research – Claire Smyth’s blog

January 24, 2021smyth-c102 No Comments

TADF : Textile Art, Design & Fashion Research, The History of Textiles, Chosen Theme, Mood Boards & Mixed Media Found Objects

Claire Smyth AAD012 Exploring Studio Practice : TADF Brief / Prep Work – including both contextual research based upon textiles, the history of textiles, as well as both digital (inspirational images taken from Pinterest) and physical mood boards (mixed media materials and found objects) and colour scheme based upon the chosen theme and research of nature, displaying a detail understanding and my personal interpretation of the tittle / subject area etc.

https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/contemporary-textile-art-artists

Within the contained creative industry regarding the subject area of TADF : Textile Art, Design and Fashion, textile geometry is in fact called / classified as the creative and technical process by which the materials of thread or yarn fibres etc are precisely woven together or interlaced to form a flexible, functional and decorative cloth or fabric that can then be subsequently printed upon or otherwise adorned. Whereas / however, the overall subject of textile design surrounding this, can in which be further broken down and classified into three strands of major disciplines, including printed textile design, woven textile design and mixed media textile design, where each of which tend to utilise different contained methods to produce a surface ornamented fabric for variable uses and markets, as especially within society, aspects of textile designed as a continued practice has gone into being evolved to become an / the industry to other disciplines such as fashion, interior design and fine arts. In great relevance, textile design can in which also be described and seen as the a / the contained creative skills that includes fashion design, carpet manufacturing and / or any other cloth-related field, as for example, the likes of clothing, carpets, drapes, towels and rugs etc are all in fact functional products resulting from aspects of textile design practices / techniques. Within the fashion industry, textile designer will in which have the ability to inspire collections, trends and styles, as a result / through the work of textile designers / artists etc within the subject area of TADF, they tend to marry a creative vision of what a finished textile will look like, by considering a deep understanding of the technical aspects of production and the properties of fibre, yarn and dyes etc.

For thousands of years, people have been practicing the craft of designing or creating textiles, as a result of first emerging from a / the necessity to fill basic needs, different cultures around the world took it to another level by developing the contained methods of making artistic, creative and beautiful cloth that laid the basis of what we refer to as and call textile art, which includes the practice that involves weaving, knitting, pressing or knotting together individual pieces of natural and artificial fibres, as a result of the textile making tradition spanning global cultures as one of the earliest human technologies. However, apart from providing shelter and warmth or holding goods, textiles has also served as decorative purposes, holding an important place in arts and crafts of various cultures around the world.

Before the 19^th Century, all yarn, thread and cloth where in fact made by hand, and to where it took a great deal of time and effort to gather fibres from plants or animals to make into yarn, in which the Industrial Revolution brought a contained revolution of textiles technology, where the methods and materials used to make them has expanded enormously. For example, as now within the 20^th Century, artists are beginning to use textiles throughout / within a range of new developed contexts, fabric and string as a medium to be known to have provided almost infinite possibilities throughout both modern and contemporary artistic practices.

Ever since the 1980s to now, textile art has continued to develop new forms and language involving many creatives along the way, as through being influenced by postmodernist ideas, the likes of textile and fibre work has become more and more conceptual. This is because various creatives are now experimenting with newer, modernised, developed and a wider range of techniques, materials and concepts, completely pushing the limits of the contained medium, especially as these reborn practices such as embroidery art, weaving, quilting, crochet and many others, have in which immensely gone on to place a new focus on the work that tends to confront social and political issues such as gender feminism, domesticity, women’s work and identity politics. Yet not all fibre artists are feminists are even concerned with the political and social connotations of fabric arts, they simply just tend to employ textiles and threads as much more of / as a painting and sculptural material.

Today, textile contemporary pieces tend to explore a variety of textile and fibre practices and techniques that provide a myriad of possibilities. For examples, the Portuguese artist of Joana Vasconcelos frequently incorporates crafts including the likes of and such as knitting and crochet into her art to explore ideas of womanhood, nationality and family. Through using embroidery, yarn and wool, the Peruvian artist Ana Teresa Barboza creates landscapes and various other imagery that exist between tapestry and sculpture, by mimicking the flow of waves or grass, her pieces seem to tumble its embroidery hoop. Exploring the assertive manifestations of the interplay between public and private ways of being, the Korean American artist Mimi Jung creates constructions and woven wall pieces, through in which by approaching the modern discourse of the self through the practice of weaving, she explores the personal solitude as a fragile state. The Berlin-based artist Nike Schroeder creates stunning embroidered illustrations, both intricately composed, as well as much more abstract works that involve threads, emulating the appearance of dripping paint. Through / as a result of exploring within her practices, the idealised beauty of the female form, Chinese artist Lin Tianmiao tends to explore the relationships between tradition and modernisation, through installations and textile works, in which with her works, she incorporates a wide range of materials and objects typically associated with women.

Throughout the subject area of Textile Art, Design and Fashion (TADF) there are in which a wide range of key aspects to consider when especially implementing pieces of work / designs especially through working with the likes of both fabric and mixed media to complete a project / mood board etc in which these terms / reference can include – abstract / abstraction, texture, repeat pattern, the layering of fabric and creating a motif.

Abstract art is in which a contained type of art that does not attempt to represent an accurate depiction of a visual reality, but instead uses the likes of shapes, colours, forms and gestural marks to achieve its effect.

Aspects of texture tends to hugely constitute as an important chapter into fashion design as it can in which greatly affect the contained overall look of a garment and its feel / lucidity, through influencing the appearance of the person wearing it. The term texture as a whole, can in which continue to be simplistically described as the physical feeling of something either smooth, rough, fuzzy, slimy and lots of contained textures in between. Within textiles, textures are / is basically connected to the weave of the fabric, in which sometimes we can texturize the fabric by adding the likes of stitched details, pin tucks and embellishments etc. Each piece of fabric has its own individual character and charm, meaning when creating a piece of work, it is important that a wide choice of textures / fabrics are mixed and designed to fit the silhouette of our body to result in an exquisite fashion, as before we evaluate the contained myriad charms of different types of fabric, it is necessary to understand the importance’s surrounding / of texture.

A repeat pattern is in which the repetition of lines, shapes, tones, colours, textures and forms, to where the likes of textile and print deign can take on many forms, as in which one of the most common is repeating patterns, also being called and referred to as a seamless design. In its simplest form, a repeat pattern can be registered as a contained motif that can / has the opportunity to be repeated vertically and horizontally, without a break in the design. The repetition of patterns can more or less be seen in everything from leggings to wallpaper, where in which the main key factor to consider when designing into this format is to truly consider how your design will end up looking once repeated out, and especially if the fabric will be cut into multiple small pieces, the seam may not be an issue, but in larger formats, hiding the seam creates a much more fluid design. Within the contained overview of working in textiles, there are in which four different types of pattern repeats that’s include: full drop, half drop, mirror and continuous. A full drop repat is the most simple of repeats, as it is created through multiplying a / the motif along the same line both horizontally and vertically. A half drop repeat is often desired to break up the uniformed look that a full drop repeat can often give, through setting your motif horizontally and then aligning the top of the second motif to the centre of the first motif. A mirror repeat can provide quite an interesting look if done right, as by depending on the motif, you can sometimes end up with odd bits that have mirrored, creating a new object looking a little out of place. However, to successfully create a mirror repeat, you will duplicate your motif horizontally and then select the mirror option in your design programme through the sewing machine. A continuous repeat is possibly the most difficult, though it can be the best looking for any motif, in which to create a continuous repeat, you start by designating an area such as a perfect square, then placing it so that it overlaps one edge of the square, sitting outside of it, to where you would duplicate this motif and place it in the exact same position on the opposite side of the square.

Layering fabric / clothing is in which a term describing an appropriate way of dressing using many garments that are worn on top of each other, where of the layers having different, largely non-overlapping function, through as well using more or fewer layers, or replacing one layer but not others, allowing for flexible clothing to match the needs of each situation. The contained layering of colour and pattern, also known as reverse applique, involves stacking cloth, stitching to form a design, then slashing or cutting way to expose the beneath piece or parts of cloth / fabric, resembling the contrasting fabrics underneath.

A motif is in which a recurring fragment, theme or pattern that appears within a work of art. For example, towards the textile’s arts, a motif (also called a block or square) is in which a smaller fragmented element in a much larger work, as within the likes of knitting and crochet, motifs are then made one at a time and joined together to create larger works such as afghan blankets or shawls.

This history of TADF Textile Art, Design and Fashion :

Textile art is in which to me personally and from secondary source research something that is particularly special and intriguing as it maintains the ability to stand out from other art forms, such as painting, photography or sculpture etc, because they are able to appropriately manage to walk that line between both practicality and beauty. It can be perhaps for this reason that in fact all contained aspects of textile art tend to often find itself on the cutting edge of human interaction, despite sometimes facing a degree of snobbery from elsewhere in the art world. From the use of clothing to denote social status to the way in which fabric, folklore and storytelling are so intrinsically linked, as within society, both subjects of textiles and creativity have always gone hand in hand. In addition, the contained delicate nature of fabric generally means that numerous early examples of textiles are quite rare, where in which and due to having samples of clothing going back as far as ancient Egypt, but it is really during the developments of the medieval period that we start to see much more decorative and advanced textiles, as generally both weaving and embroidery where techniques commonly used and applied to create objects of great beauty and great sense during that era and now within today’s society etc.

Throughout the creative industry, textile art can be regarded as having the ability to establish and demonstrate a global phenomenon, to where in which the / its traditional art or craft barriers are being upended by both artists as collectors alike, as textile art especially (often termed fibre art in the USA where artists in the 1960s and 70s were highly influential in driving its acceptance) which can include weaving, crochet, embroidery, loose threads, carpets, hand and machine stitch and more etc, is at the fore front of What to Collect Now. Establishments within the contained subject areas / topics of architecture, fashion, design and contemporary art continue to widely take note and comment upon the advancement of textile art, its increasing prevalence in major exhibitions and museums since the 1960s and its particular prominence in recent years. In great relevance, it is not the first time in human history that textile art has been highly sought after, but it has a turbulent history of acceptance and denial, as while it has existed for millennia, it has not always been held in such high esteem by the art establishment.

