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Rationale and Final Product

Jordyn Schaefer

200144

Creative Development 100

3 November 2020

This is my final collection of collages. These collages all relate to personal aspects of my life that I can often be afraid to speak on. Through compiling an array of seemingly unrelated images, I have been able to compose a messy collection of work into art that expresses parts of who I am. 

For the first collage, the theme is social media and the way in which it traps, isolates and hurts us. My collage exhibits a painting of Madame Recamier, a socialite of her time. In her hand is an iphone and surrounding her are instagram posts, profiles, likes and comments. Behind her is a window with chains hanging over it. Madame Recamier represents users of social media, who, despite their popularity due to followers and likes, are melancholic (indicated through the deep blue paint), isolated (indicated by the woman sitting in solitude) and trapped (indicated through the chained window and the box lid that creates a physical window on the side of the viewer). 

My second collage focuses on heartbreak and healing. The phoenix rising from the flames that once reduced it to ashes, is representative of me. After painful experiences (represented by the flames), and through self reflection and the rebuilding of strength (represented by the man looking into his reflection in the water and the partly broken pillars respectively), I have been able to come to terms with my past experiences and have grown a great deal from them. The fairy lights shining through the collage symbolise the idea that despite and also because of pain in life, people are able to grow and experience good from that pain, like light shining through holes in a dark page that look like beautiful stars. It’s all part of what makes us who we are, beautiful and unique. 

The third collage focuses on identity. The left side represents environmental aspects that affect who I am, such as school, friends, and romance. The right side represents biological aspects of my identity, such as DNA, bacteria and organs. This side has been painted over and inverted, to separate it from the left side and add a more clinical feel with the blues and oranges. I have struggled with objective truths that make me who I am, and have often felt that all I am is a reaction and a bunch of genes and cells. The hands at the top of the artwork are taken from a painting of Jesus, and while I am not religious at this point in my life, I do often wonder if believing in a higher power is the only way one can find a third reason for why we are who we are. In the centre of the work, my silhouette is depicted with three heads coming out of the top, indicating my relation to these three elements of identity. Surrounding the collage are subjective elements that have formed parts of who I am as a result of my genes and environment. This includes my childhood, important quotes, my high school and preschool careers, and also my friends and passions. 

I feel that through the creation of these collages, I have better been able to come to terms with and also express some of my inner thoughts and feelings. 

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Courage (Finale)

Jordyn Schaefer

200144

Creative Development 100

3 November 2020

After adding in the paint elements digitally, I felt that my work still needed more. I struggled to think of ways to improve these works and have mulled over some ideas for the past week. I needed to take the next step, but was hesitant. I was afraid of making my work worse, but this relates to the experimentation necessity that was discussed in the previous blog. Despite my concerns, I decided to get started with a new idea to bring the work to a new level. I got my collages professionally printed at a local printers and brought them home. I looked around in my room and in a box of art supplies in my crafts drawer. At this point, I was afraid of making my work worse and wasting time by tying to add more physical elements. Then I realised that the lid of my art supplies box was a perfect addition to my first collage and pushed the concept further. The second collage’s idea came from a brainstorm I did in the extravagance week, adding light to shine through holes. I decided to put fairy lights behind the page in a strategic way to look like they were light shining through holes in a dark surface. For the third collage, my dilemma was solved when I was searching my room for inspiration. It was right in front of me the whole time. One of the walls in my room has a string of images of me throughout my life, some with friends and some of me doing the things I’m passionate about. With these, I’d also hung up hand-written motivational quotes that have been part of my life motto since high school. These images and words that have formed a part of who I am for so long and that have been in such a personal room, will surely boost the concept of identity in my third collage. These elements, despite their possibility to add messiness, chaos, or even destruct my printed collages, were experimented with until I found the perfect use of each of them. 

I am rather happy with how these elements have strengthened my pieces. This made putting my works onto a mounting board easier, as I was more proud of the finished product. 

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Paint on photoshop for collage 3.

