The Art of Composition pt 2

I began this project by watercoloring bodies in a small water colour book, influenced by artists such as Marlene Dumas and Antony Gormley- who create these wonderfully, delicate watercolour paintings of bodies. I wanted to incorporate this use of watercolour in my work however, as this projects title was 'reconfigured human'- I knew that I would have to completely reconstruct these bodies in my own way.

In response to the first part of the project, 'Compositional Aesthetics'- in which I composed ten different images from my research of artists such as Marlene dumas, and Antony Gormley- I knew that for this project I wanted to continue with watercolour, and paint these bodies for the 'reconfigured human' project. However, as delicate and precise as Gormley's may appear- did not want my to look like this- but merely the opposite. Eventually, I created around 25 different compositions- all of which I wanted to appear as extremely distorted, and abnormal.

The next part of this process was taking these watercolour paintings that I had done, and cutting out the different body parts into small pieces. Fortuneatly to my surprise, there were many unusual shapes that were created in cutting these bodies out- a lot stranger than I had anticipated. 

Once I had cut out all of thee different shapes, the next part of the process was reconstructing these bodies back into human shapes. However, as there were so many different, peculiar shapes to choose from- it was very hard to make 'normal' human shapes from these cut outs. In doing so, I made around 24 reconstructed human shapes. However, there was something that didn't look too finished about these images- possibly their colour which looked quite faint, and bleak; this led me to the decision to use the photocopier to invert these images. Although, i have inverted images like this in the past, it was quite challenging at first getting to grips with it- however, I eventually got used to testing out. So, I began to turn up the auto contrast, the saturation, and the sharpness aswell as inverting these images. 

I am very pleased with the outcome of these inverted images, as I think they are bursting with colour- unlike a lot of my other work. However, if I were to add to this project, I think that I would have added faces onto these characters. Or possibly experimented a little further with adding a more effective background. I think that if I would've used the drawings the 'mark making' part of the compositional aesthetics, these images would be slightly more effective in their appearance. However, I am pleased with the outcome, and will defiantly use a photocopier again to invert images in the future !

Compositional Aesthetics

For this project, Compositional Aesthetics we had to experiment with creating a visual handbook of ten images per book- however, each book was based on three different subjects- observational, mark making and drawings inspired by research themes. This project was quite challenging in many ways, mainly as we had to think spontaneously and come up with quick ideas and drawings- which is usually quite hard for me as i like to take my time to research and plan what I'm doing.

Observational drawings 

Here are my observational drawings in response to the Compositional Aesthetics project. As the title for this part of project was 'observational'- I decided to draw these at life drawing, as I was observing other people. It was actually quite enjoyable too, as they used different kinds of animal masks whilst posing- creating these rather unusual, quirky images- of half animal, half person. 

Prior to drawing these images, I was researching some of Egon Schiele's drawings, in which he has used white pencil to outline the figures in his drawings- for these compositions here, I wanted to experiment with using this technique. I think the outcome of this was actually quite successful as it really outlines, and accentuates the figures in some of these drawings. 

Mark Making

Inspired by Research Themes/ Archives

Prior to creating these compositions, I had been researching artists such as Marlene Dumas, Antony Gormley- trying to incorporate their sense of tranquility. 

Visiting the Picasso Exhibition

Another greatly inspiring exhibition that I visited whilst I was in Paris , was one of Picasso's called 'Picasso and Maya- Father and Daughter'. The exhibition features over one hundred intimate paintings, drawings and sculptures of his daughter, Maya Ruiz-Picasso during the 1930s to the 1950s. This collection of works and archival documents retraces the childhood and youth of Maya, spanning her birth to her coming of age. 

During the first ten years of her life she was a constant subject in her father’s drawings and paintings, who observed with fascination and tenderness her physical and mental development.