ihadalotoffun

[ihadalotoffun]

You think your Water is clean... (2017)

By Nicola Crampton-Smith

[ihadalotoffun]

Week Four Reflection

Overall, I found this workshop really interesting and enjoyable. Each task provided me new knowledge and I have gained a lot more insight into design process and conceptual compositions. I think learning about compositional work and its corresponding techniques has really helped me understand how to express meaning more coherently throughout my artwork and it’s upgraded my knowledge in also how to read visual art, not just graphic design. I feel like this came more from my research focused insights, however there were still aspects from my practical learning that did assist in this. This occurred when we were constructing our vector illustrations and I was discussing my ideas with Jo. We were talking about how I was thoroughly reminded of Pop Art and the techniques in which that particular art is created. 

Another learning curve I had was choosing colours to use in my duotone and vector illustrations. I truly underestimated the endless possibilities of colours before I did this workshop and so that was a really time consuming part of those exercises, especially when colour can have a strong contribution to an artwork’s meaning. I found it particularly hard trying to decipher the two primary colours and the corresponding ‘zing’ colour. I understood that the ‘zing’ colour would have to be a similar hue to one of the two colours but trying to pick those main colours without making them too distinct or alike was quite challenging while trying to make the whole thing look aesthetic. The challenge made it quite intriguing though.

Finally, I combined all three of my artworks. I ended up cropping the off-centered print as I couldn’t decide which one to use, but I decided on the centered one as it flowed with my other two artworks. In addition to my previous post on Task A, if I had more time I would have extended my piece into a series like my vector illustration. I feel as though a series of work combined says a lot more than one stand alone piece, and with a topic like the one we expressed, that technique is extremely beneficial to getting its message across. Furthermore, I wish I had experimented a lot more with repetition in my print. This is because repetition contributes a lot to the meaning of my other two artworks and would have made my miniature collection a lot stronger. In the future I will be applying these strategies a lot more throughout my artistic career. Being able to read images a lot more thoroughly will not only help me with constructing my own images, but reading others too. By doing so it can help me with inspiration for my own works, or to support another.

[ihadalotoffun]

El Lissitzky

El Lissitzky was an influential artist and designer towards both the Suprematism movement and the Russian Revolution. Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge (1919) is a propagandistic artwork about the civil war between the Bolsheviks (Red Army) and the anti-Communist White Army. The title tells the story of the artwork. Geometrical forms and typography flood the composition, with a ‘red wedge’ penetrating a white circle. Both the colours and formations symbolise each army. The visual hierarchy centralises the action, metaphorically representing the victory of the Communists, and the destruction of the White’s defence line. The overlapping of other forms construct the foregrounding of the work however, the contrast in the background makes it difficult to determine the positive and negative space. Scaling the red and white areas while also rotating the direction of the red forms create the illusion of movement, also known as kinetic sequencing. By doing so, the black space looks almost as if it is beginning to eliminate the free white space, symbolically representing the removal of any anti-Communist authority (The Art Story Foundation, n.d.). 

Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge (1919)

Lissitzky’s 1919-1923 Proun series explored the use of three-dimensional space in suprematist art, while also being his “metaphor for and visualization of the fundamental transformations in society that he thought would result from the Russian Revolution”(Museum of Modern Art n.d.). “Proun” is an acronym Lissitzky formed for the Russian words meaning “project for the affirmation of the new” (Yale University Art Gallery n.d.). The abstract, geometric works contains elements of architectural techniques in which has developed a strong foundation for modern abstract imagery, as well as being a consequential influence in industrial modern architecture (The Art Story Foundation, n.d.). In Proun 99 the visual hierarchy stems from the top centre of the composition and reads down. The use of tone and contrast forms part of the three-dimensional space, while also transforming three rotated squares into a cube. The gridded red and black triangle beneath the geometrical form creates a sense of depth due to it’s subtle construction of a horizon line and it’s transparency. The overlapping of objects creates a foreground, however there is only open space; it’s neither positive nor negative and as a result, everything else seems to be floating, with no grounding or control.

Proun 99 (1919)

Museum of Modern Art n.d., ‘El Lissitzky, Proun 19D, 1920 or 1921′, viewed 2 June 2017, <https://www.moma.org/collection/works/79040?locale=en>.

Yale University Art Gallery n.d., ‘Proun 99′, viewed 2 June 2017, <http://artgallery.yale.edu/collections/objects/51116>.

