For the ‘Worlds Collide’ project we were presented with a task which had a list of words A) and a list of words B), where it was our own job to decide on two of these words and make 2 differing worlds clash and collide in our own way. I decided A) Architecture and B) Botanical as my two words/worlds.

I decided upon these words, 1) mainly because I have always had a particular love for drawing buildings in an abstract way, and I thought botanical may be a nice contrast with architecture due to the unnatural meets natural/ manmade meets nature concept.

I had the idea of the term ‘Concrete Jungle’ where I thought about where buildings and plant life meet. Continuing the idea of where you see plants meet architecture and nature take over in the city.

I thought that collaging some of the elements may make it easier to bring 2 worlds together visually, and more aesthetically. I thought of layering A and B together. I did this in a variety of different ways, including different types of drawing materials, such as pen, felt tips and paint. I also used card, tracing paper, my own existing prints, objects such as buttons and masking tape as collage options.

When researching, I found artist and illustrator, Holly Wales and was inspired by her work. Some of the subject matter she has explored was relevant to my project also, where she uses plant and leaf shapes. Holly uses quite simple shapes in her work, but layers with different colours and transparencies on top of each other. I have tried to mimic this in my own way, where I have found the tracing paper a really useful tool. It is a nice way to layer because it can gradually be built up, by 3D such as card but also by flat, linear, hand drawn elements.

Reflecting back on the project, I am definitely happy with it visually. This may be because of the subject matter in hand, where I particularly loved drawing flowers and buildings in an abstract way. Although from the start, my style and composition direction was quite clear, I think it has definitely developed, where I have made good choices of what works best aesthetically and should be taken further. I am pleased I decided to be experimental and move away from just ‘drawing’ on a page, where I think the collage leant itself really well to this project too, where both buildings and flowers are quite 3D objects. It was nice to work again with colour, however I could have possibly considered a colour palette further and improved this part of my project; some compositions were more carefully carried out than others.

Before starting this project, I did some research both into pictograms and composition.

Pictograms – what are they? A pictogram is a pictorial symbol for a word or a phrase. They are ideograms that convoy their meaning through their pictorial resemblance to a physical object.

So I decided to create my 30 pictograms in a particularly stylised and graphic way, as this is what I saw from research. This is not how I would have drawn them in my own style necessarily, but I wanted to be experimental with my approach and I wanted to fit my research. Also, whilst working ‘The Art of Composition’ project alongside, I decided to keep my linear, graphic style where I have joint up objects by using lines with geometric and abstract shapes.

Using collage to create composition: I had an idea that I could scan in or photograph my 30 images and print them off so I could play about with the size and scale of them easily. Given such a short amount of time to complete a large volume of work, I think visually I rushed it. I worked in a much more graphic style, but this was mostly due to the nature of pictograms when I came to research them.

I think my original 30 pictograms, which I have placed at the front of my sketchbook (and you can see amongst these compositions but are manipulated) are nicely stylised and so therefore, successful, however I don’t think I used them to their best advantage in all compositions.

I decided to use collage because, as noticeable, it has always been something I have enjoyed using as a technique in my work, but I also used it in this case in order to try and create a large amount of compositions more quickly (however it may have actually taken me longer, due to scanning, manipulating, printing,cutting, sticking, drawing)

I decided to use many of my pictograms randomly together within my compositions, where reflecting, I think maybe some look to busy or a bit random, however I just did this to try and include as many as my original 30 pictograms as possible. I think those that use repeats or show a theme work better than those that don’t, and that if I was to change this in the future I could have thought through themes for each composition more carefully.