Mini Book

I wanted to play around with dimensions with my collage, and so i made this mini book and filled it with a set of smaller collages. I enjoyed having to test my approach to composition, working on a smaller scale was a challenge, but i think it worked as a trial into ways of presenting. I was getting bored of just taking paper and collageing onto it. I wanted to play with the diverse nature of this technique. I didn’t really have any intention for what the outcome would be, i just wanted this book to be like a token that i could carry around with me, so if in doubt of my work i could just pick it out and flick through. It would work well as a handout, along side my other works. Like an interpretive leaflet. I think now i want to really tone down to a core concept of structure and colour in my work. Start thinking about what direction i want to spread out into.

Concertina Workshop

In the morning of today we made a concertina book with Kim, down in the print studios. It took about two or so hours to make it, and the majority of the time was spent measuring the paper out before even cutting it. But i think it’s a really great skill to have. I did a bit of book making, back in illustration, and i loved how easy it was to create your own book to implement your work into. There’s something special about that individual touch, rather than using a book that’s pre-made for you. however, i got bored of doing work within the confines of a book, i was starting to feel like i was prohibiting my creative intentions with the direction i wanted to take the collage project. But i will finish filling in the book and see what it results in….

Personal Collage

After a tutorial with Jon Pigott, i was encouraged to just keep creating. I said that i wanted to focus more on my subject of man vs nature, and try and integrate it into my collage work. I found a book called ’50 years of BP in photographs’, it was full of these gorgeous black and white photos of oil rigs and vast landscapes and oil donkeys. This book inspired me to create a range of images using the potent photographs as a foundation for my ‘spirits’ of nature to interact with the landscapes. I tried to use a combination of found images and self made images, i felt it was quite important to create specific images for the medium, as i was attempting to relay a specific message. Still leaving the image up for interpretation, i relied on my own art, to direct the viewers attention towards the ‘spirit’ figure and it’s relationship with it’s surroundings.

First Day of Collage

So my first day of collage in field has been quite interesting. It was a full workshop day that involved some collaboration work. It was split into three parts, the first, we used found images only, to create an image. The second, we collaborated in pairs, using both found and made images. Then we spent an hour making our own patterns on paper, then put it all into a pile. We could then take the paper we wanted, and made our own collages using the patterned paper.

I had a lot of fun just making. It’s been a while since i’ve had the chance to just make anything and not worry about what’s behind it, what it means and what it’s purpose is. So i enjoyed the final results no matter what they looked like. I think it was more about just instinctively creating. It was the perfect introduction to the subject that we would spend the next few weeks delving into. Everyones work was different and it was really interesting to see what this act of spontaneous and thoughtless production of images resulted in. I think it reflected aspects of the individuals personality, and there were some happy accidents in there too.

I remember being in illustration, and we had a discussion about ‘the mark’, as in the marks we make when working. that there is an element of control and an element of improvisation due to the materials we are using. But overall, the mark is inevitably yours. Like a fingerprint, your mark is unique to you, and even if you were to imitate another’s, you still would be within it. It’s inescapable. This concept has frequently been brought to mind when making my art, and i thought it was particularly relevant to this day of creating collage.

Subject Work

Having looked into the japanese ‘Shinto’ beliefs, i’ve been delving into the shinto shrine aspect of their belief, paying homage to the spirits that reside within the shrine, and within nature. Some of the masks are really quite provocative and there’s this sad irony in that there is a collision of faith in the natural spirits, conflicting with mans daily abuse of the natural world, creating excessive waist and pollution. I think this is something i want to bring to the attention of the viewer, that irony that lies within our actions. The lack of forethought towards the earths condition as a result of our interactions with our planet. Using these masks to convey the spirits and how they feel towards the abuse of their natural habitat, i hope to achieve some empathy and consideration towards our direct actions in regards to earth and all that is within in. The work above, is a work in progress, that outcome of which, i want to use natural materials, bark, moss, leaves, etc. to enforce that natural world element.