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Courage, part 1

Jordyn Schaefer

200144

Creative Development 100

26 October 2020

My blog post based on the prompt, “courage” for week 7 will be posted later on this week, but I felt that this was a good opportunity for me to showcase my courageous experimentation with my printed collages. I feel that much of what we do creatively is about being daring, and experimenting with our work, even if it doesn’t go well. Experimentation is a large part of how I design on illustrator, and while doing it physically is far more “destructive” it is still a necessary part of the creative process. For me, through experimenting, I am able to determine what works and what doesn’t. Sometimes it prompts me to take a new creative or conceptual path, sometimes through a mistake, I’m able to fix it and move forward in a way that is better than what it would have been before. These are images of my failed attempts to make my collages look more extravagant. They look sad more than anything else :). But I’m happy I tried. I also decided that in the future, printing will be done at a printer, not my home one that leaves lines on everything haha. I’ll also be using these failed attempts to experiment with a few other “extravagant” ideas, such as punching holes into the paper like I wanted to do for project #2. I may use these still, but I’ll keep ya posted. ;)

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Extravagance - an update.

Jordyn Schaefer

200144

Creative Development 100

26 October 2020

After experimenting with my printed collages, I discovered that painting over them with an opaque guache-water mix was warping the paper and smudging the printer ink. While this way was more risky and extravagant, I decided that the better and more professional-looking option was to do this in photoshop with a vintage watercolour brush. I think that the product has turned out well, and is still an extravagant, more eye-catching change to my collages that also unifies them into one group of artworks.

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My three collages, before adding extravagant elements. 

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Be Extravagant

Jordyn Schaefer

200144

Creative development 100

25 October 2020

For my collages, I have decided to make extravagant decisions for all three in my finalising process. As of this point, I have created all three collages after brainstorming, researching, inspiration searching, compiling and refining. To bring all three collages to the next level, I need to think of extravagant additions to both link them all as one project, and make them more aesthetically and conceptually relevant. This is the final part of my creation process that I hope will make the work more eye catching and more effectively communicative, which will connect back to the idea of improving a mess into a work of art. For my first collage, based on the theme of social media, I’ve decided to improve the work through adding glitch effects over various background elements, and then adding a dark blue wash of physical paint over the background elements, adding a feeling of cold isolation and melancholy while emphasising the subject of the collage. To bring the collages together into one piece, I’ve decided to do the same with my second and third collages, but with different colours relating to their respective concepts. For the second collage (revolving around pain and coming to terms with ones hurt), I’ve decided to physically paint the sky area with a wash of black colour and cut small holes in the sky to imitate stars when the collage is placed in front of a light source, a part of my concept that will be discussed in the rationale. For the third collage (relating to identity), I’ve decided to paint the background elements in two different colours, on the left, I will use the colour white, and on the right, the colour black. These colours will be lightly painted over the background elements to strengthen my concept. I may add more tactile elements, depending on how i feel it looks and expresses itself after painting it. 

The following post will show my three collages before I add the “extravagant” elements (I believe the painting element to be extravagant because it is a permanent and potentially destructive part of the artwork that is risky but hopefully worth it, as it emphasises my collages in a new way). 

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Images I discovered to use as both inspiration and input in my physical collage. 

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My Initial planning and concept sketching for my third and final collage. After this, I did some conscious thinking about various elements in my environment that influence me. This was a part of my process which I would have normally researched online and found out about other people’s experiences,and perhaps some scientific meaning of what effects certain environments have on people, but instead I did some thinking into aspects of my past and thought of ways to express various impactful elements within my life growing up, such as family, friends, excercise, food, physical environment, school, relationships and more. Shortly afterwards, I searched for images to print out and physically paste together to start compiling my collage, these will be presented in the next post.

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Abandon Normal Instruments

Jordyn Schaefer

200144

Creative Development Week 5

16 October 2020

This is a prompt I’m excited to incorporate into both my creative process and the creation of my actual third collage. 