Anthropologists over the years tend to estimate that people have been creating and decorating textiles, initially clothes and carpets for warmth, for around 100,00-500,000 years, in which from these humble beginnings where plant and animal fibres would have been spun or twisted together to make functional objects, to where the journey tends to become aligned with our political history etc. Within the 14^th-17^th centuries in Europe, its time period saw the execution of wealthy patrons commissioning tapestries of a time when tapestry was often the costliest and most prestigious item in both Medieval and Renaissance homes. Medieval English embroidery, commonly known and referred to as Opus Anglicanism was prized around the world for its skill / artistry and was made and constructed / executed by both men and women, signifying the principle of luxury Medieval Europe, as simultaneously, in / towards the Middle East they went about making beautifully crafted rugs using symbols and complex designs. The Industrial Revolution (1760-1820), being associated with the burgeoning of affordable fabrics and machine production saw the plethora of textiles as functional objects, where stitching remained associated with the manual work of mainly women. During this period, in 1968, the Royal Academy of Art London was officially founded, where then eighteen months later it ruled that needlework was not permitted to be shown in the Academy, due to being seen as a damning indictment that textiles where in fact not at the time regarded as high art, undeniably consolidating the prejudice and gender politics of this judgement. As a result, during this period, textile art fell from favour.

After the years following the Second World War, this era saw the developing start of textile art to meet its aesthetic and political potential. Through being used for political purposes and as a means of communication and expression, artists started to work with textiles in ways never previously seen, to where in which visionary creatives moved beyond weaving, and / to begin knotting, twining, plaiting, coiling, pleating, lashing and interlacing, starting to explore the 3D potential of textiles and now entering the main domain of scholarly writings and academia. By incorporating emotion, message and meaning into the artwork, artists elevated the status of their work, announcing that it had become high art once again, through being the / a time when the quality of idea and execution was what mattered, but not the fabric used. Overall, textile art is and can be immensely regarded / seen as a highly powerful tool for communication purposes, which defies the level of boundaries, positively contributing to the democratisation within the art and craft revolution.

Commonly / generally championed by women artists in and throughout the first half of the continued 21^stcentury, with two important figures being Annie Albers and Sheila Hicks, textile art is territory now occupied by both men and women, leading to the emergence of some contemporary names including El Anatsui, Chris Offili and Damien Hirst. Prominent names who have become specialists in textile art include the likes of Alice Kettle (UK), Anne Wilson (USA) and Hiroyuki Shindo (Japan). Textile art has been struggling in popularity with both relevant collectors and artists since the 1960s. An important global event was in which the Tapestry Biennale in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1962. However / today, more and more new younger artists are becoming much more interested and engaged in the process of both expression and experimentation, and even the choice of material is of great significance, due to not being confined by any outmoded prejudice, especially as contemporary artists are more willing to push the set medium to its limits, along with artists in general continuing to push the boundaries of what is textiles and how textiles can be art etc.

In further relation to the contained subject area of textiles, its earlier suppression always allows it to be new, and therefore exciting, in which as it has been previously marginalised historically, it now has the given chance and opportunity to be seen and registered as both current and original. Within the industry, there is not been much of a recent marginalised abundance of considered textile art and with the time it takes to produce, neither is there an oversupply, however, by registering this form of artistic expression to allow the likes of designers, architects and artists to freely incorporate textile art in the spaces of today through recognising and acknowledging a varied array of unprecedented ways. Textile art is now more than ever commonly hung and placed within homes with the likes of fine art collections, as nowadays museums are continuing to focus upon and acquire a much wider range of textile works for their permanent collections. For example, Southampton City Art Gallery and as well as the Museum Partner of London Art Fair 2020, due to having recently acquired Odyssey, a seminal work by Alice Kettle. Alice Kettle is in which one of a number of selected artists showing as part of Threading Forms, a curated section at London Art Fair 2020, in an attempt to effectively and adequately bring to the fore a selection of galleries and artists who are both embracing the potential and are challenging the limitations of thread in contemporary art forms, techniques and styles. The section of the Fair will in fact solely aim to effectively / beneficially capture the true essence and breadth of different artists working within and towards textiles and the / it’s positive growing appreciation of the medium as a beautiful and collectable art form. As a whole and in a time of high consumerism and production, with the immediacy of digital aspects, the painstaking handmade object has become much more of a luxury due to and as a result of millennials being more likely to demand experiences not things, through savouring the experience of feeling a textile object and contemplate its creation. In correlation, the varied contained aspects surrounding the overall subject of textiles, it is / can be more common than ever to be a part or all our lives, as we all experience textiles every day, both being familiar to it and for essential purposes, as especially from continuing to recognise that taking the time to stitch or weave is actually quite a comforting counterbalance to our rushed lives, contributing towards effectively soothing our frenzied minds etc.

https://candidastevens.com/blog/45/

https://www.thurmanovich.com/gallery-collections-blog//on-the-cutting-edge-a-history-of-textile-art

Through acknowledging and carrying out an array of secondary source research in great amounts of detail, I am know fully aware that within the contained creative industry regarding the subject area of TADF : Textile Art, Design and Fashion can / is in which classified, recognised and described as the creative and technical process by which the materials of thread or yarn fibres etc are precisely woven together or interlaced to form a flexible, functionable and decorative cloth or fabric that can then be subsequently printed upon or otherwise adorned. To where within todays rising society and since the 1980s, contemporary textiles has immensely emerged as an innovative area of practice for artists, designers and makers, testing the boundaries of more traditional areas of art practice by continuing to develop new forms and language involving many creatives along the way, as through being influenced by postmodernist ideas, the likes of textile and fibre work has become more and more conceptual in which as a result I have preceded with the desire and interests to select TADF as my major and first / main specialised subject area.

To me personally, the ability to create, design and produce pieces of artwork using and experimenting with a wide array of contained techniques and methods such as sewing, weaving, drawing and mixed media (patterns / textures etc) by acknowledging many influences and / or confronting aspects of social and political controversial topics and styles of inspiration (the punk era / subculture within the 1980s and gender feminism etc), through establishing / working with a broad variety of materials and techniques, as well as being able to enjoy and put my all into the subject area and every task given so far with the ability to consider aspects of the environment when working through recognising the ability and opportunity to recycle, reutilise and experiment with the overall of purpose of materials (found materials / scrap fabric etc) by then contributing to lowering, establishing and recognising the harmful effects of fast fashion and its implications towards society and the fashion industry by considering the desire to work much more ethically, which as a whole continues to truly inspire and engage me both creatively and artistly as an aspiring artist / designer.

Throughout the continued work created with the TADF industry / today’s society and towards my overall passions and interests within the subject as a whole, I have begun to highly appreciate and consider the work and pieces created by various artists and designers to where I have been immensely inspired by the work of fashion designer and artist of Lucinda Graham and Kirsty Whitlock as a result of their overall creative mixed media textiles and techniques towards numerous influential aspects of promoting fast faction and recognising many political issues and controversial news headlines, articles and events within society through cleverly analysing their / societies continued impacts based upon creating textiles pieces of work. As a whole, textiles (TADF : Textile Art, Design and Fashion) have gone onto play major roles in both the continued social, economic and religious lives to where it is a major component of material culture that can be viewed as the products of technology, as cultural symbols, as works of art / installations or as items of trade through registering as a fundamental human activity expressing symbolically much of what is valuable in any culture, as in which through regarding its importance within society, the contained TADF industry can go onto provide a source of livelihood to the likes of farmers, cotton boll pluckers and workers engaged in ginning, spinning, weaving, dyeing, designing, packaging tailoring and sewing.

AAD012 TADF Brief – theme / interpretation / research / mood boards :

As a result of my contained research, history and understanding of the subject of textiles (TADF), including my major influences, positives and major interests into the subject area, to then appropriately begin the set workshops, tasks, briefs and assignments towards / for AAD012 we were in which instructed to carrying out a series of research surrounding its subject area to then be given the brief and preparation to choose a tittle or word (these included nature, neon, neutral, naked, number and non-binary) to base and theme your artwork upon, through showing a clear understanding of it and what topics within it are seen as very influential to you with the aim of displaying a detailed write up around the chosen theme (your interpretation of it), including a concise visual mood board containing a colour palette of 4 or less chosen colours including black and white, considering and including relative and appropriate images, photographs, postcards, colour swatches, found objects, materials, papers, clippings, fabrics and mixed media items etc in correlation with your chosen theme / subject and colour scheme to overall suggest your interpretation of the theme that will in which reflect the set direction towards and for the two week TADF project in order to keep an attained focus of ideas etc. After reading through and analysing the brief in great amounts of detail I have now in which selected and chosen the word / theme of nature with the contained colour scheme of blue (navy / petrol blue), green (sage / olive green), brown / nudes / stone, grey, including the colours of both black and white. In great relevance to both aspects of nature and textiles / textile art, through creating textile art and being inspired by nature, you can approach it in so many different ways and styles to show why the natural world and all its gifts to mankind etc have endured as source material, as there can be no limit to the possibilities of how nature can be harnessed to create both original and breath-taking art. As a whole, one of the things that especially fascinates me about / around the many contained nature artwork, inspiration and textile artists is their ability to find inspiration in the seemingly mundane or unremarkable aspects of life, yet creating something so beautiful, fresh, unique and powerful, but on the other hand, nature is certainly not a mundane subject matter, but it is definitely well-trodden in the world of art.

In addition / furthermore, to me the contained theme and subject of nature is just so broad and intriguing to investigate, which as a result, straight away it was the main / first tittles that I was immensely drawn into. For example, various themes, ideas and impacts upon nature have highly intrigued me and immensely gained my interest, such as the likes of seeing and regarding nature as the beauty in world unknown through recognising aspects of nature and our environment as something that is truly beautiful for its handmade aspects, including frost, birds eye views, forests, trees, plants and the natural deterioration of nature, as well as throughout and when looking through Pinterest in regards to nature and our environments / surroundings, I have become highly passionate and engaged towards aspects of pollution, its affects upon nature and how we as society need to make ourselves aware of these issues (littering / gas fumes etc), incorporating ways of improving it, enhancing the overall levels and uses of sustainability, as especially for example, the contained subject area of pollution is in fact regarded as the introduction of harmful materials, known as pollutants being brought into the environment, to where pollutants can be natural, such as volcanic ash, as well as being created by human activity, such as trash or runoff, contributing to the overall damage towards the contained quality of air, water and land.

