Fine Art Foundation Degree

  To start off my final outcome, I needed to learn how to create prints. I began by sketching out 3 separate stencils, the blank space being the parts I will then cut out in order for the ink to pass through. One key thing I leant during this is that you have to have connecting parts so that the piece doesn't fall apart. For example, the lines round the eyes are all connected because if I cut them out separately, they would have nothing to hang on to & would not join with the rest of the stencil. I did 3 stencils (one for each colour) of different sections of the piece. Layer one was the base colour, two was the mid-tone which was going to be used for the eyes, mouth, horns, & below the eyes, then three was going to be the darkest colour for the deepest parts of the eyes & mouth. Stencil one turned out really well; the majority of the pages I produced were smooth & evenly coloured. However, when we started running out of ink, the image became more patchy. This made ...

We went on a trip to Newstead Abby to give us inspiration for our next project where we have to create a piece to go into the Abby. Newstead Abby is best known as the ancestral home of Lord Byron and was a former monastery which then became a private home after Henry VIII closed down the monasteries. The wealth came from exploitation & other countries via the slave trade. During this trip I was particularly interested in the statues placed round the Abby. Statues were a key interest during my first topic & I originally wanted to carry this on. I took many pictures of the statues I saw with the idea of creating my own out of clay. This was one of many ideas I had gathered during the walk round the Abby. Another thing I took interest in was the small trinket boxes on display as they had beautifully carved patterns in them that looked like foliage or swirls. Some of these were made out of wood so I thought about making my own box & then burn patterns into it using a wood burni...

To start off my second project based round hares, I wanted to experiment more with styles, medias & colours to see varying ways in which hares can be presented & how/what changes can change the mood of the piece.  To start with I wanted to add some sort of human object in with the hare that fits the theme of Newstead Abby, so I put a ruff around the hares neck which is an item of clothing wealthy people used to wear. As this is what people with power & wealth commonly wore, I felt the hares positioning needed to show this so I drew him sat with good posture, quite tall with his ears up. I then decided to add a wash of brown & yellow to colour the hares fur, & then a red tone to the collar so it wasn't too heavily contrasting with the rest of the hare. I used coloured pencils for this. Adding colour to this piece was a decision I made after the sketch as I felt it looked too flat & didn't have much emotion or character. The yellow circle behind the hare r...