charlottehughesart-blog

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Evaluation

At the beginning of my project, I have looked into previous students work to help inspire me and show the different specialist areas that I might want to work towards and include within the unit. I have researched a fine art and textiles students work to show how different projects can vary, what techniques have been used and if they can represent my starting point. Other student’s ideas and working methods have interested me because it shows me how a project can be developed in many different ways including techniques research and materials. It will nourish the development of my work because it helps me to understand how to move forward with my work and how I can research different techniques to link with previous work. Also the planning that needs to go into each piece of work to help it move forward and reflect. I have chosen to look into a fine art/photography project because this is the pathway I am most interested in, it will help my direction, and what methods are new to me so I would like to try to include within my work. I have researched into a textiles project because I feel it would help me to see how this style of project has been developed and how it represents the ongoing them. I have taken inspiration from their work and have looked for areas I can take forward to help me to portray my subject matter of decay and explain it in different specialist areas.

To start the project a big creative decision that had to be made was what aim I would present and how I can develop a whole project from just one starting point. I have researched into my different ideas looking into articles and web pages to create smaller aims and themes I can base shoots from and research/artists to back them up. Other decisions include creative making techniques and how an original photograph can be developed, for example within the darkroom and using the kiln within my can shoots. I think this then helps to shape my project because it shows different skills and how a shoot can continue to grow with new or old methods and research behind the decisions. The factors that have helped me to make these decisions have been research and planning before hand. I have used my beginning brainstorms and project plan to research into different areas and how they all link and explain my theme.

A factor that has helped to shape my ideas has been artist research because it inspires new techniques that they use and how it can link with my theme of decay. Along with this, I have also looked back at previous projects to help with project decisions and it shows me what has been successful and can be used within this unit. In addition, reflection has helped me on what to do next because it helps me to look into what areas could be improved and how this can develop into the next shoot or creative decision. Research shows the meaning behind my work because it tells the audience why I am looking into a specific area and why a shoot fits in within my theme of work. It helps to communicate why decisions have been made and what it represents to explain the theme and brief of work. Aspects like improved colleges and different creative making decisions have remained unresolved because I have found other solutions that can be used, this is shown in my Tomato responses because they were not successful and I didn’t find they worked with the area I was looking in so to improve I moved forward with different edits and a new shoot. Also researching into different areas of decay to link with the shoots and show how it effects human life and its surroundings.

  I have used my time in college to the best of my ability because I have chosen to use areas like the darkroom and cyanotypes whenever they are available to help me to continue new techniques and to move my project further. At home, I have made sure reflection/annotation is completed because I do not have all the resources needed for creative making or printing. This has made me become very aware of time management and produce action plans so I can plan out everything to do within college hours using the materials provided. I have found that I have been very under ambitious with my creative making because I believe in this project I have done a lot more than I had originally planned and I think this is successful because it helps to represent new skills learnt. I have also found this can then show the development I have done in different specialist areas like textiles. To resolve the issues I have made decisions to stop developing one shoot within creative making and either come back to it or move onto a different shoot and area I can research.

I have found that my darkroom skills have been improved and developed further within this project because I have learnt how to develop a film camera and then create photograms from the images. This then shows a new skill and an area in which my project can move towards. In addition, I found a lot of interest within the textiles fabric samples and the fine art paintwork, which has been improved throughout the unit. I have found a lot of interest in the fine art and photography areas because I like being creative with materials but also developing polyptychs and using the macro lens to create different outcomes. I believe that my Gerhard Richter painting skill have been developed throughout the project and I have come back to the pieces of work and improved new samples and techniques. I believe that my editing skills have continued to grow within the previous projects as well as this one because I am a lot more confident with Photoshop and how I put together my edits using different tools eg, burr and dough tools.

  I have reflected on every piece of work I have done within this project to show the successful areas and parts I need to improve, I found this helpful because it shows how I can develop the work further and how it represents my theme. The most successful method included within my sketch books are polyptych edits, darkroom, cyanotypes and mono prints because they all show the fine art side of photography but they all link to my theme and help to show a different development and focus. Areas in which I need to improve are more in depth research because I found some of my shoots did not show the development until I added the correct artist research and articles to help support it. For example, my Tomato edits did not have a lot of relevance to my work and I needed to look further into his technique to improve edits. The main aims and objectives at the start of my project included researching different areas of decay, and how it effects human life and its surroundings. I was interested in fine art areas within photography and looking into installations to inspire work or outcomes. I have looked back to the beginning aims to help me to evaluate my work but I think it does need to be more descriptive with linking to what the meaning behind not only the aims but also the shoot intensions. My work has affected my future aspiration because I am very confident I want to move forward into something creative and continue to create art.

