briyanasamuel-blog

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In my studio practice I looked at a poem on Instagram that was written by a friend and with her permission I decided to illustrate it. I had few ideas and i researched many different ways of illustrating poems. I was very confused on whether to be literal or just symbolic. The way this poem talks about how the author wishes for that one second/moment of freedom from their harsh, controlled reality, I looked up ‘dandelion’ and found out that “most modern admirers consider it a symbol of fighting through the challenges of life and emerging victorious on the other side.” So I wanted to make it more symbolic by adding a field of dandelions with some blowing up towards the sky to sum up the whole poem. On the big roll of canvas where I was going to do my final illustration on, I painted the sky, but then realised, yet again I was stuck. I liked this simplicity of the sky and it reminded me of Hanovitz’s “Clean Air” in the Walker. So I decided to leave it as it is, where the author is longing for something but its just an illusion. What would have made it more interesting  is if I actually painted the sky from outside my own bedroom window. It would have made this more personal and made the viewer see it kind of from my perspective. 

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Works from another exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery called “The Pre-Raphaelites: Beauty and Rebellion”. 

Sir Galahad - The Quest of the Holy Grail, first exhibited in 1870 by Arthur Hughes (1832-1915). Oil paint on canvas

Old Cottage, Pinner, painted in the early 1890′s by Helen Allingham (1848-1926). Watercolour and gum arabic with scratching out and cutting out on wove paper

A Grey Day, painted in 1865 by Daniel Alexander Willaimson (1823-1903). Watercolour on paper. 

The Falling Star, painted in 1909 by James Hamilton Hay (1874-1916). Oil paint on canvas

Different exhibition:

Before Vermeer’s Clouds, painted in 2006 by Martin Greenland (born 1962). Oil paint on canvas. I was very captivated by Greenland’s painting of his idea of how heaven might be like. It was so overwhelming as soon as I set my eyes on the painting because of its size and perspective - making it look very 3-dimensional. It also reminded me of Stevie Smith’s poem of “A Heavenly City”. This painting just lifts the viewer’s spirits and makes them feel like they are actually standing before this heavenly place, making us see in the eyes of the artist. I find this to be a very exquisite and outstanding piece of work. 

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Exhibition called ‘Transparency’ at the Walker Art Gallery.

I found this exhibition remarkably interesting. I’m not usually a fan of pure contemporary art but there are a few types of contemporary art I can handle; and this exhibition was exactly that. Many of these works were very striking, fascinating, and unusual. Some of the works listed here are:

Nest (Turquoise Loops), 2008 by Ruth Claxton (born 1961)

MM 33, made in 1976 by Turi Werkner (born 1948). Pen and ink on transparency.

Untitled (after Monet), made in 1991 by Alex Hartley (born 1963). Photograph, MDF, aluminium and glass

7, made in 2004 by Camilla Low (Born 1976). Perspex, enamel and metal

Open Window (Mirror Image), painted in 1968 by Henry Inlander (1925-83). Oil paint on canvas

Clean Air, made in 1970 by Howard Kanovitz (1929-2009)

Two works that caught my interest were “Open Window” and “Clean Air” as I found these two quite similar the in fact that they were related to landscapes. However, I was more fixated on “Clean Air “ because of the simplicity of the print yet it had a lot of depth in the meaning of the window and the sky outside being an illusion and the fact that this was the artist’s own studio window from which he painted many times. 

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These are the 15 editions of my prints. I added foil to them which made them all the more high quality prints - and I'm happy with the outcome!

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After making quite a large number of prints, I narrowed it down to these four prints. I found it hard trying to chose one to do my final editions on, but after a little vote from a few people, it narrowed down to the second print. And that's the one I chose for my final edition.

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One of the artists I really liked is Ali Hutchison who has been a BBC local radio faith-and-ethics producer in Manchester and is a freelance media trainer. She works stone, bronze, iron, clay, found objects and mixed media painting, often on doors, to create works and installations which invite spiritual as well as aesthetic response.However, I just want to focus on the paintings that she creates. I find her works to be very abstract in some ways. She does various subjects of paintings including landscapes and one which caught my interest are her Biblical illustrative paintings. Her paintings have a sense of spirituality in them with the way she uses texture, colour and loose brush strokes. Her work is similar to mine in the style of painting and how she paints quite illustratively using a passage or verse from the Bible. In the first few paintings, she designed it to ask questions. I find it really inspiring how she creates work for a community of her faith in various different style and using different mediums to work with. 