As I have now chosen the theme / tittle of nature with the colour scheme of blue (navy / petrol blue), green (sage / olive green), brown / nudes / stone, grey, including both black and white, to sufficiently complete and understand the given preparation towards the AAD012 TADF two week project, I have went onto produce a sufficient mood board both digital (images / inspiration collated from Pinterest) and physical (using the likes of relevant mixed media materials and found objects etc) as well as the displayment of relevant and appropriate research overview upon it. To fulfil this, I created a wide range of mood boards, images of inspiration and my own composition in relation to my chosen theme of nature, its selected colour palette and what aspects and subject areas within it that most intrigue and interest me. As a result, some of the found objects, items, mixed media materials, posters and secondary source web / Pinterest images included the likes of: landscapes, roads, mixed media nature materials, windows, aspects of weather, environments with pollution, nature embroidery, garments / items of clothing, tea towels, different textile materials / fabric, building sites, rust, plants / leaves / dirt / moss / logs, deteriorating foundations / rubble, buildings / windows / bricks / cobbles, branches, barbed wire fences, egg boxes, brown envelopes, plastic forms, raffle tickets, negative photo films, newspaper / telephone book pages, label / gift tags and tracing paper etc :

January 24, 2021smyth-c102 No Comments

AAD011 : Contextual Research and Understanding Thematic Task Review (800-1000 words)

Claire Smyth AAD011 Contextual Research and Understanding : Thematic Task Review

Please below find my relevant AAD011 write up containing the task regarding the Thematic Task Review :

AAD011 Thematic Task Review

AAD011 (84151) Contextual Research and Understanding: Thematic Task Review (800-1000 words) :

As a part of the beginning within the AAD011 (84151) : Contextual Research and Understanding, we were in which given the first set task, review and essay between 800 to 1000 words (including relevant references / sources) to sufficiently complete a Thematic Task Review surrounding a range of selected themes, resulting in choosing an efficient / appropriate image or post card in relation to your theme and discipline choices (textiles and fine art painting) to then adequately produce an efficient write up of up findings and research etc using aspects of critical thinking and analysis based upon the chosen image and current theme. As a result, these set themes will include Sustainability, Identity, Innovation, Communication, Gender and Place.

Sustainability :

Sustainable fashion involves brands that have none or minimal contributions towards landfills, do not pollute the planet in their production process, use organic reusable raw materials or upcycled waste (reducing their impact on nature) and put their people above profits. However, through making reference to this illustrative image by Reanna Kahandawala (Medium.com, 2020) surrounding textiles, fast fashion and pollution, it depicts a model displaying luxurious chemicalised fabrics, where its background visually implements the critical impacts surrounding todays developing environments in an attempt to recognise and alter the behaviours among fast fashion, as to date, the fashion industry’s environmental impacts supersedes of being one of the biggest polluters in world, second to the oil industry.

This image to me is much more broader from its first glance, it continues to portray a strong role in positively highlighting these negative effects of fast fashion as more textile industries are contributing to these environmental factors, continuously recognising within society that we need to enhance recycling, establishing the ability to reuse items of clothing for wider purposes, as we are all more than guilty of not caring where our clothes come from, but in a time when Planet Earth’s prognosis is gloomier than ever, it’s quite questionable if we can afford not to care anymore (Medium.com, 2020).

Identity :

Sometimes I ask myself, how does the implications of life events effect our identity, considering its potential of being challenged.

Through specialising in documentation portraits being referred to as ‘biological DNA`, the highly meticulous work of Michael Mapes resides from collecting/layering hundreds of photographs and diligently gathering identified DNA samples (including anything from genealogical information, personal statistics, cosmetic samples, fingernail clippings, handwriting samples and hair strands etc), signifying entomological, biological and forensic science, including the method of deconstructing original subjects both literally and figuratively, overall challenging the way in which scientific information is assimilated into culture, conveying the inherent tension between methodological objectivity and psychological subjectivity towards identity (OCULA, 2015).

Published for The New York Times (referencing the 1970s), this image shows the great acknowledgement surrounding the contained losses/impacts towards identity, in relevance to sexual assault (rape and abuse) among Martha Goddard, where she later began to lead a campaign to treat sexual assault as a crime that could be investigated, rather than as a feminism delusion, constructing a revolution upon forensic processes by envisioning the first standardised rape kit (now being regarded as the most powerful tools invented to bring criminals to justice), successfully paving the way of analysing its contained effects within the structured/composed portrait, adequately comprising aspects of her personal status when investigated, including samples of her hair, fingerprints, saliva, items of clothing, handwriting and past images of herself, her family and the places she’s lived/the cars she’s drove etc, all simply correlating to the true damage caused to an individual’s identity, highlighting the repercussions for a person’s identity in the long term within society, as a result of past influences/experiences in breaches of privacy (The New York Times, 2020).

Bibliography :

Medium.com, 2020

‘Sustainability and The Fast Fashion Industry`, information available / accessed online on 27/01/2021 from

https://medium.com/@thescribblingpintobean/sustainability-the-fast-fashion-industry-4dd9935014dd

OCULA, 2015

‘Michael Mapes Bibliography`, information available / accessed online on 03/02/2021 from

https://ocula.com/artists/michael-mapes/

The New York Times, 2020

‘The Rape Kits Secret History` (online news article published by Pagan Kennedy on 17/06/2020), information available / accessed online on 03/02/2020 from

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/17/opinion/rape-kit-history.html

December 1, 2020smyth-c102 No Comments

TADF : Textile Art, Design & Fashion Research

Claire Smyth AAD010 Introducing Studio Practice : TADF: Textile Art, Design and Fashion Research (Contextual research based upon TADF (textiles) as a whole, including its history and commonly used techniques / practices, as well as artist research upon contemporary textile artists, fashion designers and textile designers etc)

https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/contemporary-textile-art-artists

Layering fabric / clothing is in which a term describing an appropriate way of dressing using many garments that are worn on top of each other, where of the layers having different, largely non-overlapping function, through as well using more or fewer layers, or replacing one layer but not others, allowing for flexible clothing to match the needs of each situation. The contained layering of colour and pattern, also known as reverse applique, involves stacking cloth, stitching to form an design, then slashing or cutting way to expose the beneath piece or parts of cloth / fabric, resembling the contrasting fabrics underneath.

Throughout the textiles industry and the contained subjects of TADF, aspects of periodicals can be applied and commonly used throughout its practices and to promote / advertise a designers / artist’s work or collections etc. A periodical is in which a magazine, journal or newspaper etc published at regular intervals that issues articles periodically throughout the year. Many periodicals are written for a general audience whose readers are not expected to have specialised knowledge or training in the subject’s area. However, probably more periodicals are written to specialists and will still have articles that are difficult for readers who lack that background. Journals are often issued monthly but might be published only a few times a year. Magazines are often published weekly or monthly, while newspapers usually go to press daily, and as each time a periodical publishes, it contains a unique set of new articles, where no two issues will be exactly alike. Some of these of copies of textiles (TADF) periodicals within todays modernised society can include the likes of: Selvedge Magazine, Fibre Arts, Craft activities / instructions, Vogue, Elle, Elle Décor, wallpaper sample books / catalogues, Dazed, Confused and Embroidery etc.

Textile Artist / Kirsty Whitlock:

Based upon / from Leicester, artist Kirsty Whitlock is in which a mixed media textile artist, designer and maker specialising in the medium of mixed media textiles who uses recycled and reclaimed material as / in a response to the throwaway culture of consumerism, through her work being concept led through the use of exploiting the contained overlooked qualities of the selected printed materials, as a result of having gained a first class honours degree in Design Crafts from De Montfort University, to where she now lives, resides and works in Hampshire, through continuing to practice, create, produce and develop an exciting body of work and mixed media pieces / compositions, with the main and goal of pushing the boundaries of embroidery and textile art through the use of a variety of materials and their contained application by being immensely eager to challenge the preconception of the original contained subject area of textiles by creating work that surprises and inspires. By being strongly inspired by the likes of political cartoons and in fact the way they amuse, inform and educate a social message, the artist to create her contained mixed media work will use and display a wide range of recycled and reclaimed materials to challenge Britain’s throwaway culture, with / though also taking huge inspiration from news headlines and documentaries, to where in which her work is often seen as being very concept led as a result of responding to the surface qualities of printed material as well as the contained subject matter, as generally throughout Whitlock’s work, the intense use of machine embroidery is / can be applied with the main aim and purpose of / to explore imagery, text and current affairs, especially as the overall technique of embroidery on its own can in which can bring the continued power to transform, enabling the meaning of the material to be manipulated and challenged. Through the use of recognisable signs and symbols throughout her profiled textile collages / artwork, Whitlock tends to also incorporate humour and the overlooked qualities of the contained materials to produce a collection of conceptual pieces and installations, using the medium to reflect on consumerism and current affairs.

Kirsty Whitlock interview: Embroidery transforms

As a result of her continued work towards its contained practices and mixed media / collage techniques, textile artist Kirsty Whitlock will in which go onto challenge the contained and modernised surroundings of embroidery, exploring, highlighting and making reference to the potential of communicating and enhancing a social message commonly / generally through the uses of discarded household items such as the likes of and including plastic carrier bags (supermarkets), newspapers, scrap posters / leaflets / advertisements and public transport tickets etc, using them in a much more formatted, collaged, textile, compositional, loose and experimental format for / towards embroidery.

Throughout Whitlock’s contained textile work based upon current and past UK political issues / influences / impacts within society, Kirsty’s edgy stitch pieces tends to portray and have a constructed graphic quality, drawing attention and commenting upon contemporary affairs, as well as the contained use and developments of tactile typography aiming to critique corporate culture and questioning society towards understanding the value. Whereas / also by using machine embroidery inspired by newspaper headlines it immensely portrays the artists political views, thoughts, influences and mocks the headlines contained upon the issues in society with a much more playful humour, as a result of embroidery truly having the significant power to transform a piece of work, especially in Whitlock’s installation / collages, as it enables the properties of the contained materials to be manipulated, challenged and subverted much for sufficiently to truly convey the subject area, its contained impacts and the strong messages / movements within the pieces.

Fashion Designer / Lucinda Graham:

https://www.instagram.com/lucinda.graham.studio/?hl=en

Fashion designer, stylist and freelance creative influencer / maker / director, Lucinda Graham, is in which a modern / contemporary multidisciplinary maker based in Belfast, and a recent fashion, textile art and design graduate from the Belfast School of Art, specialising in knitwear and experimental / deconstructed tailoring, through operating and creating with the environment in mind in a circular fashion, as a result of being hugely driven by the / a millennials hunger for reality in the digital age, exploring pressing social and mental health issues / subjects / topics through various mediums, in which as a whole alongside her textile work, her passions include preaching / recognising and speaking about mental health issues, body positivity, sustainability and ethical practices within the fashion industry in which she continues to address through her Instagram that has gather / collated a strong and loyal following.

Through being described as a self-proclaimed eco-punk, and best known for her balaclava creations, Lucinda tends to focus upon and care about the rebirthing of subcultures through the likes of DIY aesthetics that revolves around promoting environmentally positive practices. As a result, by using her online prescience via Instagram, Lucinda solely promotes eco-activism, encouraging ethical consumer ship and education around the wide range of ecological and humanitarian issues concerning fast fashion.

