's Eyes
The image above is an A4 pencil drawing. The piece was taken from a photograph and my overall aim when doing this piece of work was to capture realism by using a variety of tone and texture in the piece, highlighting the lines on his face. This image was also part of my forgotten spaces of the body project where i looked at the lines on my dads face. I found this really interesting as i started to think about the sayings every line shows a journey or tells a story. 

Maybe She's an Angel
This image is also an A4 pencil drawing. The subject for this image was my sister and was taken from a photograph that i took. I really like the way this drawing shows her in a very angelic light, her features and the composition of the image captures her in a beautiful way. Here my goal was also realism but i feel in a way i have captured her in an almost cartoon like way. I am very pleased with the outcome of this particular piece as drawing is always something i like to come back to when i'm not painting. 

Overlay
This is a photograph that i took as the wind was blowing my scarf. I took quite a few of the same image or similar images and the overlyed the two to represent movement. The added image was faded a little to create a ghost like effect. I am really proud of this image as it is interesting to look at and represents colour in an exciting way.

Blurred lines 2
This photograph uses the same techniques as the the first. I feel this one worked much better, due to the colouring and the ghost like shapes that have been produced by the long exposure and zooming effect. To produce the colouring i edited the photograph using a contrasting red to make the colours in the image warm and inviting, I also emphasized the shadows by altering the light exposure. I find this image to be visually interesting and i am happy that i have been able to challenge photography by producing an abstract image.

LOLA
This is a small A5 sized acrylic painting. This was produced during a painting workshop where we had to produce a still life painting of a few interesting objects that we had chosen. I chose the top of my perfume bottle 'LOLA'. To produce this image i used thick paint to capture the tone and shading. Here you could also say that my aim was to capture realism within the image, i feel like i have been able to do that in the sense of colour and light, but i still feel it is missing something which is maybe the smoothness of the colour. I am overall very pleased with the image i have been able to produce.

Gestalt Drawing
This was one of the first projects that we where given to produce when starting the foundation diploma. The piece was created on an A0 piece of paper using charcoal, graphite, chalk and coloured pencil. At first i found this project quite difficult as it was the first piece of work i had produced to this scale and also in this abstract way, although i do like working in a very abstract way i usually do this with paint and found it was a really great experience, The thing i like the most about this piece is the fact that throughout the mixed media piece people always find things like little faces and they then start to say "ooo it likes quite dark", I feel this is really exciting and this process is something i now really like experimenting with.

Hands
This is another A4 drawing of some hands. This piece was also part of the forgotten spaces of the body project. Here i am looking at the cracks in the hand as a forgotten space. Usually i find hands quite difficult to draw that's why i am really pleased with how the image turned out as i really like the composition that i have managed to achieve. My on going search for realism i feel is apparent here as i have in my eyes managed to achieve quite a realistic finish to the piece. I really like the tonal variety and am very pleased with how the drawing turned out.

The Story - Steve
This image is an A4 acrylic painting, which was produced when looking at homeless people. The reason i chose to look at the homeless was because of the photographer Lee Jeffries. Jeffries focuses his photography on people living in poverty and i found this really interesting. Therefore i took a few images myself to produce some paintings. I found this project really interesting because not only did i get to speak to these people to find out what had happened for them to end up on the streets but i managed to produce paintings with meaning. In this painting i was focusing on the mans lines on his face, similar to the drawing of my dad i had the saying in my head 'everyline shows a journey' and this is what i produced. In this painting the man looks tired but happy and i am very pleased with the outcome of this project.

Life Drawing
Life drawing is crucial with my work as i tend to focus on the human figure and life drawing helps me practice drawing the human body. This particular session we used pencil and was asked to overlay the figure in some way. I really enjoy life drawing classes as it is prolonged drawing session usually without breaks and i find this good because it allows me to focus on producing the best possible outcome. I am very pleased with the outcome of this piece as i feel i have been able to capture the figure accurately and had a lot of fun whilst doing so.  

Overlay 2
Here is another example of my overlaying technique used in my photography. In this image i took an image of the park and a close up of a leaf and overlayed the leaf onto my original image. I am really pleased with how it turned out because of the way the leaf fades in and seems to add texture to the grass area. I also like the way the light makes the image feel very summery. 

Elegance and Innocence
This is an A4 sized acrylic painting, the subject for this piece was my sister. In this painting my main focus was to capture my subject in a realistic view. My search fro realism is heavily inspired by the artist Alyssa Monks. Monks in a realistic painter who has chased realism all her life. She works on a very large scale and mainly works in oil paints, the thing i find most interesting about her work is the fact that she uses filters such as steam and water to distort the subject and blurs the lines between abstract and realism, Here i am trying to capture my sister in a realistic light and am very pleased with the outcome.

Texture
Here is an example of my abstract work. When i am not experimenting with portraiture or photography i really love to use lots of layered acrylic to create a sea of texture and colour. This particular piece is only A4 sized but i really love working on big canvases when producing this type of thing. I feel its a nice break from very controlled painting and is a way for me to let off steam and relax. I really like this piece because of the colours i have managed to produce when creating the piece of work.