Paper 2- Design

Paper 2 - Design

Brainstorm:

For Paper 2 I have chosen Textile design and I have decided to create a collage, I chose a collage because i wanted to use florals as a main part of my project. I had thought of making a dress in the initial thinking stage but then I had already attempted to make a dress in my old school and it had taken a rather longtime and also the end product was not as good as i hoped it would be, it was a hard and tedious process. I have chosen to do opposites in the theme of flowers, so one side will be funky and retro flowers while the other side is going to be more classic. I was thinking of using scrap fabric and newspaper to build the main base of the flower and then later on stitch onto it. The dotted lines on the drawing below represent the stitch lines and the colour shows what colour thread i will be using.

Inspiration:

Cartoon Vs Classic              

Cartoon

Classic

Theme:

For my theme i have decided for this project is opposite's, and it is based around florals, so i have chosen to do cartoon vs classic flowers. as the modern and old-fashioned flowers have different structures, they also both in contrast with each other.

Artist Research:

The two artist i am using for my inspiration is Cath Kidston and Georgia O'keeffe.

Cath Kidston:

Catherine Isabel Audrey kidston or more commonly known as cath kidston is an English fashion designer, business woman and author. Cath kidston was born on 6th November 1958 in andover in Hampshire.

Cath kidston is most famous for her floral prints, cath kidston was raised with three other siblings, she was educated at a number  of UK boarding schools before she moved to london at the age of 18. Cath kidston opened her first shop in london Notting hill in 1993. Where she sold hand embroidered tea towels and brightly renovated furniture.

Why I like her work?

I like her work because he layout is really simple and repetitive but its still effective and her choice of colour really suits the types of flowers she uses.

Why i chose her work?

The reason i chose cath kidston for my work is because it fits in in with my themes, opposites. Cath kidston makes cartoon like print, however he print is always repetitive which can be quite effective at times so i might also use this technique. I also chose her because i like her print and the colour she chooses compliments the background.

Georgia O'keeffe:

Georgia O'keeffe was an American artist. She was born near sun Prairie, Wisconsin. Her artwork was first recognised in New York 1916. Georgia O'keeffe had a unique idea of enlarging the flower and then interpreting it in her own way. When Georgia O'keeffe was doing these paintings she used bright colours. Also many of her paintings are closeups of a single blossom as she was very much into showing her viewers what her flowers looked like.

Georgia O'keeffe's work is very bright and colourful which makes it very lively and also more interesting to look at. I like the way she has a very different approach to flowers, because rather than looking at the flower as a whole, she decides to focus on enlarging the flower and looking at the centre. From some of her paintings, i can see that she paints a of flowers and doesn't just stick to one type of flower. This makes sure her paintings are not repetitive otherwise it tends to become boring. I also like her paintings because they are vibrant and colourful, and paintings such as this make me feel happy and confident about using the painting for my work.

Why chose her work?

I chose Georgia O'keeffe as one of main artists because i like the her flowers structured and she makes good use of the tone and colour on the flower. Though the structure of her flowers may look complex and detailed, when i tried sketching it for my final piece i realised that

Why i like her work?

I like Georgia O'keeffe's work because it is very delicate and the choice of colours and contrast is very well thought out it also suits her style of work, because she generally tends to choose flowers and then zoom into them so she can get the intricate detail of the flower which makes it more interesting to look at. Georgia O'keeffe also inspects the change in tone of the colour, she then shows this in her work and therefore makes it look more effective.

Media Experimentation: 

 So for my media experimentation I was thinking of using scrap pieces of fabric as the main base of the flower but then later I realised that it wont be that easy because each piece of scrap fabric will have to be individually sowed together and that would take a longtime, also the art studio doesn't provide any of the essential equipment so i decided not to use that idea, due to the fact it would just take to long.

 Instead I chose newspaper for the base of the flower, first i took several sheets of newspaper and scrunched them up together to create a small paper ball, after this i celotaped parts of the paper ball just to secure it in place. Later on i took another sheet of newspaper and made it into a smaller ball and attached it to the larger paper ball using celotape. I then had to repeat this step several times till it looked somewhat like a flower.  I then needed thread which i could sew through the newspaper with, I decided that if i used thread it wouldn't be particularly prominent and this was the main purpose of the thread so instead i used wool. The colour of the wool was white and i didn't want that colour so i had to dye the thread a different colour.

Dying the thread:

First of all i cut the wool to the length i acquired and then placed it into a beaker and added purple water colour concentration into it, i filled it till i could no longer see the wool and then i waited for 2 minutes to let the colour absorb into the wool.