Through her continued work and design ideas, especially throughout and in reference to her graduate collection (An Angry 20 Something), Lucinda states that her work is in which a way for her to explore and interpret the Northern Irish mental health crisis facing men, with specific regards to the contained issue of toxic masculinity as a result of being heavily influenced by 70’s punk and DIY aesthetics which has translated into the exclusive use of recycled materials, fabricsm suits and waste yarn used for crochet and knitwork. Through this precise way of drawing a line between fashion and textile art, Lucinda has aimed and ensured that she has examined and displayed both her personal experiences of how warped beliefs about what it is to be a man in the Northern Irish Society. As a result, this intertwined with the trans-generational effects of the troubles have produced the populations of Irish men who are confused as to where their identity lies (keeping their feelings and emotions masked), often taking that confusion out upon those around them, in which her work as a whole, solely aims to visually arrest the viewer and through the use of balaclavas and to impose the feeling of unease through the use of scale. By being heavily influenced by the aesthetics of the 1970s punk scene, this attitude and especially the resourcefulness of the punk subculture when it came to apparel is in which something that has intentionally translated into / within her work through appropriating the use of safety pins, rough edges and spliced suits which leaves a slightly scruffy unfinished effect. As punk is an attitude, being described as a scavenger hunt for clothing that one can recycle and re-create, this abandon and rejection of mainstream brands can cause the wearer to be ostracised as they do not fit into any one labelled socialised box, in which this amongst many other features associated with the punk subculture stylistically is what made Lucinda want / have the desire to channel the same energy into her work. As a result, her general work ethos can in fact be described as being health punk orientated, meaning that it is inherently anti-establishment, angry and political, whilst being made with the environment in mind from the like of entirely second hand, scavenged clothing and waste yarn that was then stripped apart and re-purposed.

Acting as a freelance creative and networking specialist, with skills branching from social media management and marketing events management, to club nights, casting, photography, writing and styling, Lucinda’s styling career is in which most prolific within her work as a result of having worked under stylists like Phoebe Lettice, Abigail Collins, Zoe Costeloe and smaller more grassroots projects for the likes of ASOS marketplace, DEPOP and so forth. Recent projects and collections containing the work produced by Lucinda Graham can in which include Filming a Kyra TV x Rimmel London video for Youtube’s Nayva Girls, to address online beauty bullying, and writing about society’s Instagram pressures for Adwoah Aboah’s website and platform of Gurls Talk, in which she regards herself as incredibly driven, with her finger firmly upon the pulse of urban youth culture, making her a very valuable asset to / towards any team.

https://lucindagraham.co.uk/degree-collection

Personally, from following her on Instagram and various social media platforms, tracking and acknowledging her posts / work, I have become more and more highly inspired, intrigued and admired (generally just enjoying her work and the content created) by the work and designs of Lucinda Graham towards the local fashion design industry, especially and in great relevance to in recent years, becoming highly fascinated, through immensely appreciating and understanding her love and interests into / of the 70s punk aesthetic and subculture from and in comparison to my own personal interests of the punk era and its fashion trends etc as a result of growing up with parents and family members living within the punk era and generally liking punk as a whole including aspects of punk rock, heavy metal, northern soul, SKA, the skin head community and scooters etc. In great relevance, her immense creative flair with regards to the construction and making of her work / clothing items (collections), both sustainably and through the use of resourceful materials, tends to hugely reflect upon these specific set time periods within Northern Ireland, as a result of continuing to effectively analyse, respond upon and make reference to the likes of and for example aspects of politics including numerous relevant Northern Irish controversial topic such as the Troubles and its contained impacts and extreme events, in which shown from her collections and continued style of work, as seen towards her redesigned, reformed and recommissioned balaclavas, that is generally seen as a clothing item in Northern Ireland with connotations of aspects of terrorism / terrorist behaviour from a chain line of toxic masculinity. Overall, throughout her work over recent years, Lucinda makes it her main aim / goal to go about taking something ugly or that is seen as run down, useless and not worthy of a purpose to then recycling materials / fabrics, through either taking the typical masculine garment and turning into a piece of work to remember, with a new design and changes to the normal way and influence of textiles into something beautifully feminine with bold repurposed textiles, whilst incorporating the use of strong symbols with feminine accents.

Textile Designer / Laura Slater:

Through living, working and residing in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, renowned textile designer Laura Slater is in which a bespoke pattern, textile and print designer, having gained / studying Multi-Media Textiles at Loughborough University from the year of 2002 – 2005 to graduating from a Masters in Mixed Media Textiles at the Royal College of Art in 2007, Laura’s main approach to design is commonly centred around the / a great passion for experimental drawing, print, image making and the exploration of colour, with a belief in the power of pattern and its ability to connect us to the everyday, experiences, environments and objects we tend to surround ourselves with, in which her contained work can / is in fact all inspired by continuation of drawing, the manipulation of colour, shapes, patterns and the engagement with the ability to provoke and stimulate different responses from our environment, to where she has translated her drawings and print textures into a contained range of textile products, establishing the creation of a unique range of styles designs.

As a printed textile designer, she is highly occupied and engaged into / with how in fact, overall and as a whole, we go about engaging with aspects of patterns and its ability to truly connect us with our environment and our surrounding objects. As a result, she explores this through numerous / multiple experimental approaches to her contained processes, developments and the use of materials through creating accessible interactive products for the likes of interior spaces. However, as a well as developing her own personal collections, projects and series of work, which she sells towards both the national and international markets, Slater has also continued to work on projects and commissions that include the likes of and such as a collaborative womenswear collection for designer Kin by John Lewis and as well as a collaborative / collective project with the main of engaging artists to work with the Textile Archive at the V&A, London in 2016 and the previous year’s up to now etc.

https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/arts-and-culture/fashion-never-out-print-art-yard-laura-slater-288218

https://www.jimbiddulph.com/journal/2019/7/17/interview-with-laura-slater

November 30, 2020smyth-c102 No Comments

Product Design Paper Folds / Lighting Contextual Research

Claire Smyth AAD010 Introducing Studio Practice : Product Design Research (Contextual Research on paper folding / origami as whole as well as a wide range of contained artists, techniques, designers and examples of their work)

Within society, all designers tend to fold paper, through the likes of creasing, pleating, hemming, gathering, hinging, knotting, corrugating, draping, twisting, furling, crumpling, collapsing, faceting, curving or wrapping two-dimensional sheets of material / papers, in which by these processes of folding, will go onto create three-dimensional objects. However, these will / can perhaps be not seen as origami like in appearance, or the folding may only be a detail, but most will nevertheless have been folded, wholly or in part in some way, as since almost all objects are made from the likes of sheet materials (such as fabric, plastic, sheet metal or cardboard), or are fabricated from numerous components used to make sheet forms (such as bricks / a brick wall etc), aspects of folding can in fact go onto being considered as one of the most common uses of all design techniques.

Despite being so ubiquitous, folding as a design topic can in which commonly be rarely studied or seen as an inspiration for designers, as perhaps this may be simply because the folded content in a designed object is / can often be unrecognised, or merely incidental, or that because folding is synonymous (closely linked / overlapped) with aspects / techniques of origami, with and containing the likes of folds, brightly coloured squares, angles, shapes and children’s hobby crafts etc. However, at least, that is how it used to be, as in recent years especially within the product design industry towards paper making and paper folding techniques, more and more designers of all disciplines have immensely began to experiment with, utilise and turn to aspects of folding paper with the main structured purpose of creating a wide range of handmade and manufactured objects, both functional and decorative, as through carrying out secondary source research through the likes of little time spent looking through design and style magazines can in fact truly reveal the real use and contained examples of folded products within society, including the likes of / from apparel to lighting and from architecture to jewellery (artwork / installations) etc, as a result of origami being more or less registered as one of the most vibrant buzzwords in contemporary design.

In correlation to the overall subject of product design and its contained aspects of paper folding art, as displayed below, I have in which gone on to research, consider, look into and analyse in great detail various artists / designers specialising in paper to in which regarding their contained work and practices that I find really inspirational, intriguing and fascinating (enjoy their practices of work) in relevance to how in fact they go about completing work / installations using specific precise practices and techniques, how they turn pieces of paper into a modern specialised products, what type of work they specialise in, the meaning behind their work leading to their successes and generally how they are able to turn / develop pieces of paper into great masterpieces either practical or for visual purposes, through the uses of both folding, cutting and placing sheets / shapes of paper to create a composition etc. Which as a result, their contained work etc has been immensely inspirational and inspiring in regards to my own personal work (paper folds / lampshade) when experimenting with paper folding during completing the specific tasks and secondary source contextual research within various product design workshops.

Paul Jackson:

Born near Leeds, England and being Fine Art Educated, artist / designer Paul Jackson has in which been a professional paper artist, paper engineer, writer and teacher since the year of 1983 and is now a distinguished author based upon paper folding in design, through / as a result of specialising in origami and the folded arts in which he is regarded as one the first original professional in the West taking part and utilising these paper folding techniques surrounding the subjects of design (product design). His most distinctive work is made using the described ‘cheat method` of origami (the traditional technique does not allow the use of both cutting or gluing) to in which throughout his career he has taught his techniques in numerous universities across the USA, Canada and Israel and has been an author for around / over 40 books based upon paper arts and crafts, the first of which being origami books for / tailored to adults and children. His more recent books have been about the application of folding techniques into design, a subject that he has gone on to teach in more than 80 Universities and Colleges in 13 countries, to huge amounts / capacities of Design Students of many disciplines, including fashion, architecture, ceramics, jewellery, product design and textiles. For example, his latest Cut and Fold Paper Textures, tends to explore the infinite possibilities of paper in crafting through creating surface textures for beautiful, innovative designs in which the techniques presented in the book can be made by novices and skilled crafters alike, with the added bonus of handy techniques based upon Paul’s years of experience.

Throughout his creative career in paper design and folding, Paul Jackson is in which one of the pioneers of folding / origami surrounding Fine Art and has exhibited his folded artworks in many galleries and museums. He has also gone on to curating several ground-breaking exhibitions of origami, undertaking many commercial commissions for the likes of print, screen-based media, festivals and more, and has been a consultant for companies such as Siemens, Nike, Tetra-Pak and Tata.

In the year 2000, he married the Israeli origami artist and educator, Miri Golan, founder of the Israeli Origami Center (1993) through moving to Israel, where they both founded the Folding Together project and the Origametria programme of using origami to teach geometry, as in 2018, Origametria was in which then accepted by the Israeli Ministry of Education into the National Mathematics Curriculum and is studied weekly by 30,000+ children of Primary School age.

As a result of his successes within his designs, books, artwork and paper folds, in 2017, had in which been awarded the Sydney French Medal at the 50^th Anniversary Convention of the British Origami Society, in recognition to / of his outstanding contributions to origami.