At the moment, I am working on my first two collages, but my next part of research and planning will be for my third collage. Usually, I find inspiration and research online rather than in physical books or places. In my process for creating this collage, I’ll attain research and inspiration without my usual instruments. I’ll post photos of my findings from books, paintings and my physical environment once I’ve found some that relate to the topic for the third collage. 

I have decided that I want my third collage to focus on the idea of identity. This is something that’s been on my mind a lot recently, as i’ve been battling with how one can define themselves truly and uniquely. It seems that objectively, all we are is an amalgamation of reactions. It feels like who I am is reduced to my genes and the environment I’ve grown up in. What else can make me who I am? I’d like to explore this question visually. 

Instead of using this week’s prompt to help me decide on my third collage’s theme, I’ve decided to incorporate it into the actual creation of my collage. Usually, I create collages on photoshop. Once I’ve done all my planning with unconventional instruments, the third collage will be made with physical paper cut-outs which I’ll scan in. 

As for an update on my creative process for collages 1 and 2: I’ve begun to refine my first collage by thinking of new visual elements I might be able to add. I’ve also found more visual references for my second collage and have been doing research on how other artists communicate heartbreak. 

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More artworks focusing on the previously discussed themes. 

Jordyn Schaefer 200144

Creative Development Week 5

14 October 2020

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Some inspiration and research on artworks based off of pain and heartbreak, as well as artworks that show strength and unique experience. 

Jordyn Schaefer 200144

Creative Development Week 5

14 October 2020

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My mind map and a possible sketch for my second collage. I’ll also be posting some research on other artists who have explored this theme. 

Jordyn Schaefer 200144

Creative Development Week 5

14 October 2020

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My initial list of ideas that started my creative journey:

Jordyn Schaefer 200144

Creative Development Week 5

14 October 2020

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Do We Need Holes?

Jordyn Schaefer

200144

Creative Development Week 3

11 October 2020

I’ve been putting this blog post off for a while, I’ve been prioritising other projects, and losing time over tiredness. I created a void of creation and determination, and it stressed me out even more. But I realised that my sudden planning, hard work and perseverance now is a result of that. I had to fill a void to reach equilibrium. This void can be likened to a hole. “Filling a hole” just doesn’t sound as elegant. Through that “hole” in my work ethic (and this prompt) I’ve realised that we do need holes. I feel that the next time I’m feeling tired or lazy, it’s okay to take that break without guilt. I know that I’m a hard worker, and I know that if I create a hole in my schedule or creative process, I will make sure that I fix that, and in many cases, the hole might force me to work faster, harder and more creatively. That hole is part of my creative process in many cases. Let’s call it inspiration through pressure ;). 

I like using these prompts as part of my idea generation, they help me discover new ways to express my deeper thoughts in my collages. I had to think about this prompt for quite a while, and I realised it works with one of my ideas (in the beginning of the term I started a work in progress document and added a list of themes I might want to explore in this project, I think I’ll put that in the next post so my process is more transparent). The idea relates to hardships and heartbreak. 

I recently experienced a breakup with someone I deeply care about. I still have a huge amount of love for this person. It was a painful time for me, and I think that as a subconscious attempt to not feel that, I’ve been in an out of denial about it. Through the prompt, I realised that heartbreak and hardships leave holes in people. Of course this breakup is not the only difficult experience that sticks with me today, I have many little “holes” left from pain and negative experiences. But we all do. And much like the equilibrium I’m able to reach through my creative voids, I think that there’s an equilibrium we reach by coming to terms with our past hurt. We need these holes to grow and become our best selves. 

For this collage, I’m going to create a mind-map to brainstorm creative ways to express this idea, and explore other things I can say in relation to it. That’ll be included in my next post. 

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“happy”

My first collage created through my two worst impulses. 

Jordyn Schaefer 200144

Creative Development Week 2

24 September 2020

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Some images that have sparked an idea. I’ll be taking screenshots of my instagram profile too.