Les Demoiselles d’Avignon is a large oil painting created in 1907 by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. The work portrays five nude female prostitutes from a brothel on Carrer d’Avinyó in Barcelona

When researching and creating options for the composition project, I decided to use the idea of the human figure and much of my life drawing as a theme. When I looked at some of my life drawings, I decided they were quite abstract and after recently enjoying using geometric shapes and lines in my drawings, I decided to tie the two together.

I had previously studied/analysed Picasso’s Les Demoiselle’s d’Avignon and recognized the geometric shapes within his forms.

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon marks a radical break from traditional composition and perspective in painting. It depicts five naked women with figures composed of flat, splintered planes and faces inspired by Iberian sculpture and African masks. The compressed space the figures inhabit appears to project forward in jagged shards; a fiercely pointed slice of melon in the still life of fruit at the bottom of the composition teeters on an impossibly upturned tabletop

The art of composition project was definitely a challenge to me due to it being set alongside the compositional awareness project. For my research and visual elements I decided to pick ‘reconfigured human’ as my theme from the list. I decided upon this theme because I had been to several life drawing classes and wanted to put some of my drawings to use into my project work.

Amongst the criteria list, I decided I could use the human body, where I referenced Picasso who uses abstract shapes and forms to present the human figure. To carry on the theme of Picasso, I decided to research some Picasso quotes to use as possible text in my compositions.

I started to play about with line and geometric and abstract shapes and got quite carried away with it in my sketchbook, so I decided to take this further. I think this worked nicely because as well as creating an overall graphic style in my project, it joint elements together in my compositions, which helped create the compositions (if that makes sense.)

I stuck a variety of my life drawing elements into my sketchbook and decided which I wanted to scan in and use as collage in my pieces. I often use collage as a way of working, and in my 8 outcomes you can see a lot of this, where I have collaged text, materials and imagery onto my paper.

Graphic shapes and linear drawn – I tried to use a large amount of line in my work against many geometric shapes, which was inspired by Picasso but also illustrator Lizzie Finn.

Quote – for my quote (s) I carried on my theme of the human form and Picasso’s work, where in some compositions I wrote this out playing about with type, and others I used letters from the quote

Something old/aged – I incorporated newspaper as another method of collage in my work

Processed typography – I saw a professional practice lecture at uni, by Lizzie Finn and was inspired by her work. Something she uses frequently in her work is textiles and stitch, so I decided to play about stitching some words into paper.

Processed imagery – I have used both some of my life drawings, which I have scanned in and manipulated and also an image of a mono print I created during process rotations.

3D and assemblage – For 3D, I started to experiment with ways I could continue my theme but make it sculptured/3D. I have used card throughout, so I decided to continue to create abstract shapes again out of coloured card, but by folding it in different ways to make sections stick up and be 3D.

From my sketchbook, you can see my research and the beginnings of my collections of my elements. I then decided on what I wanted in each individual 8th composition. I laid out my elements on my A3 paper and played about with positions and space before I stuck things down. I cut elements up and moved them around. Once I had stuck the foundations down, I worked on top with pen in a linear manner to finish each piece.