Inspiration from Sallis Benney Theatre Wednesday Professional Practice Lectures

After seeing Lizzie Finn’s presentation in the Sallis Benney Theatre, I was inspired by the original way of working she had. I think when most people think of ‘illustration’ they can very quickly and easily refine it to just drawing, with a pen or a pencil. When really the spectrum of what you can do with illustration is so large.

I’ve always had a particular interest in collage and like to use collage when it comes to my own work, but I have never really thought to try it with textiles.

I found it really interesting how Lizzie incorporated the 2 subjects together, and love her use of stitch for lines.

I think another reason I loved Lizzie’s work was a similarity in subject matter/ I can see that she uses a lot of lines and also a lot of shapes where I also like to work in a linear and abstract way.

In a recent project, looking at composition and cropping, I used Lizzie as a reference where I both explored abstract shapes and marks, linear drawn things but I also had to use a form of ‘processed typography.’

I wasn’t sure if hand stitch counted for a type of ‘processed’ typography but I decided to play about with a needle some thread and some paper to create words.

Another thing I liked about stitching drawings/lines/words into paper, was not only the effect it made on the upper side, but also what was left at the bottom, almost the little scraps and the mess, where this sometimes actually created a more interesting composition than the clean cut one.

 I visited this exhibition at the V&A, initially as part of cultural and critical studies module, but it was an extremely large exhibition with lots to offer. The show takes you on a trip between 1966 and 1970, five years which defined significance and have impacted our present and our future.

I learnt a lot from it and found out various things which engaged me in the decade of 1960s. A large theme throughout was the message of freedom, and the summer of love (1967) amongst this was an era of new technologies, as well as experimentation of drugs as a source of creative inspiration sparked and opened doors to new ways of making art.

Within the exciting themes and the likes of LSD, Twiggy, The Beatles, David Bowie, Woodstock 1969 and Barbarella, for me the style and work of Andy Warhol stood out significantly as an area of interest. Andy Warhol was a painter, film-maker and author and most importantly a leading figure in the Pop Art movement. Something I noticed and learnt from the exhibition was that consumerism and advertisement was something of growth at the time. In the 1960s, Warhol began to experiment with such advertisements, such as famously known Campbell’s soup tins and Coca Cola bottles. The 1960s was also a generation of many stars, such as The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie, Twiggy, where Warhol started to produce portrait pop arts, where he painted the likes of Muhammad Ali, John Lennon, Marilyn Monroe, Twiggy which are all iconic. When researching more about Warhol and these type of images, I found out that he used photographic silkscreen to produce them, which is a process I have not used myself before. On Warhol’s website it says that this method of printing creates a very precise and defined imagine which can also allow the artist to mass produce a large number of prints with relevant ease. This again interests me as it ties in with and relates back to the exhibition where consumerism and mass production were new things of the genre. Warhol adopted the methods of mass production to make images of movie stars that were themselves mass-produced. Warhol depicted these universally recognized things, such as the Campbell’s cans or Marilyn Monroe as mass produced items, within a fine art context. By creating paintings or sculptures of mass culture objects and media stars, the Pop art movement aimed to blur the boundaries between “high” art and “low” culture.

After seeing ‘Sign Writing Jack’ at a professional practice lecture on a Wednesday, I was quite interested to further research and look into more images of his work. Before the lecture, I had no idea really who Jack Hollands was, and was amazed by his age and what it is he does for a living. Whenever I imagine branding and signage these days I think of it to be very graphic and often made using computer software, however I was inspired by Jack’s extremely traditional and skilful ways of sign making. I had never really appreciated gold leaf signage before, as even though it is probably becoming less apparent, it is still definitely used as signage in shops and businesses around me all the time, especially in the likes of huge cities like London, with older and traditional and more upmarket buildings.

I was quite surprised that Jack had originally studied a graphics type degree, as I saw the type of signage he does now as much more practical and definitely more traditional art style based – much less computers. He taught us through the process of how he creates each signage, and I was surprised at how complex and long it was, a large amount of teaching, experience and skill has to go into this. I think that his work is impressive and looks fantastic, and although it is something I may never try, it is something I do want to archive.

‘Let there be light’ was a photography project set to us, in both groups and on a personal scale.

I had not really done much kind of photography before this, other than taking my own photos for research or for resources for my own drawings and work. This project included a photography induction which I found extremely interesting and useful, the things that were taught were things that I did not know anything about before.

It was also beneficial for me as I learnt all about the different types of photo studies available and the camera equipment available to hire for any future use.

The aim of the project was to begin to understand the impact of light in image generation. As a group, we decided to tackle this by bringing in a variety of objects to work with against the light. As a theme, we decided upon liquids and iridescent materials and between the group some of the objects we had included water, iridescent and shiny paper, different coloured and shiny threads, light bulbs, bubble formation (washing up liquid), amethysts, plastic surfaces. etc

We worked together to produce light sources from different angles and with different effects. We took photos together and also individually, using our own cameras and compiled them all together at the end to view and pick our best images.

I think if I had more experience or knowledge in the field of photography before, then my images maybe could have been more successful, however for a first try I was quite happy with them. It was nice to also work as a group because it bought together lots of ideas and we were very experimental in our approach, where we used lots of different materials we might not usually use. I think to improve, this would just be more camera experience, and to carrying on being brave and experimental.