Paul_Jackson_Folding_techniques_for_desi

Kyla McCallum:

https://www.foldability.co.uk

Born in Scotland, Kyla McCallum is in which a multi-disciplinary designer and the registered founder of the London-Based Foldability design studio, and through being Scottish by origin, she had studied at the prestigious Glasgow School of Art with terms abroad in both Milan and Cologne. Kyla’s personal work and especially within the Foldability design studio includes projects in relation to interior design, set design, bespoke installations and large-scale windows / retail displays, where in recent years the artist has been known to develop a variety of techniques for folding labile materials including papers and fabric, as well as rigid substrates such as metal and laminate. Most of Kyla’s designs tends to have the appearance of a one-off, but her contained precision-formed products such as the spectacular Fold pendant lamp and the Case cushion series she designed for Northern, can be made in multiples. As subsequently being regarded as both elegant, playful and spontaneous in equal measures, Kyla’s designs seem to also surprise and delight as a result of appreciating just how intricate origami / paper folding can be.

Throughout her work and contained projects of origami / folding paper etc, Kyla McCallum’s awe-inspiring skills can be regarded as boundless, leading to the likes of the creation of a 2000 hand folded flower set design for H&M and bespoke lighting for Ted Baker, as by being nicknamed the ‘Queen of Origami`, Kyla’s reputations as a Creative Directive still seems to precede her. Through establishing and founding Foldability in 2013, Kyla has always highlighted that she continues to enjoy both balance and symmetry, due to / and associated this within her work. At the height of her work, Kyla’s origami journey fully began when she discovered the contained works of artists and architects like Buckminster Fuller, Magnus Wenniger and Ron Resch, whilst studying architecture in Cologne, to where from collating inspiration, by drawing from these designers, it truly ignited her overall / contained passion for the art form including origami and geometry, in which she then began to pave the way for a career inspired by the craft. Over the years, McCallum’s main inspiration depicting and upon her work can also be / is accredited to a 15 year old picture library collected from the likes of books, magazines, websites and photos, in which throughout interviews / articles she explains that these images more or less especially tends to form part of her intensive sophisticated process, as a result of being grouped into all sorts of categories such as red, blue, polka dots, eggs, games and pop-ups etc, to where whenever she starts a new project she will begin by frequently visiting the London-based Museum of Childhood, browsing through a few folders to get ideas and colour coordinating images with the aim of creating a mood board before constructing pieces of her work / collections. In relevance / continuation, the work created by Kyla McCallum can be regarded as quite labour intensive, involving small intricate hand held origami pieces to larger scale abstracted installations, containing a lot of craftsmanship, however Kyla’s transpired appetite for origami can be immensely demonstrated by the huge commitments and craftmanship she lent to a 4-year projects developing a fold pendant light design for the company, Northern, and especially her work not only involves the simple art of making, but it is often more or less supported by extensive research and prototyping. Overall, throughout her work and contained paper origami collections, McCallum also frequently lends a creative hand to other designers, to where in fact she can be found conducting a ‘making` demonstration at numerous events as well as aiming to inspire a group of automotive interior designers with her precise detailed research techniques / developments.

Mia Pearlman:

Artist and paper designer, Mia Pearlman, born, bred and based in New York, within her work is in which strongly inspired by aspects of weather patterns, to where the manufacture and installation of her work goes onto appropriately reflecting upon the transient nature of cloud, rains and skies, through using basic acid-free drawing paper, she applies abstract linear shapes in India ink, and then cuts these out, to where in which personally, her work and contained creations surrounding aspects of paper truly fascinates me as a result of her attention to detail when working with paper forms etc. Throughout her work processes, various configurations of such works are then applied to gallery spaces, where various drawings are produced by the three-dimensional interplay of paper forms, as well as the shadows they case, as the within Pearlman’s work as a whole, she tends to the layering, sculpting and light-admitting capabilities of paper to create these aspects of wonderous effects. As a result of the execution of her installations, they are in fact never actually planned in great amount of particular detail beforehand but will tend to just form according to the artists instinct during installation-process’s and are then taken apart at the end of every exhibition, meaning in this way, the works more or less are responding to the space and to the ephemeral qualities of natural subjects that they go about evoking.

Pearlman tends to work in a set specific way, to where she begins by drawing lines on a gigantic role of paper, from which she cuts out selected segments, through continually controlling the contained outcome that is in which then suspended in the final installation. By implementing these continued processes through creating artwork, Mia Pearlman has been seen to describe it as the creation of positive and negative space, visible in her significant multi-dimensional drawings, especially as the cut-out as an artistic technique, has been seen lately within society to be currently emerging, in which it often appears in international exhibitions as a fashionable artistic style, but / however originally, the technique was first utilised by artist Henri Matisse, who for health reasons had to cease using paints and easels and began making paper collages and cut-outs. Mia Pearlman’s installations can in which be amazingly regarded as quite shocking in their size and precise craftmanship, as a result of the American artist creating vast sculptures made out of cut paper, to where the creation of these installations is truly a time-consuming process, by highlighting and describing her work as an immense meditation on the fragility and strength of nature both combined.

Since Mia Pearlman has been continuing to produce these outstanding paper cut-out installations, over the years within the industry, artists and critics have been becoming much more aware of the techniques and artforms surrounding cut paper installations. Today, this type of work can be regarded as experiencing a Renaissance, through perfectly exploring the genre, especially as her work can be seen as very surprising in their subtle construction and violent narration. For example / in relevance the contained arrested motions in her pieces can in fact go about evoking the likes of wonder and is usually quite photogenic, in which is a vital attribute for her work with a lifespan of two to three weeks, as to deal with the strength of nature as just a subject on its own can be seen as both a heroic and an ironic accomplishment.

November 8, 2020smyth-c102 No Comments

Animation (Character Design)

Claire Smyth AAD010 Introducing Studio Practice : Animation (Character Design, Research, Concepts / ideas etc

According to Disney Pixar : A character is which what truly drives the story and breathes life into a film as the connection of the audience to / towards the character is greatly registered and considered as the primary goal when designing a character. Imbuing the characters with humanity and focusing upon it and their characteristics is vitally important to display this connection, as when designing the character, the artist will need to know exactly what to exaggerate / what to play down, what to add to give a hint of background / depth, along with what to do or incorporate to enhance and develop the characters personality etc.

The term character design is in fact mainly used in the context of animated films, comics and games in which there are one or more fictionalized characters with whom the audience is meant to identify. In addition to determining the character’s physical appearance, the process may involve fashioning his or her patterns of speech, body language, actions, and so on. Fully developed character designs are an important part of the production process in these contexts and may ultimately determine whether or not the final product is successful on the market. Character designers tend to utilise a variety of techniques, most of which are dedicated to figurative representation. For example, within animation, characters are designed using three-dimensional methods such as maquettes, character models and motion tracking. In recent years, as the rise of Internet has increased interest in the field, the definition of character design has expanded to include character-driven designs outside of the film, comic, and game into the likes of books, advertisements and branding etc.

In relevance / when designing a character, a character designer (or character artist) goes about creating the entire concept, style and artwork of a character from scratch. This often includes a deep look into the characters personality to develop a visual idea of the characters physical features. Creating a character from scratch (human or otherwise) generally tends to take a lot of creative energy, meaning the process of character design is in which very complex and is often one of the most sought-after careers for inspiring entertainment artists. Every artist has their own creative process, meaning that there is no right way to create a character. But typically, the character design process starts with a briefing of the character. The character could be a mutant turtle with ninja-like abilities or just some person who lives a simple workaday lifestyle. With this briefing there’s often a series of suggested traits be they physical or emotional to where the character designer uses those notes to start thumb-nailing ideas as rough thumbnails help to flesh out the many directions that the designer could take.

Once the artist chooses one (or a couple) thumbnail styles they’ll often paint more details and bring those thumbnails to life. This can include trying different clothes, different hair styles, facial styles and maybe different weapons or props if applicable. Then a final design is chosen and once the character is signed off the artist will create many different views of the character as reference materials. In animation this often turns into a model sheet for other artists to reference in their drawings. The overall idea of character design is to go on a creative dive into the unknown, and from that artists / designers pull out the best design that matches the character description.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newtalent/film/advice_cosgrove.shtm

Inspired by the BBC CBeebies little robots animator and digital designer / creator Bruce Husband and its contained characters, I took it upon myself to take great inspiration from the concepts, digital forms, structures, design features and colours from the various created character throughout the show and its backstory / contained surroundings / environment etc to go onto deign, create, publish and draw up an animated (hand drawn) character of my own taken from secondary source images of robots made out of scrap materials and general items taken and placed with a junk yard / skip that people tend to through with the main of using the shapes as different aspects of the figure / skeleton, such as eyes, arms, legs body etc.

As a result, to respond to the given animation brief and task set by Alec, I have in which created a fictional robotic character named scrappy, generally suited to children aged from 2 – 12. Living within the environment of a scrap yard / dump he is made up of various items commonly thrown out by members of the public, in which it changes from time to time due to the different items being brought into the skip. Scrappy is more or less a cute stumpy kind of character where within a junk yard environment he always welcomes each and every other animated characters, looking out for anyone especially when other characters are at risk of being accidently put into the skip to be recycled / crushed down when successfully attempting to hide from the tip / junk yard staff.

To execute, create and design my character, I took it upon myself to present a much more collage / abstracted approach through the use of creating features and shapes (body shapes / forms) through the use of materials including brightly coloured card, tinfoil, googly eyes, cable ties, newspaper and string etc. In relevance to this, the included scrap yard items to resemble scrap objects and make up part of my characters body where in which and included old, dented and worn down spatulas, a microwave / washing machine, bread bin, cables, and iron, rubber gloves, mugs, rusty nails / screws clothes pegs etc.