The Art Story Foundation n.d., ‘El Lissitzky’, viewed 2 June 2017, <http://www.theartstory.org/artist-lissitzky-el-artworks.htm#pnt_3>.

[ihadalotoffun]

Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol was a successful consumer ad designer, whose motif was serial repetition, imagery, commercial products and popular culture. Warhol’s 1962 Campbell’s Soup Cans is a combination of synthetic polymer paintings in an installation of 32 soup cans from the brand Campbell's. While these images are easily recognisable, the artwork is abstract in the sense that it’s extremely visually stimulating due to the high colour intensity, accurate repetition and almost perfect alignment. The minimal use of a white background perceives the cans to be coming out of the canvases, confronting the audience with the meaning. This arrangement of abundance epitomises America’s commodity culture and replicates the technique found in advertising, resulting in “glorifying the consumption habits of his contemporaries and consumers today” (The Art Story Foundation n.d.). 

Campbell’s Soup Can (1962)

A year later, Warhol began experimenting with silkscreening. The Electric Chairs series (1963) derived from a newspaper photograph of an electric chair that was taken at Sing-Sing prison. Apart of the Death and Disaster collection, the use of this mechanically produced object comments on “the ethics of capital punishment” in America at the time (Tate Modern Art Museum n.d.). The ten silk prints are designed similar to a duotone process, where the ground colour and contrasting colour require a separate screen, however each artwork varies in colour. There is no particular arrangement except it can be noted that only two prints distinctly portray the electric chair: The remaining eight are audacious, almost all like complementary hues as they are at the same intensity as one another. This makes the imagery less distinct, creating the illusion of fading, or “charged with electricity” due to the immense vibrancy between the two colours. By arranging the electric chair to be positioned on the left, near the corner of the composition, it gives each print perspective, depicting a three-dimensional space, which insinuates that the matter is real. Removing any distinction between positive and negative space, the series is designed to be oppressive and impersonal, showing no moral consolation (Tate Modern Art Museum n.d.).

Electric Chairs (1963)

The Art Story Foundation n.d., ‘Andy Warhol’, viewed 2 June 2017, <http://www.theartstory.org/artist-warhol-andy-artworks.htm#pnt_1>.

Tate Modern Art Museum n.d., ‘[no title], Andy Warhol 1971′, viewed 2 June 2017, <http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/warhol-no-title-p0772>.

[ihadalotoffun]

Week Three Reflection

My biggest let down was that i was being too literal and because of this, I wasted a lot of time trying to plan a design to make. My first attempt was really weird because I honestly I had no clue what I was doing, and then I scrapped it. It wasn’t until I decided to begin with something simple where I became successful. 

To start off with our Vector Illustration, we had to use our scanned and photographed images. I let myself down here too because I didn't scan my images in the correct resolution. Since I scanned them at 300 instead of 750, my images came out too small and I struggled with editing them in photoshop. This was because the image would become pixelated when it was enlarged. So I had to redo all of those. Except this time, I refined the sources I was working with down to 5 things:

The metal thing

Zappo Wrapper

Cigarette Butts

Cling Wrap

Coke Bottle top

When we were going through the process of recording our raw data, or DNA, from our rubbish, I was reminded of Pop Art. This was because we could manipulate the data however we like: whether we wanted a detailed complex image, or a solid and simple form. I was also reminded of this movement as we were using objects that are commercially manufactured. This helped me with my process of creating my vector. So to follow on with this theme, I thought I would predominantly focus on repetition. 

Here is an example of our raw data.

Cigarette Butt

The process is done by:

Opening the scan or image in photoshop

Select Image > Mode > Grayscale. If necessary, go to Image > Adjustments > Levels. This will adjust the black, grey and white in the image. The more contrast there is, the more DNA will be present.

Save the image as a JPEG and then reopen the image in Illustrator. Select the image and press ‘Image Trace’. 

Press Expand.

I wanted my vector to have context and meaning behind it. So I did some research. I was really interested in using the coke bottle cap so I looked into the coca-cola company and if there were any major environmental issues that have arisen from it (obviously there would be as it is a global plastic and chemical manufacturing company). My outcomes were two articles on coca-cola causing detrimental water restraints and pollution globally, particularly in countries such as India and Columbia - the three articles are below:

http://www.waronwant.org/media/coca-cola-drinking-world-dry

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/01/indian-traders-boycott-coca-cola-for-straining-water-resources

https://www.thoughtco.com/coca-cola-groundwater-depletion-in-india-1204204

I chose a wave since it’s a simple form and can work well with repetition. Then I further found a photo of a wave as a reference.

