Week Nine - Workshops

31 Oct 1300-1600 Foundation Found Typography

Contact sheet of B&W photos, taken on my iphone camera across campus

Initial mapping of fonts inspired by my found typography

Example of a font I created and took forwards, inspired by a tower style building on AUB campus

01 Nov 1300-1600 Foundation Polaroid Emulsion Lift

Initial demonstration of process

A lift with its 'milky layer' still intact on the back waiting in the cold tray (my first experiment)

A lift freshly cleaned waiting in the cold tray

Finished polaroid lifts displayed on a table waiting to dry

Notes, observations, and notated process details of polaroid emulsion lifting workshop

02 Nov 1300-1600 FAD Contemp Experimental Painting

Completed, 3 canvases

How it started - I began with using watered down acylic paint to distress the background of the canvas and ended up creating the silhouette of a faceless figure in the middle of my page. I knew that I wanted to do an experiment with a manequin like face, however the lines I was creating when i was painting the background started to look like the shadowed torso of a figure so decided to make this that painting. After only using black to do a reverse style painting, I decided i didn't like the darkness of the image. However on reflection (unfortunately I have no photo of it at this stage) I think i prefer it to how it turned out in the end, but at this stage decided to add some white and grey to the image to try and lighten it up slightly and create textural interest. This too seemed too harsh to me, so in the end I decided to completely remove the texture from the left side of the figure, painting straight grey paintbrush lines t create a block of colour, and 3 crosses to the face to add a sinister appeal to it. Initially, I was going to keep the face featureless, however when I stepped back after I thought it was done, i realised it was crying out for some kind of contextual interest and mystery, so added the two dark cross eyes, and a single element of colour to break the monochromatic style, a red cross mouth.

A cityscape - this painting started off as a minimalistic graphic style response, that only had brush marks in the style of Bridget Riley, and a few circles (created by pressing paint on a roller round in a circular motion). Yet again, I have learnt the importance of photographic documentation when creating something like this as it would be amazing to be able to show the stages of the creation of this artwork. I realised halfway through the process that I was yet to use any colour on any of my responses, and so decided to drip some watered down red oil paint down the canvas, as the paints were water based and could be thinned down in this way. After playing around with the consistency, I managed to find a texture of the paint that wasn't to runny and meant the ink would just run straight off the canvas. I did this again with green paint, however on reflection I think I should have just stayed with the red colouring as I really didn't like the green addition and therefore covered the colour over with randomised black brushstrokes, which were at the time on the side of the painting as it had a portrait orientation. However, after I added these brush strokes, the painting turned into more of a sci-fi cityscape with bright lights and markings in the sky.

Incorporating text into my painting responses

03 Nov 1300-1600 Foundation Hand Lettering

All work and reflections on this workshop can be found in my A4 sketchbook.