I have chosen to use the photographs from my can shoot because I believe this is the most successful area of work and I think the effect of not knowing they are cans is very powerful and helps to get the message of decay and neglect of the material across to the audience. I want to use photography but also include a 3D object because I think it will attract a lot more attention and will then link both of the images together. My photographs have been printed on a professional large-scale printer so it fills the board and could be seen in gallery size. I have also chosen to use a plinth to stand my box so it is not lost within the other pieces of work and it is clearly seen. I have chosen to have more than one tutorial with my specialist tutor about design for my final outcome and I think this has been helpful because it gives me a second opinion on my ideas and I can then explain the size I would like to print and if it is possible to do. I have then put together an artist statement because this will then help the audience to see what I am trying to portray with my final pieces and how they all relate together within my theme of decay.

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Artist Statement

My photographs pose the question ‘Is decay essential for human survival?’ The juxtaposition between the natural and the manmade suggest our human need to seek beauty, perfection and ultimately, in modern society, consume regardless of the environmental costs. 

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My final piece.

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Darkroom I had chosen to go back into the darkroom because my last photograms came out very grey and I wanted to show improvements from that mistake. I found that this was my most successful darkroom shoots throughout my project because there is a high contrast of dark and light tones. Also I think the images chosen are good designs for the darkroom and helps to move the project on.

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I have chosen to do an edit like this because I think it has worked well in the past and it helps to show all the close up miner details from each image and helps to link them all together. The black background makes the ice and all it's texture stand out and that is one of my main intentions from this shoot.

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For my last shoot I have decided to look back on my most successful shoot and how it can be done again but in a new style. I have chosen to freeze my melted down cans but keeping it true to the artist researched for that shoot. I think this works well because in some images the can details jump out to you but in others it's difficult to see what is inside the ice. The black background was most successful from my first shoot so this is what I have done here and I think it works well to show all of the detail from the cracked ice.

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I have created 6 developed edits from my mini prints by layering and inverting the original print onto the original photograph. This works well because when inverting the drawings the lines become white so this is shown within the darker areas of the image underneath, this then helps to add extra details and lines.

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These are the mono prints I have put together of my can and decay shoots. I have chosen to use this technique because the ink adds a lot more texture over the whole image and makes it look faded and distressed which helps to link with my ongoing theme. These prints are successful because they represent the image on the left and also add a lot of extra depth. To improve I should create developed edits from these drawings and scan them in to help with the layering process.

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These are my final experimental dark room images and for this I have chosen to scratch onto the acetate to create new details and add a lot more textures. This works well because it makes the photograms look like they have been drawn and doesn't look like the original image. To improve I go back into the darkroom with new images because I found that a lot of these photograms came out very grey and didn't have the contrast I would of liked.

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I think that theses layered photograms were my most successful because there us a lot of empty space around the images and they are both clearly seen together. Some of the photograms could have a better contrast of darker tones but I do think it helps to look distressed and faded.

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I have looked through a photography students book for inspiration and how I can move my work forward, in the style of photography and the creative making side. I like the fact she photographed in black and white and used colour in her creative making designs.

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Some of my photogram edits to be developed in the dark room.

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To Do:

1. Macro soot of fabric samples and melted down cans.

2. Photograms of cans and previous rust shoots.

3. Plan next shoot looking into the difference of man made and natural decay.

4. Annotate and evaluate work done.

5. Reflect.

6. Shoot.

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I have put together two edits to see if the images of the cans work well to layer over each other and what outcome I can create. I found that the black background edits don't work well to layer because the contrast pf colours are very dark so you cant see the layer on top.

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These edits work well because they represent all the details within the layers of metal and you can see a lot clearly where the cans have been melted. It helps because the images are zooming in on the smaller details and it brings out the colours within the edits previously done.