When completing this brief I decided to create a couple other character based on and inspired by other CBBC animated shows including the likes of ooglies, which is based upon general household items as funny but cute animated characters with googly eyes placed upon them to create a humorous effect within / throughout the programme.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2009/03_march/26/ooglies.shtml

OOglies Model Making

November 8, 2020smyth-c102 No Comments

Animation : Shape and Form (Research / 12 Principles of Animation / Stop Motion)

Claire Smyth AAD010 Introducing Studio Practice : Animation (shape and form drawings / sketches, contextual research, 12 principles of animation & stop motion experiments / examples / animations

The subject of animation is in which a designing method to where figures of shapes are manipulated to appear as moving images. For example, within and towards traditional animation, images are typically drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to then be photographed and exhibited on film. However, in today’s day ‘n` age, most animations are made with computer-generated imagery (CGI). Computer animation can in fact be registered and applied to very detailed 3D animation, whilst 2D animation can also be used stylistic reasons, low bandwidth or faster real-time renderings. In addition / furthermore, other common animation techniques can apply a stop motion technique to two and three dimensional objects like paper cut-outs, puppets or clay figures. Commonly, there are in which 5 types of animation, these include: 3D, hand drawn, vector, stop motion and motion graphics.

https://www.bloopanimation.com/types-of-animation/

In relevance to aspects of shape and form within both shapes, lines and figures, I in which completed multiple / a range of exercises set by Alec which included various rough and experimental drawings of long straight lines, circles, curved s lines, basic forms and shapes (3D / contour lines and 3D flour sacks resulting in becoming much more familiar with the general drawing aspects and shapes and forms commonly applied to the work / creation of animation, especially towards designing a character:

Throughout the art of animation and digital designing, including its main principles, aspects, techniques and purposes etc there are in which a total of 12 main principles for / of animation. The main / set 12 principles of animation include: squash and stretch, anticipation, staging, straight ahead action and pose-to-pose, follow through and overlapping action, ease in / ease out, arcs, secondary action, timing, exaggeration, solid drawing and appeal.

Squash and stretch:

Squash and stretch is debatably the most fundamental principle within / of animation. The purpose of squash and stretch is in which to give a sense of weight and flexibility to drawn objects. It can be applied to simple objects, such as and like a bouncing ball, or more complex constructions including the musculature of a human face. Taken to an extreme, a figure stretched or squashed to an exaggerated degree can in which have a comical effect. However, towards / in realistic animation the most important aspect of this principle is that an objects volume does not change when squashed or stretched. This is because if the length of a ball is stretched vertically, its width (in three dimensions, also its depth) needs to contract correspondingly horizontally.

Anticipation:

The principle of anticipation is used in attempt to prepare the audience for an action, whilst to also make the action appear much more realistic. For example, a dancer jumping off the floor has to bend the knees and a golfer making a swing has to swing the club back first. In addition, this technique / principle can also be used for less physical action, including the likes of and such as a character looking off screen to anticipate someone’s arrival, or attention focusing upon an object that a character is about to pick up.

Staging:

This principle is in which akin to staging, as it is mostly known in theatre and film. Its main purpose is in fact set out with the aim of directing the audience’s attention and making it clear that what exactly is of greatest importance of a scene. For example, famous animators commonly tend to define it as the presentation of any idea in which so that it is completely and unmistakably clear. Whether that idea is an action, a personality, an expression or a mood, this can in fact be done by various means, such as the placement of a character in the frame, the use of light and shadow, or the angle and position of the camera. Overall, the essence of this principle surrounds itself by keeping focus on what is relevant and through avoiding unnecessary detail.

Straight ahead action and pose to pose:

These principles are in which two different approaches to the drawing process within animation. Straight ahead scenes are animated frame to frame, while pose to pose involves starting with drawing a few key frames and then filling in the intervals later on. Straight ahead action tends to create a much more fluid, dynamic illusion of movement and is better for producing realistic action sequences. However, on the other hand, it can be hard to maintain proportions and to create exact, convincing poses along the way. Pose to pose tends to work much better for dramatic or emotional scenes through the use of computer animation, where in which composition and relation to the surroundings are in fact of greater importance. Altogether, a combination of the two techniques is often used within the animation industry.

Follow through and overlapping:

Follow through and overlapping can be described and seen as a general heading for two closely related techniques which help to render movement more realistically along with helping to give the impression that characters are following the law of physics. Follow through means that loosely tied parts of the body should continue moving after the character has stopped and the parts should keep moving beyond the point where the character stopped only to be subsequently pulled back towards the centre of mass or exhibiting various degrees of oscillation damping. Overlapping action is in which the continued tendency for parts of the body to move at different rates (an arm will move on different timing of the head etc). For example, a related technique is drag, where in which a character starts to move and parts of them take a few frames to catch up. These parts can be inanimate objects like clothing or the antenna on a car or parts of the body. On the human body, the torso is the core, with arms, legs, head and hair appearances that normally follow the torso’s movement. Body parts with much tissue, such as large stomachs and breasts or the loose skin on a dog are more prone to independent movements than bonier body parts. This exaggerated use of the technique can go onto produce a comical effect, while more realistic animation must time the actions exactly to produce a convincing result. The moving hold animates between two very similar positions, as especially / even characters sitting still or hardly moving can in fact display some sort of movement such as breathing or very slightly changing position. This then prevents the drawing from becoming dead

Ease in and ease out (slow in and slow out):

This principle of animation can be defined as the movement of objects in the real world, such as the human body, animals, vehicles etc and how it needs time to accelerate and slow down. For this reason, more pictures are drawn near the beginning and end of an action, creating a slow in and slow out effect in order to achieve much more realistic movements. This concept goes onto emphasise the objects extreme poses as inversely, fewer pictures are drawn within the middle of the animation to emphasise faster action. This principle commonly tends to apply to and towards characters moving between two extreme poses, such as sitting down and standing up but also for inanimate moving objects, like a bouncing ball.

Arcs:

Most natural actions tend to follow a much more arched trajectory, where for within animation to adhere to this principle following implied arcs are to be implemented to demonstrate greater realism. This technique can be applied to a moving limb by a rotating joint or a thrown object moving along a parabolic trajectory with the exception of mechanical movement, which typically moves in straight lines. As an object’s speed or momentum increases, arcs tend to flatten out in moving ahead and broaden in turns. In baseball, a fastball would tend to move in a straighter line than other pitches; while a figure skater moving at top speed would be unable to turn as sharply as a slower skater and would need to cover more ground to complete the turn. An object in motion that moves out of its natural arc for no apparent reason will appear erratic rather than fluid. For example, when animating a pointing finger, the animator should be certain that in all drawings in between the two extreme poses, the fingertip follows a logical arc from one extreme to the next. Traditional animators tend to draw the arc in lightly on the paper for reference, to be erased later.

Secondary action:

Adding secondary actions to the main action can in fact give a scene much more life, whilst helping to support the main action. For example, a person walking can simultaneously swing their arms or keep them in their pockets, speak or whistle or express emotions through facial expressions. As a result, the important thing about secondary actions is that they emphasize, rather than take attention away from the main action. If the latter is the case, those actions are better left out. For example, during a dramatic movement, facial expressions will often go unnoticed. In these cases, it is better to include them at the beginning and the end of the movement, rather than during.

Timing:

The animated principle of timing commonly / generally refers to the number of drawings or frames for a given action, which translates to the speed of the action on film. On a purely physical level, correct timing makes objects appear to obey the laws of physics. For instance, an object’s weight determines how it reacts to an impetus, like a push; as a lightweight object will react faster than a heavily weighted one. Timing is critical for establishing a character’s mood, emotion and reaction as in most cases it can also be a device to communicate aspects of a character’s personality.

Exaggeration:

Exaggeration is in which an effect especially useful for animation, as animated motions that strive for a perfect imitation of reality can look static and dull. The level of exaggeration depends on whether one seeks realism or a particular style, like a caricature or the style of a specific artist. The classical definition of exaggeration, employed by Disney especially, was to in fact remain true to reality, just presenting it in a wilder, more extreme form. Other forms of exaggeration can involve the supernatural or surreal, alterations in the physical features of a character; or elements in the storyline itself. As a result, it is important to employ a certain level of restraint when using exaggeration as if a scene contains several elements, there should be a balance in how those elements are exaggerated in relation to each other, to avoid confusing or overawing the viewer.

Solid drawing:

The principle of solid drawing solely means taking into account various forms in three-dimensional space or giving them volume and weight. For example / in great relevance an animator needs to be a skilled artist and has to understand the basics of three-dimensional shapes, anatomy, weight, balance, light and shadow, etc and for / towards a classical animator, this greatly involves taking art classes and doing sketches from life.

Appeal:

In relevance to the animated principle of appeal and for example, appeal in a cartoon character corresponds to what would be called charisma in an actor, whereas a character who is appealing is not necessarily sympathetic; villains or monsters can also be appealing, as the important thing is that the viewer feels the character is real and interesting. There are in which various / several tricks for making a character connect better with the audience, as for likable characters, a symmetrical or particularly baby-like face tends to be effective, whereas a complicated or hard to read face will lack appeal or ‘captivation’ in the composition of the pose or character design.

The 12 Principles of Animation (With Examples)

As a result of main 12 principles of animation as stated above and explained in great detail, we were to in which look into, analyse and focus upon the principle of timing and spacing in response to stop motion animator Kevin Parry, which as a result I have went onto create various stop motion pieces of animation through the app of stop motion along with multiple miscellaneous items / inanimate objects within my house placed upon white, cooperating, experimenting and taking into consideration aspects of spacing / fluidity, whether the lines are all the same length or start of close together and get longer or the other way round:

(please click the below links to view stop motion video animations)

My_Stop_Motion_Movie(1)

My_Stop_Motion_Movie(2)

November 8, 2020smyth-c102 No Comments

Graphic Design & Illustration (Punk Vinyl Research)

Claire Smyth AAD010 Introducing Studio Practice : Graphic Design & Illustration (Punk Vinyl Research)

Visual research and examples of images throughout the punk era (punk subculture) and vinyl records of their music / contained artists through the displayment of a Pinterest Board as linked below:

https://pin.it/385paTM

Punk rock (or simply punk) is in which a music Genre that emerged within and throughout the mid-1970s. Rooted in 1960s garage rock, punk bands rejected the perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock as they typically began to produce short, fast-paced songs with hard-edged melodies and singing styles, stripped-down instrumentation and often political, anti-establishment of lyrics. In great relevance, the era / overall subject of punk tends to embrace a DIY ethic, as many bands throughout the year commonly go about self-producing their recordings and distributing them through independent record labels. The term punk / punk rock was in fact first used by American rock critics in the early 1970s to describe 1960s garage bands and certain subsequent acts. When the movement now bearing the name developed from 1974 to 1976, acts such as Television, Patti Smith and The Ramones in New York City; the Sex Pistols, The Clash and the Damned in London; The Runaways in Los Angeles; and the Saints in Brisbane formed its vanguard. Punk had become a major cultural phenomenon in the UK late in 1976. It led to a punk subculture expressing youthful rebellion through distinctive styles of clothing an adornment (such as deliberately offensive T-shirts, leather jackets, studded or spiked bands and jewellery, safety pins, and bondage and S&M clothes) and a variety of ani-autorotation ideologies. As a result, in 1977, the influence of the music and subculture spread worldwide, taking root in a wide range of local scenes that often rejected the affiliation with the mainstream. In the late 1970s, punk and its overall design processes had in which experienced a second wave to where new acts that where not active during its formative years began to adopt the style. By the early 1980s, faster and more aggressive subgenres such as hardcore punk (Minor Threat), street punk (The Exploited) and anarcho-punk (Crass) gradually became the predominant modes of punk rock. Musicians identifying with or inspired by punk also pursued other musical directions, giving rise to spinoffs such as post-punk, new wave and later the likes of indie pop, alternative rock and noise rock. By the 1990s, punk fully remerged with the success of punk rock and pop punk bands such as The Clash, Green Day, Rancid, The Offspring and blink-182

