handdrawnhardlyworn

[handdrawnhardlyworn]

An Evaluation

This project, I definitely struggled with time management. I tried to take on far too much, and ended up lacking with what I aimed to do in my project proposal. I wanted to physically paint up all my designs but I just didn’t have time to along with the other briefs. Especially with the current situation, not being able to go into uni and use the resources seriously affected my work, due to my ADHD I struggle to concentrate at home where there are too many distractions, and I don’t have the space to make big works like I want to. If we are still in this situation next term, I will be trying to take on less, and spreading out tasks over longer than a few days.

I think I did alright at making my pieces look cohesive, they look like they’re supposed to be together. I’m happy that although everyone may not immediately get the message of all of them, I got to explore putting out my own catharsis into images. Next I’d like to work on executing my feelings into clear visuals, and I’m thinking of looking into this during the summer with some free courses online. I’m happy I got to try a new style I’ve never done, and I think I did well making the website, i got some peer feedback and they said it looked good and professional.

Next project I’m going to focus hard on image generation. Personally I’m not happy that I *only* made 10 images, I need to focus less on research and written work, and just draw more.

[handdrawnhardlyworn]

An updated version of my guillotine from before, so it’s a bit more in line with the others

[handdrawnhardlyworn]

This is my profile page piece for my portfolio website.

We were asked to do something that reflected us personally, and I feel like this does the best. It symbolises my work, pro women and trans people, maybe a little broken but still with fire burning inside. And the flowers symbolise that femininity can be powerful too.

I added the words “cleansing fire” because that’s my goal in making art, in relation to my chosen topics. I want it to burn through the corruption and propaganda all over the media, and I want to keep working to make that message really clear.

[handdrawnhardlyworn]

After talking to Jason I decided to do a bit of an updated version. It didn’t look as good with most of her hair missing so I think this works a lot better!

[handdrawnhardlyworn]

This is my response to the entire Sarah Everard vigil situation. Police violently handled and shut down a memorial of women gathered for Sarah Everard, a murder/rape victim, allegedly by a police officer no less. Then, not even a few hours later, Priti Patel is trying to pass laws that include additions like anyone causing a “public annoyance” could face up to ten years in prison. It’s a soft ban on protests is what it is. This piece encompasses both the current social media discourse about male violence against women, toxic masculinity etc, and she’s a classic mohawk punk to represent our right and need to protest. This design is actually where I got the idea to use a quote as an under eye tattoo on my final designs for my brief. The quote is actually from the Idles song Mother which inspired the “The Best Way To Scare A Tory Is To Be Well Read” image! It means, we need to call out and prevent all types of toxicity, “boys will be boys” etc, starting as young as possible, and not accept harmful stereotypes or the objectification in media of people (mostly women) otherwise the problem will never be solved.

This response may not have anything to do with my brief but as I’m so broadly criticising the government I feel it’s still relevant, and discussions like this will always inform my art. I’ve also enjoyed my first taste of backlash for making controversial art, several men have visited my DM’s to call me a man hater and tell me I’m wrong, despite me not mentioning pronouns anywhere in the artwork. It’s good! It’s being ✨affective✨

[handdrawnhardlyworn]

Here are my three final designs for the brief! I will attempt to paint them as I planned to if time allows, but I’m currently also working hard on my research brief

Image 1: Your Choice Is Heart Or Death

I made some changes after a really good discussion with Jason, we talked about how it’s taken on more of a woodcut style than screenprint, and if I could I’d love to woodcut or Lino print them but unfortunately I don’t have access to the materials right now, I’ll look into it! I added the white spaces around the scales and her head to give it a bit more definition after studying some woodcut techniques and I think it pulls the image together much better and makes it more clear. This one is more complicated than the other two but I see it as the “centre piece” of the series, if they were all hung together. I also played around with the colours more and tried to draw the eyes on a journey through the title, the face, the scales, the sword, back up to the fire.

Image 2: Heinous Acts

This image came through from all my image gathering and my uni inspiration Pinterest board. I saw images of propaganda posters with fists and hands for the “fight against x y and z” I thought it would be interesting to change the message from the fist being a positive to a negative. The phrase has significance again, “coi bono” translates to “good for whom?” but means “those who benefit from heinous acts are surely the culprit of them.” Just like in a murder investigation, which the last year of events almost feels like. The coin is representative of a £2 coin to make it very clear it’s directed toward the UK government, and it might be a little on the nose again but the pile of skulls is supposed to represent the countless lives lost due to their laissez faire approach to this pandemic. The blue colour of them represents both the blue of the NHS and the Conservative party colours, though it’s more muted as I didn’t want to be too obvious. The coin says democracy because although it may not seem like it, I believe from my research that the way they have acted and the way they use the amount of power they have is putting our democracy at risk. If even in the midst of a crisis where 114,000 people have died, they still are passing critical PPE contracts to their buddies, I don’t believe it’s what anyone voted for, even those who vote Conservative. The government is supposed to serve us, not themselves.

Image 3: More of Us

This design is a little more obvious, vox populi means literally, “voice of the people”. I studied repeated portrait imagery, the easiest example being Andy Warhol’s “Marilyn’ works, and Takashi Murakami’s work also repeats imagery. I find it so eye catching and I wanted to include it in my work. This one doesn’t need much explaining, it’s simply to say there are more of us than there are of them, it’s a call to arms. I chose the purple colour theme to add a somber tone, and I think it compliments the other images too. I added the nose ring, heavy makeup and the quote as an under eye tattoo because I always like to bring forth some of my punk aesthetic, and we’re exactly the kind of people they don’t want to unionise.

