'Hello Beautiful' Brief: Potato Printing.

I wanted to expand from the leaf/plants idea but wasn't sure where to go with it. I really fancied doing some printing, but was at home and I don't have a lino kit. So, I decided to use potatoes! A little unconventional, but it did the job! I created really simple leaf shapes and tested them out in all different colours.

I even tried two colours, which only very occasionally worked. I actually really liked the shapes and textures they produced, so I kept going with it. I created a found imagery collage, with prints and shoe polish. Then I started printing off the work in grayscale, and printing over the top of that. 

I think this worked really nicely. I loved the pinky peach colour.

I think this looks great in only two colours, the shadows on the back are prints on the other side of the page. I think this works really well and I want to see what else I can do with it. 

'Hello Beautiful' Brief: More Observational Work.

After doing my found imagery collages, I decided to focus on the other two words I hadn't used, 'Growth' and 'Life'. For this I thought I would do some object drawing with plants and flowers, since I thought they fit those words very nicely, and they're beautiful and resilient! I was focusing mainly on shapes and leaves.

I started with this, still trying to keep the work in minimal colours, I think this spread works because of the masking tape, I'm not sure why! 

Some flower studies in different drawing techniques, I'm particularly enjoying the green felt tip and the black fineliner! 

I wasn't sure about this but it's growing on me! I think the masking tape and cut out silhouettes work well, it was the scans and placement I wasn't sure about. 

I did a very simple plain fineliner study, then picked out details and etched them into the page with scissors, revealing them with shoe polish. I love the texture this creates. I want to keep on this track, as I think there is much more I can do with it and I'm enjoying the outcomes. 

Fine Art: 'Transform' -Structure and experimental drawing.

We were given long strips of paper and instructed to manipulate this paper, by folding or crumpling, any which way in order to transform the shape in some way. I chose to create a neat triangular structure at one end, and crumple the paper at the other -as if the structure was unravelling in some way.

From these we then took clean strips, and experimented with sponging, painting, stencilling and scoring, following the lines of our paper and recreating them with shoe polish. 

We also added masking tape for collage/cover up. I found this quite difficult, the shoe polish wasn't very dark and without scoring the paper it would always come up the same shade! It was a difficult medium to work with, but once we had done three and we put them together, I think they worked quite nicely as one piece.

After this we produced some pieces using tape, collage and thread. I preferred this task a lot more, we haven't had to use thread yet and I hadn't ever really drawn with it. My favourite combination was the green thread over masking tape (the strip on the right), the colours and material really complemented each other.