Then i lifted the wool out of the concentration and squeezed out the excess colour, there was a lot of excess concentration left in the beaker so i poured that back into the bottle. Afterwards, I dabbed off the wet watercolour concentration off the wool because it would affect the material which I was going to use as a base, later i started cutting slits in the newspaper around the edge of the flower and around the edge circle

 I had to use the pen knife because this was the most efficient tool to make cuts in the newspaper I then started threading in the purple coloured wool.

 This was when I encountered my first problem and this was that it was very hard to thread the wool through the newspaper because the wool was very flimsy and i found it hard to push the wool through so this was when i came up with my idea of wounding celotape around one end of the wool to make it firmer and therefore easier to thread through the newspaper. 

But while I was doing this i saw that the colour of the wool was getting absorbed into the newspaper making it soggy and also making it ripped. This was when i had to re-think my plan. So rather than using newspaper i decided on using card paper,

My process:

So i started by drawing a flower inspired by Cath Kidston, it was a cartoon style, this was because one side was going to cartoon and the other side was going to be classic. I still used the same purple dyed wool as shown below. I then made slits in the paper and afterwards i threaded it through, and gave the flower an outline using a black marker. This was my first flower complete.

I then started on my second flower which was going to have a slightly different layout, rather than having the petals rounded this flower was going to have pointed petals, but still have that retro look. 

 

 I then then went over it with coloured markers. Then repeated the process of cutting slits into the flower and leaving an equal space between each one, to give it a neater finish. In the third picture I have dyed two pieces of wool one after another because i realised my fingers turned purple during my media experimentations so i decided if i dye the wool at the same time i could get it over and done with in one shot. But I will be using the yellow wool for this flower as the centre of this flower is already red and this would clash with the red wool.

This is showing the stitching through the card paper. Before i started i needed to tie a knot at one end of the string to make sure it would be secure.

This just shows the slits which i created zoomed in. I cut out leaves to put around the leaves and went over the outline in dark green. I just chose to do the outline because it looked more effective this way and also it wouldn't waste the ink.

This is the third and final retro/cartoon flower.  The third flower pattern is also based on one of cath kidston's designs, I have used the solid circle which is in yellow and the small red dots these are two contrasting colours which makes both of them stand out against the dotted turquoise blue. The crimson is bright and eye catching which is why i chose this colour. Unfortunately the wool ended up on the top so i had to celotape it and now it doesn't look as professional but i wouldn't have been able to change that anyway because thats how the wool ended up. But since the tape is transparent it doesn't really make that much of a difference.

This is one of my classic flowers which i drew, I looked at Georgia O'keeffe and i sort of adapted my style because when i tried drawing one of the detailed intricate flowers it didn't turn out very well and i didn't want to ruin my whole board just because i couldn't draw one flower so i drew a simplified version, i did the same thing for the flower below.

This flower is more inspired by a sunflower, although Georgia O'keeffe hasn't drawn any sunflower's i still thought this would be regarded as a classic flower and so went ahead with the plan.

This is a zig-zag pattern which is going across the board and either side has a line going on either side of it and I decided to colour it black because it was a bold colour which would clearly point out the difference between the cartoon and the classic flowers

This is the other side of all the flowers showing that I used PVA glue to stick it onto the card.

My Final Piece:

This is my Final piece Completed. I added the string to it for an effect and it also meant that my classic section wasnt left blank or empty.

My Observational Drawings

Architectural Observations:

For my Observational drawings i started by drawing an architectural building, and as this was an observation it had to be form something in real life. I found it particularly difficult to get the angles correct of the buildings because the buildings were set on a slope and it was hard to get the perspective and the angle correct.As the buildings were two stories high it was a bit tough to achieve the right angles for the second floor. We did this for several lessons and as we were sitting outside every time we came to carry on drawing the reflection of the sun would change on the buildings. However I found it a new challenge to draw buildings and i learnt that it is not just about getting the shape correct but also the angles as this is one of the most important factors. 

I was intending to draw two buildings however that didn't work out because i put too much detail into the first one and then i had to carry on with that one so i was unable to start the second building.

