Month: December 2020

Tara O’brien

From watching Tara’s talk I really like how she created her art around her own personal movement. From not getting enough representation of people with the same body shape as her own, as she described her self as a “fat lady” she wanted representation for all the other fat ladies who don’t see themselves in the media. However she talked upon not knowing her style, a problem I assume most new artists come into, personally I know I have not found my style. I was particularly interested in how she came to discover herself, she decided on making a portfolio on a style she had ventured in. I think the extremely smart part of this plan was that she used the platform that wasn’t representing her and people like her, to find herself. She asked the people of tumblr to send them their coping methods for how they handle their mental health. From this she made multiple drawings based on what people had said. I think this was really clever as she knew what she wanted her style to be after creating art of other people. The main thing that stuck out to me was what she spoke about in the end; she explained that she started to become worried in how her art looked to other people and other illustrators, yet she had to remind herself about what started her in the first place, creating art for people like her who were not represented, because she was not represented in the media and that she didn’t want others to feel like her, reminding her that the art work she was creating was not for other other people to judge, it was for her.

For this I decided to just edit the game battle ships.
I drew out my board on Procreate. The board above is magnetic, on this board you place a magnetic counter on the squares where your opposing players battle ships is.
rather than losing a ship completely with no possible way on getting back, I decided to edit the rules and allow for you to win back your ship. The way in which you could win your ship back is if you get rid of their ships in one go.
for example, if my opposing player has a ship on D4, D5 and D6, I will place a counter on these squares on my magnetic board, if I predict this all in one go without getting it wrong and saying D3 or going too many squares over, I will be able to get one of my ships back and place it back on my board, giving me an advantage.

For this project I am unfortunately experiencing  some difficulties, my whole household has COVID except for me, meaning I am having to isolate away from them in my room and do not have access to any objects, props, materials, or space to complete this project. I got in contact with Pauline and she advised me just to do research; please see her email attached.

Whistler’s Mother by James McNeill Whistler

This painting was one that caught my eye in terms of how well it would work for this project. The first thing that made me consider this image was the plain wall behind her, decorated with a simple framed photo and a curtain. In terms of recreating this, the background would not be difficult to recreate. I was then interested in how she was sitting. By looking side on, it allows for a very simple expression and pose, she isn’t doing anything with her face and creates a simply way of remastering a great painting. The painting itself is assumed to be the artists mother  which has been referred to in pop culture many times. The painting is very interesting. By having the image formed by many straight lines, it becomes interesting as to why the woman is in a reclined position and brings in many questions. The painting work appears very soft, and the contrast between light and dark is very subtle but allows the woman to stand out and become the main focus of the painted without being too obvious. Overall I really like the painting and appreciate how well this would work for the remastered project.

Madame X by John Singer Sargent

This painting I thought would work really well for the task due to the simplicity of the painting. Personally, I have the background and the dress in order to recreate this, meaning it would be easy for me to take on this task. The painting itself was create by John Singer Sargent who wanted to kick start his career with this painting. However the results of this painting were not all positive. The low-cut dress caused unease in society when the painting was released in an exhibition. The opinions were so strong it caused the model Virginie Gautreau to retire from society. Sargent repainted portions of her dress in order to fix some of the issues people had with the painting. I really like the painting, I am unsure if this is the one with touch ups to the dress or if it is the original however I like the evident contrast within the painting. The browns that surround the woman allow the dress to stand out, without putting it against a white background, while the paleness of the model allow her to take up most of the viewers attention and makes it a very strong piece and one that will be easy to remaster.

Gari Melchers

I felt like this painting would be really good to use for this project. The front on view of the woman only framing her from the waist up shows her to be the main focus of the painting. The background of this is plain, meaning when recreating it it would be simple as the woman takes up most of the frame. I really liked his painting as I feel like she is telling a story through her facial expression. Melchers created the image using really bright colours, giving her Rosie cheeks and a bright white wedding dress. Overall I think everything in this painting is useful for this task.

Peter Saville is said to be the most famous record cover designers. Everything that Saville works on “evinces a rare degree of rigour” as well as a lot of experimentation.

From looking at his work, they all show different techniques and shapes, making every one unique in their own way.  For example when looking the cover below, it shows a repeated pattern over the the front of the design. Despite the cover being somewhat plain, the vibrant colours used bring your attention to the artwork without being too in your face.

In contrast to this cover, another one that stands out to me shows the silhouette of two people and a lot of different colours that create the shape of their bodies. I think his work is really interesting in all aspects as it shows the same style but repeated in very different ways in how he uses colour, figures and positions on the album for it to look different.

Oliver Jeffers

Oliver Jeffers specialises in a range of different techniques, ranging from painting, collage, illustration, sculpture as well as performance. As an artist and story teller, the main themes that influence his work are curiosity and humour while additionally investigating the way a persons mind views and understands the world. Jeffers work interests me as his illustrations are extremely playful. They are also really simple and use basic forms and shapes to create his images. For example his cartoon of a person is made up of a circle, rectangles and lines, making the simplified cartoon really appealing to his audience of children as they do not need to take too long to figures out what the picture book is telling them and giving off the message without having to spend too much time describing it. Overall I think his work is very impressive in a subtle way as you do not realise how smart his work is.

