In regards to where I have ended up within my final pieces for the exhibition, I am pleased with how they turned out. I have always wanted to delve into the topic of the environment and this has given me the chance to as well as being able to raise awareness of what is going on. When creating the Powerpoint to explain the theme and its issues, causes and solutions, I started to consider what we could make within one of our starter tasks which involved growing cress into a certain word or symbol or our choice. Me and Callum opted for garbage truck, we would get a plastic toy garbage truck and grow the cress in the shape of a trash spillage. Unfortunately we attempted this and it was not successful as the cress did not grow… at all! Whilst we were tying to grow the cress we visited Sutton park 3 times to collect items like leaves, twigs, flowers and acorns, as well as other unnatural items we found like bottle caps and a dog rope. This lead to experimentation with finding letters within nature as mentioned in the start of the project, as well as us creating the alphabet using everything we collected which we then used for creating slogans. This linked to the artist Stefan Segmeister who creates typography within nature, our attempt was not as successful as his artworks as we had limited time and limited resources. On these trips I was not particularly inspired by anything, I was trying to be creative with the task we were given and the items we found. I also collected items that I wanted to use for my banner, throughout the trip I was imagining how each item could be used within my banner, whether it was sticking it on or printing their pattern using paints. We then moved on to looking at different artist such as Morag Myerscough who focuses more on Pop art and vibrant colouring and then Bridget Riley who focuses on Op art. I experimented with the Op art style as well as Notan art more whilst implementing shapes of items I found within the park – feathers, leaves and acorns, this wasn’t because I didn’t like Morag’s work but more because I just don’t think it would work with what I briefly had planned for my banner. Within the first week or so of the project I had already created my banner. I ripped masking tape to create a natural torn effect to stick down on the banner for the text ‘EXTINCTION REBELLION’ and then used all the items we collected to print on the background. I used multiple colours of acrylic paint and painted each item and pressed it onto the paper – In different directions, colours and techniques. Finally I peeled off the masking tape to reveal the text underneath, this created a typography style which makes use of negative space. This was very successful, the printing was very effective with how it has a natural ‘messy’ effect of the environment. It looks a bit all over the place but you can see where different shaped leaves were using, and different techniques. The one problem I came across was that I put the words the wrong way around so it says ‘REBELLION EXTINCTION’, however this was solved as I cut horizontally between the words and stuck them at the top of two planks as shown in the EXHIBITION.
As my aim was to create piece that the audience would be aware of the link between the two I wanted to create a poster in the same style as my banner. However I wanted to do it differently. I used masking tape and ripped it as before and created the slogan we had previously brainstormed ‘ THERE IS NO PLANET B ‘. Unfortunately I did not have the items I had originally collected so I used the left over items the class collected and painted the page the same way as before. This did not work out as well as I thought it would, originally I was going to do a black and white design so the paper is black and the paint is white, but then I decided to opt for colourful as the white paint had some weird yellow ooze in it. Even if I had used just white paint, I don’t think it would’ve improved the visibility of the slogan.
This lead to my next two experiments, I wanted to create a poster similar to WWF poster I found of a polar bear where the background was melting onto his face. I wanted to create a message just within an image. I researched and collated different images of arctic wolves in different styles – painted, geometric and simply hand drawn in different patterns. So I attempted to draw and create a stencil for me to then paint onto card, which did not work. I then found a water colour image of a wolf which seemed simple at first but also did not work out. I did in fact fully create this poster using white acrylic paint on black card. I painted around a faint outline I drew but somewhere I misplaced the paint and the proportions and overall look of the painting did not look good. I tried to improve this by adding a slogan which made it look better but when looking back on photographs I was completely unhappy with this image. I knew that I could create something better so opted for a second experiment for this idea.
I found a simpler image of an arctic wolf and drew and created a stencil from it. I used the stencil on black card and painted the inner of the stencil white, I then used the bits I cut out and painted around this white on black card to create the opposite stencil image. This is artwork is shown HERE. I cut out each of the painted parts and stuck them onto other pieces of black card. This is because of a problem I faced where the paint spilled under the stencil and made it look not neat. I then cut out drips along the top of the one image which reveals the drips as a use of negative space. The drips I cut out were then stuck onto the other card, so it was the same image just slipped in colours.
This was a successful image and is also shown within the EXHIBITION
Even though the poster does not link to the banner I found style wise, they still link to the same cause. They are two completely opposite styles however I did want to experiment with different styles and techniques and that is what I did. Not every experiment was successful but my final pieces were.
The only real problems I came across were when attempting a new style, my first attempt at the notan art was not as effective as my second, and this was the same for my poster. However this allowed room for improvement, it allowed me to attempt the same art style using different techniques. I know what I am capable of and wanted to experiment more to reveal artwork that I am proud of and know that looks really good.
As much as I wanted to create pieces for the exhibition with the same style, I didn’t want them to be exactly the same so experimented with different card colour etc which was another problem I came across, but this lead to me to incorporating styles I had previously researched within this project like Notan art.
The majority of my work was hand rendered as the teachers wanted us to go back to basics, like painting, printing etc, so that’s what I did which was the perfect opportunity to get hands on with nature.
The most effective part of this project was my trial and error, I wanted to experiment with different styles and techniques I wouldn’t normally use. This lead to me combining painting with stencilling to create something better. My outcomes were a lot stronger and effective, and simply showed more of what I am capable of in comparison to my previous experiments.
For the exhibition, my banner was cut in half and stapled to two wooden pallets which shows the title of what the exhibition is about. My other two posters were blue tacked one above the other on the side of the wall to the left of this. The positioning of all my artworks work well with the exhibition on a whole and can be clearly seen.
Overall I am overly pleased with how my work as well as how the whole exhibition turned out. I believe I have represented the topic and message effectively within my work, as well as linking my banner to the overall park life theme we started with.
STARTER PROJECT 