Still Life Drawings:

For my still life i started off by drawing a can of drink and also my purse. I thought this would be easier then the buildings from the angles point of view, however I was mistaken and the angles were more harder than i expected because once i started off drawing the can i realised getting the top part of was particularly hard because the oval was long but it had a small diameter. Then when i moved onto drawing the purse I faced new challenges, due to the fact that the purse was leaning against the can which created new angles. Although the angles

Artist Research

Artist Research

Edward Wadsworth

Edward Alexander Wadsworth is an english artist and he is more famous for his close association with vortism. He often paints in tempera, coastal views, abstracts, portraits and still-life, he also engraves on wood and copper. In WW1 he designed dazzle camouflage for the royal navy and after the war he continued to paint nautical themes. I particularly like the painting below called "The beach margin" because it looks unusual and it is fantasised. The picture also looks like its on a beach and the objects have fallen out of the sky and landed in these random postions in the sand.  The beach looks like it is on a lonely island in the middle of nowhere, it looks abandoned and they random objects scattered around the sand look like shipwrecked soliders. 

This painting has a calm and quiet mood, there is no sign of human activity anywhere on this lonely island, although ships can be seen in the far distance, we cannot be sure that there will be life there. It makes me feel like i have gone back to being a toddler, and i am staring at the odd shaped toys hanging above me.  From the shadows on the sand the we can understand that it is quite sunny and there is hardly any movement happening, the still peaceful sea also supports my view.

The colours in the painting are very bold and stand out, this makes me feel like I am a toddler because when you are small big block colours are the only ones we tend to differentiate. The use of blending in the sky is effective in making the sky look calm because at the top of the page a darker blue has been used but as you look further down the page it is clear to see that the shade of blue becomes lighter emphasising the fact it is a serene painting.

The Beach Margin

Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol was born on August 6th 1928 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania U.S and he died February 22 1987 (age 58) in New York City, New York U.S. He is a american artist, he is well known for his pop art pieces. Andy Warhol uses a variety of media such as printmaking, painting, cinema, photography and silk screening.

I like Andy Warhol's work because he takes everyday objects such as soup cans and the dollar sign in this case, and makes them into pop art work, it also gives the object some sort of significance. I like this  painting is because has given each dollar sign a new personality and no two of the signs look the same which give the painting its originality and uniqueness. The combination of colours also works very well together as they contrast with each other which makes it more a effective as the colours used for pop art are bright and vibrant so its more eye-catching. I dont think the colour combination is particularly random because both the colours compliment each other. The mood of this painting is very happy and cheerful due to the fact he has used bright colours and mostly in pop-art dull colours such as black and grey are not used. 

Mickey mouse by Andy Warhol

Mickey mouse is a famous and well known cartoon all over the world, so by using this cartoon in his work he is going to get a lot of viewers from all ages looking at his painting. However, through my research on Andy Warhol I found out that he uses this layout quite often, repeating the same picture multiple times this can be very effective especially in this case because the pink and the orange are very vibrant and the pale blue compliments nicely with them. The black outline of Mickey mouse contrasts well with these pastel colours. The pastel colours which have been used are in blocks in the background of the painting. This painting has a happy childish feel due to the fact Mickey mouse a famous cartoon character has been used. The painting has a cheerful charm about it and brings a smile when you look at it.

3D Sculpture

For my 3D sculpture I got inspiration from of a variety of themes, such as Nature, music, and England.

For my nature theme I chose to be inspired by the different types of pebbles and the formation of them, and i found it interesting to draw them.For the music theme I was inspired by the two songs, Candy by Robbie Williams and the second song was Diamond by Rihanna. The reason I was inspired by the song candy was because it was really happy and I also wanted to do something that was related to food.

Procedure:

I finally settled to sculpt candy canes, although i was inspired by Claes Oldenburg who was a pop art artist, but i decided to still use the actual colours because it would be more recognisable that way, this was also one of the main purposes of the task. First of all i chose the colours i was going to use, these were red and white. I then took the red clay and started moulding it, just to get into the feel of the clay, from there i started making it into a thick medium sized roll which i would use for the base of my candy cane. Once this was finished, I then took one end and bend it into an arch shape. After this i took the white clay and repeated the first stage which involved moulding it and from there i rolled into a long thin roll, when it started to get thinner i found it hard to keep it the same consistency throughout the roll and at one point i also thought it would break but fortunately this didn't happen. From here i took the end of the white roll and carefully wound it round the red roll to create the typical candy cane effect. I then repeated this whole process again because i wanted to make two candy canes.

Claes OldenBurg

Claes Oldenburg is an American Sculptor and he is best known for his public art installations which feature large replicas of everyday objects. Claes Oldenburg aslo makes these replicas very abstract and vibrant which could convey the fact that he is inspired by pop art.