Art Project; Chance
I started this project using a chance machine in the form of a dice with 6 sides, with 6 different options for questions to ask a group of people, with the intention of mind mapping the results to come up with some ideas for a project. The result rolling the dice was the question 'what is the first thing that you do/see when you wake up in the morning?' I asked this question of a group of people and mapped the results by circling the answer every time someone said it, which is a more visual way of noting down the results. It meant that when I had completed the survey, I could quickly and easily see that the first thing that most people do is turn off their alarm/check the time, and check their phone. I took these 2 objects and made a really fast paced mind map of them so that I could quickly generate ideas without thinking about the end result of the project, and just quickly writing the first ideas that came into my head.
From this initial mind map, I took the 2 words which I thought were the most interesting and would lead to the best ideas and moved on to a 2nd mind map, again keeping up the fast pace. These 2 words were 'hands' (from alarm-clock-components of a clock-hands) and 'Time passing' (from alarm-clock-time-time passing). At this point I decided that I liked the idea of showing the passing of time through someones hands, as hands are something which change a great deal throughout a persons life.
The first thing that I did was draw a collection of studies of hands, using different lengths of times for each one, as well as a selection of styles. I tried to use different techniques for each one, using varying degrees of expressive quality. I did all of these from life, as a form of primary research. Some of them were of my own left hand, whilst others were of strangers that I saw whilst on the train.
After doing all the studies of hands, I felt more comfortable with drawing them, so I did 2 more studies, one of an elderly lady's hands, and one of a child; a girl around age 3. I chose to stick with pen for the old hands, however I felt that coloured pencils worked better for the child's hands as they are much more vibrant and look softer compared to the pen hands. This is to demonstrate how over time the old persons hands have been weathered and have worked and seen things, whereas a child's hand haven't and are still soft and new.
The next thing I did was look at some artists who work with collage to try and get inspiration for interesting ways to blend my 2 drawings. The first 2 images are work by John Clag who who is a photographer, who ''produces work with a strong autobiographical undertone, frequently around themes of loss and urban alienation'' [https://www.artsy.net/artist/john-clang]. I thought that these photos were very interesting as the eyes look out directly to the viewer, and each part of the portrait is telling a different persons story. I thought that this would be applicable to my project, as each fragment of the hands can tell a different story about the subjects life.
The next 3 are by Greg Sand who says in his artists statement [http://www.gregsand.net/statement.html] that his work is about memory, and the passage of time'. He demonstrates this by weaving 2 photographs, one current and one old together to interlink and weave together the past and present, to blend the two seamlessly. Both Greg Sand and John Clag's work has a focus on time passing, and they show this by blending fragments of different images together, which is why I think that they both relate well to my project.
I made this first collage using the weaving technique, similar to Greg Sand, to interlink the 2 images of hands. Although this produced an interesting effect, I don't think it works for this project as it blends the hands evenly and I want to show the passing off time, rather than just merging the 2 images equally.
I made these 2 collages by cutting/tearing the 2 photos up and sticking them over each other and merging them in a less uniform way than the above experiment. I prefer this to the one above but I am still going to experiment and explore new ways of merging them.
For this one, I tried layering the 2 photos and ripping the top layer to reveal the one underneath, almost like you are peeling away the childhood to reveal the old age.
I also tried this in reverse, with the child hands underneath, and I think that this is much more pleasing to the eye, and gives a much better effect. These could be used to convey ideas about revealing the inner child.
I also experimented with dripping some ink out of the hand, in an attempt to extend some of the vibrancy out from the child's hands out into the rest of the image, but after trying it I actually think that it distracts too much an is unnecessary as it doesn't add anything to the over all effect.
I then decided to try a more linear approach, and cut the images up into straight lines and combined half from each photo to create one image made out of both of the drawings. I like the way this looks as it shows almost a progression though time, with flashes from both childhood and old age, almost like memories.
I then tried this with lines going vertically down started not he left with the child's hands and then gradually blended the images in strips so that eventually the young hands became old.
Purely by chance, which is a nice link to the origin of this project, the printer ran out of ink as it was printing these last few photos so I was able to experiment further with the images.
The collage below is my favourite one of this project, as the pinter was in the process of running out on the drawing of the old hands, and had completely run out off all the ink except blue when printing the child's hands. I then ripped the photo of the child's hands and layered it over the old hands. I put the child's hands on the left so that when the eyes move across the image from left to right, the hands grow old as the viewer sees them. I love the white space created when ripping the photo as in my mind this almost acts as a flash, and it divides the image in quite a subtle yet obvious way, which to me is a metaphor for how quickly time passes, and like a flash these baby hands have become old and withered. The way that the colour has faded from a pale blue, to the black and white at the end also works really well I think, even though it was purely by chance, as I think that the blue tones look almost ghost like and have connotations of reminiscing about past memories and how they have faded over time, which then blends into the harsh contrast of the black and white.
Reflection and Evaluation
The main problem and I thought I would encounter before starting this project was not being able to be open enough but I thought that I handled this quite well and was able to embrace the freedom that comes with the art project. Another more practical problem which happened towards the end of the project was my printer ran out of Inc what it was printing the last few photos but i used this to my advantage and decided to make this part of the chance theme by creating new images out of the distorted colour that the printer produced. In the end I was really happy with the way that the colour came out and it was also nice that this happened purely by chance as it fitted really well with the theme of the project.
I think that I presented my findings and experiments throughout the art project quite well as I did them in a linear fashion in my sketchbook so that you can see the order that they happened which may be less obvious because there isn't really a linear style to the art project. I use my blog to write my annotations because I thought that the project was too fast pace to be slowed down with annotations at the time and I wanted to embrace the fast pace and just go with the flow without trying to analyse everything as it was happening. I did however keep notes in the form of mind maps to express my ideas quickly.
I think that by the end of the project I have managed to follow the process which a lot of art practitioners use in the sense that I let things happen and went with the chance experiments without trying to manipulate the project into what I wanted it to look like. This was very different to the design project.
I found that I was very happy with the end result of the project despite the fact that this is a very different way to how are usually work. I think that as soon as I decided to embrace the freedom of the art project and embark on a creative journey into the unknown, then the project really picked up and I was able to create some really interesting pieces of work by the end of it.
Some of the things I have learnt about myself in this project, or that I do really enjoy working in a more free way, and I think I will be able use this in future, especially if I do go into costume design, as this is a combination of creating art whilst also working to a brief and following the character analysis.