The punk subculture includes a diverse array of ideologies, fashion and other forms of expression, visual art, dance, literature, and film. It is largely characterised by anti-establishment views, the promotional of individual freedom, DIY ethics, and is centred on a loud, aggressive genre of rock music called punk rock. The punk ethos is primarily made up of beliefs such as non-conformity, anti-authoritarianism, anti-corporatism, a do it yourself ethic, anti-consumerist, anti-corporate greed, direct action and not selling out. There is in which a wide range of punk fashion including and such as deliberately offensive T-shirts, leather jackets, Dr. Martin boots, hairstyles such as brightly coloured hair / spiked mohawks, cosmetics, tattoos, jewellery and body modification. Women in the hardcore scene typically went about where much more masculine clothing. Punk aesthetics tend to solely determine the type of art punks enjoy, which typically has underground, minimalist, iconoclastic and statical sensibilities. Punk has generated a considerable amount of poetry and prose, through having its own underground press in the form of zines, along with the making of punk-themed films, documentaries and videos

For a musical and social movement that snarled in the face of authority and wasn’t averse to spitting at its friends, punk has received a great many shelf inches in the last 30 years respectfully devoted to histories, reassessments and eyewitness accounts. Over the years and even from today, there is even an academic journal exclusively devoted to the pursuit of punk and post-punk studies, which has just published its second issue. All in all, there can’t be much left to say about the music, clothing, media outrage and legendary gigs, but the graphic expression of punk has received less critical attention. For example, within weeks of each other, two thick, illustrated volumes have appeared: Punk: An Aesthetic (Rizzoli) edited by Johan Kugelberg and John Savage and The Art of Punk (Omnibus Press/Voyageur Press) by Russ Bestley and Alex Ogg. Kugelberg and Savage have also curated “Someday all the Adults Will dir”, an exhibition of punk posters, handbills, record covers and ’zines at the Hayward Gallery in London.

An editor’s approach towards the punk era / style of music can carry / implement a number of various, styles, techniques, colors, texts or imagery etc. Kugelberg and Savage’s book is more of an album, with the images presented in an art-book style on a plain white page, which can be referred to as smart writers as Savage, author of Englands Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock and beyond, is a key participant in the era, his punk archive is now stored at Liverpool John Moore’s University. But neither author / designers are a historian or critic of graphic art, design or visual culture. “The history of the punk aesthetic cannot be told, only shown,” claims Kugelberg, somewhat unpromisingly. Savage made punk collages with the artist Linder Stirling and he has some good observations about punk montage, in the act of dismembering and reassembling the very images that were supposed to keep you down and ignorant, it was possible to counteract the violence of The Spectacle and to refashion the world around you. Throughout his produced work, he often continues to point to the visual influences of the likes of John Heartfield, Martin Sharp’s work at oz magazine, the feminist artist Penny Slinger, the Beach Books 1960s pamphlets and Dawn Ades’ photomontage (1976). Bestley and Ogg go about writing / designing with a carefulness of phrasing and appearance of academic detachment that only partially masks the same devotion to punk as listeners and fans. Punk graphics was the subject of Bestley’s PhD and he curated the earlier exhibition “Hitsville UK: Punk in the Faraway Towns”; he is course director of the graphic design MA at the London College of Communication. Ogg is the author of No More Heroes, a history of British punk and an editor of the punk and post punk journal. “It is important to question the notion of a direct association between work by prominent early punk designers and the emergence of a radical new visual language of parody and agitprop,” they write. “To an extent, the techniques adopted by Jamie Reid, for instance, were already widely accepted as the natural languages of anger and protest.” Such a comment can only be addressed to readers who know nothing about the histories of graphic design and graphic protest. As Savage and Kugelberg point out in their exhibition intro, punk’s precursors and putative influences include Dadaist collage, the Situational International, the mail art movement, the graphics of counter-culture protest and the 1960s underground press.

When designing / producing punk records, the relationship between punk D.I.Y. design in its most basic or amateur forms and the later development of graphic design cannot be avoided for anyone who is both sensitive to punk’s impact and legacy (“the immediate implementation of D.I.Y. grassroots culture among the young” — Kugelberg) as it is committed to graphic design as a medium. Kugelberg and Savage say that the “anarchic upsurge in graphic creativity truly revolutionized design,” through the clear attempt to assert punk graphics’ significance beyond the punk subculture, yet this claim, too, can only be substantiated by a lot more detailed research. Within the UK especially, punk related designers that had most influence towards their produced records within the early 1908s were in which a handful of individuals such as and including the of Malcolm Garrett, who been formally educated as graphic designers (in his case at the University of Reading and Manchester Polytechnic), through designs mainstream was, in fact, slow to learn from and assimilate the lessons and styles of subcultural music designs. In any case, the graphic sensibility of Garrett’s work for Buzzcocks and Magazine, shown in The Art of Punk, has always seemed closer to post punk graphic design than to what is commonly understood as punk, even allowing for Bestley and Ogg’s precautionary advice that “there is no one standard punk visual language” and that “a notion of a pure or authentic punk style is difficult to justify.”

For example and in regards to famous worldwide record covers / albums from various punk bands, it is no accident that the stencil-based graphic identity of Crass, one of the most highly politicised punk bands, is so well coordinated and trenchant as a result and due to their use of simplistic imagery, text, stencils but highly effective and intriguing to the reader / listener through the approach of collating a set text, shapes, style and colour palette etc.

Throughout this era of punk and punk subculture there is an old slogan and rallying cry that insists, “Punk is not dead.” Bestley and Ogg certainly believe that. Their book ends with examples of more recent punk design. Punk over the years might, as they say, have employed a fairly broad set of graphic conventions, but they remain as consistent and constrictive over time as those found in heavy metal. Kugelberg deduces from punk a more general lesson for today: “Form a band, start a blog, become an artist, a DJ, a guitar player, an editor.” No one can argue with that, though many might see it as a stretch to claim that, in 2012, these possibilities derive from punk’s mid-1970s example — unless, perhaps, one was to view punk prophetically as a form of science fiction. Interestingly, this is just how Savage does regard punk: as a “jump cut” into the future. “People in Britain see punk in terms of social realism and rock music. It was pure science fiction and it was very informed by J.G. Ballard and by The Man Who Fell To Earth, among a lot of other things.

In the last few years, there has in which been a revival of interest in the music that came after the mid 1970s punk. As a result, bands such as and from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers to Franz Ferdinand commonly acknowledge their debt / debut to post punk original such as gang of Flour / The Clash. In relevance to this, the latest issue of The Wire magazine has an ad for a compilation of underground Brazilian groups citing the British post-punk bands Joy Division, The Slits and The Pop Group as influences. There have in fact been further collections of post-punk music, along with British music critic Simon Reynolds’ 500-page history of the genre from 1978 to 1984, with the invigorating title Rip It Up And Start Again. It’s a brilliant book. Reynolds, who lives in Manhattan, started researching it in 2001 and it has arrived at exactly the right moment to benefit from, and propel, the growing wave of interest. He argues that post-punk music’s explosion of creativity equals the golden age of popular music in the mid-1960s, but that it has never received its full due. Aspects of design has in which always continued to portray and be a key part or / within the record-savouring experience for many music fans and so it remains today, as previously noted in a recent Momus interview / article, within society towards the punk subculture there is in fact an immense continuation in the fascination with record covers of the post-punk period. For example, Dot Dot Dot has in which gone onto published pieces regarding / about the record sleeve designs of XTC, John Fox, Scritti Politti and Wire, to where its editors where in kids when these original records came out.

Seaming as quite inconsequential as they are only record sleeves, after all, but to me especially what truly makes post-punk so interesting and inspiring, even now, as Reynolds shows so well, is the exceptional range of cultural influences of that truly shaped the music, including its refusal to stand still, its disinclination to cede any ground, especially to commercial priorities, along with its intellectual energy and artists ambitions, where all of this is in which reflected in the most inventive, audacious cover arts of the time, through stating and mentioning that: the seven Post-punk years from the beginning of 1978 to the end of 184 truly did see the systematic ransacking of the 20^th Century modernist art and literature as the entire punk period transcribes and looks like an effective / influential attempt to replay virtually every major modernist theme and technique via the medium of pop music etc. Commonly, most / any visual survey of post-punk graphics that concentrates solely on album covers overlooks a crucial part of the story. The discovery that it was possible to record, manufacture and distribute records relatively cheaply spurred the development of a thriving independent scene. The 7-inch and then 12-inch single with picture sleeve went through a great flowering. The year of 1978 saw the arrival of an advance guard of lo-fi synthesiser singles that heralded a new direction for electronic pop in the 1980s: T.V.O.D. / Warm Leatherette by The Normal; “Being Boiled” by The Human League; United by Throbbing Gristle; Cabaret Voltaire’s four-track Extended Play; Paralysis by Robert Rental; Private Plane by Thomas Leer. It can actually be quite hard to convey the excitement that various records generated among music fans at the time, as a large part of it was the feeling that the usual channels had been bypassed. Only committed readers of the music press were in on it. The audience had taken control of the means of production and anything seemed possible. It was a new kind of do-it-yourself electronic folk culture and the kitchen-table designs that gave this sensibility an image that were raw but thrilling. The photo of crash test dummies, borrowed from the Motor Industry Research Association, and use of the Din typeface to represent Daniel Miller’s Warm Leatherette underscores the cold, sociopathic lyrics about the eroticism of a car crash (“Hear the crushing steel, feel the steering wheel”). Listeners instantly registered the song as a homage to Ballard’s cult novel Crash. This Ain’t No Disco breaks its own remit by featuring a few singles, but it largely misses this side of post-punk music. However, one of the pleasures of Reynolds book is its excellent picture research with the assistance of British music writer Jon Savage.

https://designobserver.com/feature/the-art-of-punk-and-the-punk-aesthetic/36708

https://designobserver.com/feature/but-darling-of-course-its-normal-the-post-punk-record-sleeve/3377

https://medium.com/cuepoint/how-punk-rock-kickstarted-the-do-it-yourself-record-revolution-39a41d78e12a

November 5, 2020smyth-c102 No Comments

Photography Research

Claire Smyth AAD010: Introducing Studio Practice (photography research) : Including a general summary of the photography as a whole as well as detailed research and images of 3 photographers within the photography industry that I am drawn to, incorporating an overview of their work, what that has inspired their style as well as my opinions upon it in reflection to my interests into the subject area of photography.