[handdrawnhardlyworn]

My final design for one of my final pieces for this brief!

It’s name is “Your Choice Is Heart Or Death”

I’m overall happy with it, I’m going to attempt to paint this next week when the other final designs are done too, but incase of time pressure at least I have this completed design to submit. It turned out more like a lino print than a screen print style but I liked it so I kept going with it, and it ended up looking much better.

I don’t think I would change anything about it right now, but I might discover something during painting.

[handdrawnhardlyworn]

Some progress with making thumbnails! I really like all three of these designs so I’m struggling to think of a fourth.

I’ve decided against being too specific about the issues, and instead going more general in the posters. After my research and discussing it with peers, if you’re tooo specific in an artwork it becomes irrelevant within a week, with the next disgusting thing they do. I’d much rather make works that will last, maybe hinting towards something, such as I’ve had the idea to do a starving skeleton in reference to the food “parcels” that were sent out, which I’ll try to draw up tomorrow.

The first one is Justice. The words “Heart Or Death” refer to the Latin quote “cor aut mors” which means “(Your choice is between) The Heart (Moral Values, Duty, Loyalty) or Death (to no longer matter, to no longer be respected as person of integrity.)”

The aim is to remind them they can’t hide from Justice. She carries a scale weighing a heart by a feather, which is an ancient Egyptian (or Kemetic) afterlife ritual from the Book of Death. Upon reaching the gates, a person’s heart is weighed against a feather of Ma’at, who represents truth, integrity, order. Your heart is examined and judged, no matter your deeds in life your character is what could condemn you. If you pass, you can continue to the afterlife. If you fail, the crocodile god Ammit eats your heart and your soul goes to oblivion.

The second is a bit more on the nose. I was inspired by the repeated portrait imagery by pop artists like Andy Warhol, the classic Marilyn repeat is probably the best known. This is my reminder to the people, I’m going to write “vox populi” in there somewhere when I develop the design, as it means “Voice of The People”.

The third is to represent my belief that Tories are systematically trying to kill the lower classes. They tried to let the virus do it, they cut peoples benefits into starvation/suicide, they’ve tried making us homeless by gentrification and “land development”, skyrocketing the cost of living and housing by letting the Tory donor companies run the “free market” into a monopoly game between them, by selling vital PPE contracts to their mates, by cutting and slashing the NHS into nothing and selling it off piece by piece, by literally trying to starve the children, locking people in their homes but not supporting full, livable wage furlough pay, and of course, vaccinating themselves and the rich before the rest of us. There’s no other way to describe them, they are a pit of snakes in charge of taking care of us, and they haven’t, ever.

The fire means “first London, then you”.

[handdrawnhardlyworn]

Some of my image gathering for my pieces! The second is more toward the style of what I want the pieces to look like rather than topic.

[handdrawnhardlyworn]

My thumbnails and final illustration for the Clipstudio contest and live brief.

We were asked to create an artwork based on the word “admiration”. Recently, in my personal works, I’ve been thinking about celestial events and astronomy and responding to them in a series of portraits. In 2020, there were a series of super moons, a “blood moon” when the moon passed over Mars, meteor showers, four lunar eclipses in July, a blue moon on Halloween which is extremely rare.

This got me thinking about the relationship between the sun and moon, imagining them as entities. Through history, the sun and moon are painted time and again as being either in love, or in some form of partnership, but always apart. I was thinking the sun must admire the moon to gift it’s light every night, and the moon in turn for being given it. The portrait is two women because I wanted to add the element of female empowerment, how we should admire eachother the way they do, instead of the infighting I see all the time.

Here are some of my thumbnails too!

[handdrawnhardlyworn]

It honestly feels like the Tories are trying to kill us off. Starving poor children, slashing benefits for low-income families. I created this, partly inspired by my artist research with the bright colours and cartoony style, partly inspired by the Idles song “Mother” where the lyric is “The best way to scare a Tory is to read and get rich”.

This is my initial thumbnail here

[handdrawnhardlyworn]

A quick doodle response to some of my research. Had a joke around with Jason about “guillotine humour/gallows humour” in art, I may have taken it too literally.

Many times, when the French were unhappy with the corruption in government they wheeled out the guillotines, figuratively and literally. The firemen recently striked and were hosing down the police. The basket was going to be filled with £20 notes, but it was a little hard to read so I just drew £ symbols on them. It’s meant to show, they���ll keep going after profit time and time again but the people won’t stand for it forever.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6477953/amp/Yellow-Vest-protesters-erect-GUILLOTINE-bearing-French-Presidents-political-party-amid-riots.html

[handdrawnhardlyworn]

Research 3/3

[handdrawnhardlyworn]

Research 2/3

[handdrawnhardlyworn]

Research 1/3

I did so much researching and reading over the weekend as a foundation for my project, and I’ve come up with some initial responses that I’ll post next. It was very cathartic for me to list out all the things that our government have done, or not done. These are the issues driving me with this project, and they’re what I want to respond to with my artwork. The second and third posts will include the rest as there is a 10 image limit.

[handdrawnhardlyworn]

Some works by John Holcroft I’ve been looking at, a British illustrator.

[handdrawnhardlyworn]

One of the artists influencing my work is Takashi Murakami, or “MR DOB”. His work is a satirical “dark” take on Japanese anime, and he uses his work to respond to the post WW2 US presence in Japan.

I would like to take some elements of his work, juxtaposing something light and happy into serious issues, and I’ll add more research about him as I go along.