Steve Simpson

Steve Simpson’s work covers many different aspects of design. Looking at packaging design, illustrated barcodes and characters. His style is inspired by the arts and craft movement, folk art and 50’s advertising. I am particularly interested in how versatile his art is. For example, when looking at the Galway stamp he created, I’m interested in looking at his thought process and seeing how he positions everything together and investigates his colour scheme. When looking at the stamp he created and then looking at it in his hand and recognising how small it actually is, it lets me appreciate it even more as his thought process and colour scheme reflect how much work went into it as it’s extremely vibrant and stands out. In contrast to the scale of this project, the KURO murals are a larger scale project that he done that also shows his thought process, taking colour and culture into consideration as the mural was for an Asian cuisine restaurant. Overall I think his work is really interesting and am impressed by how versatile he’s able to work.

For this task, we were told to create a character with a backstory, a look, a target audience etc.
My idea was to create a princess who doesn’t portray the typical characteristic of a Disney princess or follow the typical guideline of how the princesses are perceived.
Rather than a princess who lives in a beautiful castle and who is waiting on a prince to save here, I made a prince who castle would be deemed spooky that towers of a forest. She spends her time in the forest with the animals yet rather that attracting the typical birds and bunnies that a princess would be associated with, this princess has a snake sidekick and befriends the rats and bugs of the forest, those that would seem disgusting.

She is extremely smart and is able to make potions, giving her a somewhat witchy feel yet she shows off independence and happiness with being alone.

My target audience is children or any Disney lover which sometimes ranges right up until adulthood.

My first step in the process of developing this character was looking at who influenced it. I decided to take my influence from Disney Pixar princess who all pretty much have a similar look, face shape etc.

From this, I looked at clothes. I wanted my princess to be elegant. Her posture is straight and she walks with a sway in her hips, giving off confidence. Therefore I wanted a dress that would too give off the vibe of confidence.

I picked the dress I wanted and then needed a colour, rather than a bright colour seen in all this Disney princesses, I decided to go with a deep red.

Using the basic shapes of my inspiration princesses, I created the face of my princess. Rather than making a 3D drawing I decided just to block in the shadows and highlights of her face.

I then made the castle and despite it looking very mysterious, I wanted to create a nice pink sky as she is not an evil character.

This is the overall look of my princess.

 

Creating an album cover

final one I chose and made better using digital software

For this project we were asked to create an app that would encourage people to reduce their screen time and stay off their phones.

I decided to create an app that combines something a lot of people use nowadays- online shopping. The main idea came from an app called UNiDAYS, this app gives you discount in stores for being a student, requiring a student email to gain an access to an account. However, from personal research, many adults would also benefit from this sort of an app.

using the basis of this idea, my app would be targeted at teens- adults. It would work by going into the app, setting a timer for how long you would like to be off your phone and choosing a store which you would like your voucher to go towards. The vouchers range from mostly 10-20% off and each hour you spend off your phone gets you 10% off.

PROBLEMS WITH THIS CONCEPT

A main issue I thought off was people setting a timer and going to bed for the night, earning too much money for a time they would be off their phone anyway. To overcome this, I decided the maximum time the timer could be set to would be 1 hour. Meaning if you were to sleep the timer would automatically turn off and only earn 1 voucher. I also decided that the maximum amount you can use the app in a day is up to 3 hours and each time you use it, you have to wait an hour before you can use it again. This would overcome people taking advantage of the app and not take too much money away from the stores you are getting vouchers from.

I also decided that the app would automatically lock your phone, however I did take into consideration the fact that people may need to get on their phone in emergencies so I did give an option for unlocking the phone however it would lose people’s progress so they might stay off their phone longer and focus on something else to encourage them not to lose their progress and have to start again.

the name of the app is “MoneyMove” encouraging people to get up and move away from their phone while also getting money off.

App cover

Home Screen and “my profile screen”

 

lockscreen

Demas Rusli 

Rusli is a photographer that focuses on pushing the boundaries of photography by looking at things through different unique perspectives as well as the editing of his work. The photography that he specialises in is urban, architecture as well as aerial photography. I am particularly interested in his work as the perspective of how he looks at this is extremely interesting. Two images that appealed to me were the ones below where he is looking up and down. I implemented these into my work by looking at things how you wouldn’t normally. For example the light shade is taken from directly underneath, looking right at the light bulb rather than taking a photo of what the light shade actually looks like. Rusli’s influence in my work in terms of perspective was extremely useful as it helped me experiment more with my own photography and think of things how I wouldn’t normally.

Leon Macapagal

Macapagal is a photographer who focuses on many different forms, ranging from portraiture/ using a model as the subject focus of his photography, or using landscapes and different layouts to create his images. From looking at his work, I was really interested in how he uses negative space to be the main focus of his photographs. From looking at the images of his work below, the way he uses angles and light is also interesting. Using his influence I was able to find the places in my home that I wouldn’t normally look at or that doesn’t seem interesting and took photos of them as the main point of my photo; for example a gap between my piano and a desk and the gap between the door and door frame.

Tomasz Baranowski

When looking for photographers I was interested in this photograph when I seen it. The way it’s taken of the ground yet it’s focus is the reflection of the building above it is an extremely cleaver way to explore new perspectives. From looking at Baranowski’s work, he doesn’t have one main focus when taking his pictures as all his photographs are taken of different subject matters. His work inspired me to look at things in my house that are mirrored or even looking at objects reflections and adapting a new way to look at the ordinary.