Commonly described and implicated, the overall subject containing photography is in which noted as the continued execution and production of both art, application and that the practice of creating durable images through by recording light, either electronically by the appropriate means of an image sensor, or through the development processes of light-sensitive materials such as creating photographic films. Typically, when shooting images, the assigned lens of the camera is in fact strategically and precisely used to highlight, contain and focus upon the reflected light or emitted from objects into a real image on the light-sensitive surface inside a camera during a timed exposure. However, within and towards todays modern 21^st Century / society, commonly, the use of shooting images with an electric sensor and its process of taking photographs will go onto produce an electric charge at each pixel, which is electronically processed and stored in a digital image file for subsequent display or processing. In coherence to aspects of photography processes, the overall result with utilising photographic emulsions is in which put across as an invisible latent image which is later chemically developed into a visible image, either negative or positive depending on the purpose of the photographic material and the method of processing. Generally, a negative image produced and placed upon film is in fact commonly used in order to successfully create and develop a positive image on a paper base, known as print, either by implementing and using an enlarger or by contact printing.

Over the years, various photographers have come onto to the scene through the use and development of multiple photographic technics / styles, imagery and as a whole their reasonings and overall purpose of their contained work and projects (photobooks), in an attempt to establish a great understanding of the likes of worldwide issues, poverty, LGBT, mental health, environments, nature (overgrown / erosion / deterioration) protests or documenting their everyday life and its contained surroundings at the time including aspects of people, architecture, structures, cities, animals, street views and inside homes etc, with commonly the main goal to produce photos surrounding and in an attempt to create and establish a reaction and to crate and effectiveness towards the viewer, through encouraging them to depict / interpret the image and view it in their own way. In relevance, when carrying out continued research and looking into aspects of photography, various photo books, articles, photographers and their projects, imagery and photographs that have made me become much more intrigued, influenced, established and interested into the subject of photography and video can include the like of: *especially as a photograph can portray and tell a much bigger story than just a screenshot or image on paper.

Nan Goldin:

Based across / within America, Nan Goldin is in which an influential photographer commonly known for her deeply personal and candid portraiture across the 1980s. Within her photography, Goldin’s intimate images tend to portray and act as a visual autobiography, through documenting both herself and those closest to her, especially in great personal relevance towards the LGBTQ community (exploring LGBT bodies) and the heroin-addicted subculture as a whole, along with moments of intimacy, the HIV crisis and the opioid epidemic. Commonly within her work and for example her opus and the Ballad of Sexual Dependency (1980-1986) is in which the displayment and projection of a 40-minute slideshow of around 700 photographs set to music that chronicled her life and time spent in New York during / throughout the 1980s. The Ballad was then first exhibited at the 1985 Whitney Biennial, where it was made into a photobook the following year. Based upon her work and contained imagery, Goldin tends to make comments and state that for her, it is not a real detachment to take a picture as it can be seen as a way of caressing / touching somebody, through the belief of thinking that from her photographs you can actually give people the right amount of access to their own soul. Born Nancy Goldin on September 12^th, 1953 in Washington, D,C., the artist / photographer went out of her way and began taking photographs as a teenager as a sufficient way to cherish her relationships with those she photographed, as well as a political tool to inform the public of issues that she seen were of importance to her. In relevance, Nan Goldin was in fact also immensely influenced and intrigued into and by fashion photography of the work of both Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin that she saw and took from in magazines, as well as the revelatory portraits of Diane Arbus and August Sander. As a result, Goldin was then able to effectively go about capturing herself and her close friends at their most vulnerable states / moments (expressing true raw emotions through her imagery), as seen in her seminal photobook titled Nan Goldin: I’ll Be Your Mirror (1996). Recently in 2018, regarding her most well-known successes, she was given the opportunity to collaborate with the designer clothing brand supreme by including three of her developed photographs: Misty and Jimmy Paulette in a taxi, NYC (1991), Kim in Rhinestones, Paris (1991), and Nan as a dominatrix, Cambridge, MA (1978) on / throughout their spring/summer collection.

Richard Billingham:

To this day we all have family pictures close to hand, but as the world of photography became increasingly introspective, subjective and confessional the door to family life, usually closed, was kicked in to where the very private was becoming very public. Born in 1970 on the 25^th of September, Richard Billingham is in which an English photographer, artist, film maker and art teacher, to where in relevance to photography, his work over the years has mostly considered his family, the place that he grew up in the West Midlands, but also landscapes elsewhere. Artist Richard Billingham throughout the progression / development of his work did not care about how his family ought to look when he turned his gaze on them and their situation as a result of being in the heart of working-class life in Thatcher’s Britain. Nor was he concerned about photography when he was living with his father Ray as he would much rather and was simply a would-be painter in need of a patient model.

However, in regards to summarising his work as a whole, throughout various articles / extracts (‘We Are Family`, Genius of Photography – Wall to Wall), Billingham began to mention and state that: “I was living in this tower block; there was just me and him. He was an alcoholic, he would lie in the bed, drink, get to sleep, wake up, get to sleep, didn’t know if it was day or night. But it was difficult to get him to stay still for more than say 20 minutes at a time so I thought that if I could take photographs of him that would act as source material for these paintings and then I could make more detailed paintings later on. So that’s how I first started taking photographs.” Billingham’s snapshots of photoshops tend to enhance and form a kind of family album that no other family member would ever make, let alone show. His photographs and imagery commonly presents, displays and states that his family is not a family of fake smiles and awkward family photos, in which / but they are more like a backstage glimpse into chaotic rehearsals, which was an immense view that turned Billingham from a would-be painter into a celebrated photographer. Overtime, Billingham is best known for the 1996 photography book titled Ray’s A laugh, which continued to digitally document the life and daily ongoings of his alcoholic father Ray, and obese, heavily tattooed mother, Liz through the execution of candid ‘out of the blue` photos. In previous years, he has also published the well completed / composed collections of – Black Country (2003), Zoo (2007), and Landscapes (2008), along with creating several short films based upon / of his photography, including Fishtank (1998) and Ray (2016), to where Billingham went onto adapting the latter into his first feature film, Ray & Liz (2018), a memoir of his childhood.

Broomberg and Chanarin:

Recreating that of the 21^st Century and its obsession with ‘shock value` photojournalism, photographers Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin go about approaching their craft as something closer to ethnography. As a result / within their work, the pair attempt to avoid a signature style, and instead opt for a much more minimal, almost neutral approach, culling and analysing the visual about and surrounding the human behaviours in realms of political discord. For example, towards their concept, series and project for The Day Nobody Died (2008), they took it upon themselves and joined the British Army in Afghanistan in which they collated and made a series of photographs / imagery based of and through responding to each event that they had been of witness to by exposing film to the light for a maximum of 20 seconds. In correlation, these abstract, camera-less photograms to this day are in fact registered and seen as the antithesis of war photography, referencing the impossibility of capturing on film the true horrors of war.

In correspondence and throughout their work especially in relevance to the photographers strong, breath-taking and empathetic imagery in which I believe is very inspirational and personally influential, the publication and photobook titled – People in Trouble Laughing Pushed to the Ground (2011), published by both Broomberg and Chanarin explores the impact of the Troubles surrounding and in Northern Ireland from an oblique perspective. As a whole, its contents are in fact drawn from the Belfast Exposed Archive, which includes a reposit of images taken by photojournalists and civilian photographers during the Troubles, through documenting both the dramatic and the everyday aspects of life during that turbulent period. Working with the Archives 14,00 contact sheets, Broomberg and Chanarin then selected various images which had been particularly obscured by the placement of small round stickers, to portray and indicate that the photo in question had been selected for media use in the past. As a result, each spread in the book reveals the circular area beneath one of these stickers drawing attention to a previously hidden moment or encounter through placing the anonymous hand of archivists and photo-editors suddenly centre stage. Tittles throughout the book are set in the typeface Vanquish, reminiscent of the wall painting prevalent in the paragraphs, whereas all other text is in Berthold Baskerville. In addition to this, Belfast Exposed was founded in 1983 as a response to concern over the careful control of images depicting British military activity during the Troubles. Whenever an image in the archive was chosen, approved or selected, a blue, red or yellow dot was placed on the surface of the contact sheet as a marker. The position of the dots provided a code, which entailed a set of instructions for how to frame the photographs in the book. Each of the circular photographs shown reveals the area beneath these circular stickers; the part of each image that has been obscured from view the moment it was selected. Each of these fragments – composed by the random gesture of the archivist – offers up a self-contained universe all of its own; a small moment of desire or frustration or thwarted communication that is re-animated here after many years in darkness. Furthermore, approaching this vast photographic archive amassed of the Troubles by the Belfast Exposed Archive, chronicling protests and confrontations, petty acts of violence and various routine happenings of daily life, they chose images not with a curatorial eye, but rather with a throw of the dice: they would expose only what was hidden below the round stickers placed willy-nilly by the archivists on the prints. And as a way of revealing the strong feelings these pictures could unleash, they included images purposely defaced by the subjects themselves, obviously fearful of repercussions.

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56e1e3e24d088e6834d4fbf4/t/591c29d444024368be650012/1495017941533/ARTICLE+14+-+People+In+Trouble.pdf

People in trouble laughing pushed to the ground. Soldiers leaning, pointing, reaching. Woman sweeping. Balloons escaping. Coffin descending. Boys standing. Grieving. Chair balancing. Children smoking. Embracing. Creatures barking. Cars burning. Helicopters hovering. Faces. Human figures. Shapes. Birds. Structures left standing and falling. (video documentary).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQeZ7MyJ08Y

October 22, 2020smyth-c102 No Comments

Graphic Design & Illustration (Re-masters Project / Recreating Art)

Claire Smyth AAD010 Introducing Studio Practice : Graphic Design and Illustration – Art Direction brief / task (Recreating classic pieces of famous art)

Graphic design & illustration art direction (ideas inspiration)

Graphic Design & Illustration – art direction : recreating classic works of art (Pinterest Board)

Development and process of creating / photographing the recreation and art direction pieces of work regarding famous paintings / artwork:

Andy Warhol – Campbell’s Soup Cans: 1962 :

Rene Magritte – The Lovers: 1928 :

Frida Kahlo – Self Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Humming Bird: 1940 :

Van Gough Self Portrait: 1889 :

October 8, 2020smyth-c102 No Comments

2020 Summer Project / Personal Work

Please find below / attached various images of completed personal work taken place over summer in the recent months, for and alongside the Art & Design (Foundation Year fo Specialist Degrees) 2020 Summer Project based upon rediscovery and adapting to the ‘New Normal’ etc.