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I took part in a Life drawing session drawing this skeleton. I actually liked doing this and it is something that will help me develop my drawing skills. Also I continued to practice calligraphy writing since I started getting a lot into it. I think I might use it more for my future practice.

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From the set up for my exhibition, my prints caught someone's eye and that person told me she was interested in actually buying three of my prints! (As the ones shown above) What caught me most was when she said she could not wait to have them and how much was looking forward to them. I was surprised how my work could make someone feel so happy and excited and this really boosted my confidence. I had been trying to focus on landscapes and nature for my studio practice and how my work would evoke certain emotions from a viewer, and with this experience I realised I really enjoyed making work that was more visually pleasing and made the public happy. So my work would be more for the public than myself.

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These are all the prints I used for the exhibition.

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We had a surprise exhibition that was arranged by our tutors and we had to choose two pieces of work of one which was finished and one unfinished. I chose to exhibit 6 of my prints and a rough illustrated sketch I had done of a quote. I chose to 'hang' my prints onto a pillar because I liked the idea from my previous exhibition in the first semester of how it made the viewer walk all the way round, viewing each print individually and not all together at once. Especially condsidering the many layers I had added onto my prints - it would look too busy and possibly a bit overwhelming if they were presented onto a flat surface and viewed all at once. Secondly, I framed the drawing because it was incomplete and when it was in the frame, suddenly the drawing looked like it was a completed piece of work. I liked how, sort of, decieving it looked and therefore decided to leave it like that.

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More developement of prints. There is a lot more depth in these prints as I carry on experimenting and finding out what colours work best together and how it brings out the image visually.

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Some more developement of my prints. I tried out gold foil for the first time on one of my prints and, I must say, I thought the outcome was quite exquisite! I fell in love with the added effect of the foil with my layered print and decided to add this in for my final edition of 15 prints.

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On the first print, I added the quote and, I think this just made the print look more complete, because the print was kept quite simple. Later, I started adding a gradient effect to my prints and started adding layer after layer on top of the same prints in different colours. I slowly saw this was starting to develop a lot more and started to look a lot more interesting than the first prints I did. It gave more depth and much more for the viewer to look at. I saw so many possibilities with this layering technique and decided to move towards that direction. I left out the text because I thought of adding it in at the very end.

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I started off with simple illustrative screen prints and experimented with the layerig of the outlines. At first I put them all prefectly lined together, but then I decided to line it up a bit of out proportion and that resulted in very interesting effects. I used colours that contrasted and complemeted each other to create really cool effects.

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Continuing on with my print project, I chose the quote I was going to use for my screen print and used various types of calligraphy in that one text. I thought this made it more interesting. I also tried illustrating the quote and I think it looks visually pleasing. However, I should have done some more illustrations unstead of just the one to see how far my creativeness could go. I then started drawing out the actual design for my print. I chose to do just two layers for my print - so all the flowers would be filled in the same of whatever colours I chose. I did this because of the short time frame I had and it was much quicker.

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This was the final outcome

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My friend had found a digital graphic designer and invited me to join his team over teamviewer to watch the logo in making. He wanted my inputs while the design was being made if I liked it or if I thought something had to change. At first I was really nervous to be a part of a team of really knowledgeable graphic designers, since I had no experience in graphic design whatsoever. I kept quiet for a while at first and just kept agreeing to what the team were saying. But then, when I noticed something I didn't think worked out very well, I told them what I thought and they actually agreed to it. So this helped boost my confidence a little and I started giving my own inputs instead and at one point had to even draw it out to show what to do - which ended up being more helpful for the team. It was quite a long process and there was a lot of editing as the team and I threw in our comments of what we thought didn't work out and what had to change, etc. The colour scheme chosen for this logo was teal and grey. I thought this colour scheme worked really well together. We also played around with the fonts for a more professional look and tried a lot of the lighting and effects for the logo later on to see what looked more visually pleasing.