Fine Art- Week one (2 weeks) : Still Life and Collage

 Today, I worked in the Fine Art classroom working from the still life featured in the centre of the room creating different patterns and colours based on those featured within the still life that I then ripped up and cut into pieces to create a collage based on my chosen object from within the still life that I will talk about in more detail below. 

The first rotation of materials that I used was drawing ink and alcohol markers, where I chose to draw a section of the still life that was positioned right in front of me. The section that I have chosen involves a violin stood upright a violin case, a glass bottle, a tree branch and the back end of a shoe. I believe that this is experiment was successful because although I previously have not enjoyed working with alcohol markers I feel as though they have created a really nice blended effect when combined with the base colour of the drawing inks. The main section of this still life that hasn't worked out well it where i've attempted to draw the greenery on the right hand side of the illustration, I think this outcome wasn't as effective as the rest of the illustration because, I feel as though i executed quite poorly and should've spent more time on it to perfect it, as opposed to rushing that section and it looking more scribble-like. If I was to recreate this piece I would spend more time adding extra detail to the smaller areas as well as the larger areas to bring the crispness and preciseness of each edge to a better standard. My practice could be approved upon by incorporating other materials such as oil pastel or by watering down the inks before applying them to make them a lot paler in colour. I would also experiment with drawing a different section of the still life to use the inks and marker to see how effective these materials would be for a different section of the still life. I have chosen to use these materials as I felt as though the vibrant colours would stand out strongly, by mainly focusing on the primary colours to really make an impact without having to add details with a harsher colour such as black. 

After creating multiple backgrounds using acrylic paint based on colours I selected from the still life I began to create pages of plain colours i've mixed based on specific sections of the still life and patterns I chose from objects that I could then use to rip up and form my collage. To begin my collage I began by cutting out a teapot and teacup shape out of recycled cardboard boxes and card paper to create the base of my designs, I then began to rip and shred the painted pages of paper I created along with shreds of colour from magazine pages and began to structure my collage on the teapot and teacup with the blue shades for the teapot and pink/red for the teacup. My experiments are very successful as I have created a replica of both objects including an action within this piece to make it interactive due to the increase in the scale of the objects. I think it was very successful using the cardboard for the objects to strengthen them and make them more durable as it allowed it to become interactive and handheld. I also think that it was successful how I made tiles of paper stand out more 3 dimensional using foam board and double sided tape allowing the lid to be much more visible and dominant within the piece. Something I believe can be improved upon is the black area at the top of the teacup resembling the inside as I think the left hand side could've curved down a lot more making it more symmetrical and realistic. My practice could be improved upon by making more accurate stripes along the teacup and making them curved to resemble it being much more three dimensional also, I could either experiment with more colour and incorporate a mad hatter like design or make it a lot more uniform making the teacup and teapot the same colour e.g either pink or blue. I chose to use card and cardboard to make it more durable when being interacted with because cardboard is much thicker and strong compared to if I was to use paper or something with less density, then I decided to use card instead of paper or just sticking the strips for the collage straight onto the cardboard because I wanted to make sure it was all crisp, sharp and flat against the surface to make sure no shreds of paper would move or fall off. Also,  I chose card as opposed to paper because paper can sometimes crease and not stick well directly onto the cardboard making it less smooth and durable. I wasn't particularly inspired by any artist in particular but the wackiness with the bold colour choices was all influenced by 'Alice In Wonderland- Mad Hatter's Tea Party' as I have always loved Alice in Wonderland since childhood and as I saw the teapot and teacup within the still life I instantly felt inspired and tried to portray my vision as accurately as possible within my collage. One problem that I encountered was when I was cutting the cardboard at first it seemed difficult as I tried cutting it using a scalpel blade but after approaching it with a standley knife I was able to cut straight through the cardboard and shape it into my desired shapes of a teapot and a teacup.