Then I began editing my scanned coke top.

I first rescanned it with a black background. This was my outcome:

As there wasn't enough distinction between the writing and the cap, the trace came out as a white circle. So I rescanned the top with a white background and started again:

This time was a success. I then cleaned up the edges and removed any excess DNA. This included the outside spots and the white data inside the top that isn't writing. I then began duplicating the object and started experimenting with scale (the size of the bottle top, which is done by holding shift key and diagonally expanding or shrinking the object), layering (the opacity of the bottle top), repetition, kinetic sequencing, overlapping and bleeding. The bleeding was used to make the abstract wave go across 4 A3 landscape papers and goes outside the compositional space. This portrays elements of implied space also. The use of repetition throughout the artwork is a very powerful technique towards the meaning. The use of cigarettes in background help assist the contextual meaning, implying that the consequences of the Coca-Cola dispute is just as harmful as smoking. 

Once I finished in black and white I began experimenting with colours. I tried to stick to earthy-like colours since that was the main focus of the work. I had to change it later on though. 

As it can be seen, the visual hierarchy begins in the centre of the series. The wave was arranged as so to point the focus at the primary imagery. Layering was used to try and create a three-dimensional space by making the lighter coke tops the whitewash. I feel as though that could have been improved. 

We were told to use the Solid Pantone Uncoated colour book. I thought however we could use white as our third colour, but then Jo informed that white is also apart of the background.  So That was another reason for changing the colours. I also made the cigarettes more transparent so the wave was prominent. I feel like my balance of positive, negative and white space was quite good. While there is some white space, the majority of the series is coloured. This helps with the message as it confronts the audience. 

While I did like the previous colours because they were almost complementary, which create powerful, distinctive positive and negative space, these colours were more aesthetic. Adding a third colour also gave the wave a touch of ‘zing’, as Jo called it. I’m glad I did at it, other the three-dimensional illusion would not have been as strong either. There are also traces of form and counter-form as the wave is only an outline. This is what constructs the abstract aspect. 

If there was one thing to improve on it would have been making the colours more Pop-like. I never thought about it at the time, but since I was inspired by the Pop movement, it would have made more sense to have used colours that were more bright and intense. That would have also made the message more confronting. Nonetheless, the artwork was a success. 

[ihadalotoffun]

Lin Evola-Smidt

Lin Evola-Smidt came across an article in the L.A. Times that declared 1000 children die from gun violence every year in Los Angeles. Motivated to give her child a better life, the American contemporary artist founded the conceptual Peace Angels Project. It reminded her of the “the outreach of pain of the loss of one person. When one child is killed, parents suffer; some die. Communities Change” (Wiener, M & DiGusta, L 2011). Street weapons and machinery are melted down to be transformed into expansive sculptures that provide hope, kindness and unity. The Peace Angels depict a powerful message that preaches the importance and urgency of responsibility in a system obsessed with violence and weapons. By serving as a reminder of the global mass destruction these acts of violence cause, this gracious imagery are “life-affirming symbols of peace” (Peace Angel Project 2016).

The goal of the project is to install Peace Angels globally. Each site is decided upon the history of human destruction between war and peace that has occurred in that area. However the most influential installation is the Renaissance Peace Angel. A thirteen-foot Peace Angel was placed near the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan immediately in the after-math of September 11, 2001. Standing in front of Nino’s Restaurant, a ceremony formed, where “police officers, fire fighters and rescue worker who were labouring at the devastated site signed their names on the base of the sculpture”. Since this spontaneous act, the sculpture is now the “Ambassador” of the Project and has marked it’s place in history as a symbol of peace and possibility (‘The Peace Angels Project & the Art of Lin Evola-Smidt’ n.d.). 

According to Evola-Smidt in the Huffington post, “The same mechanism of consciousness that takes place to cause the action called violence, is what needs to shift to send that volition in a direction that protects. Causing peace is purposeful. It takes effort and paying attention. It takes respect and being awake” (Wiener, M & DiGusta, L 2011). 

Renaissance Peace Angel (1992)

Wiener, M & DiGusta, L 2011, ‘Surrender — Artist Lin Evola’s Flight of Angels’, Huffington Post, 7 August, viewed 1 June 2017, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-wiener-and-linda-digusta/surrender-artist-lin-evola_b_887688.html.

‘The Peace Angels Project & the Art of Lin Evola-Smidt’ n.d., Black Tie Magazine, viewed 1 June 2017, http://blacktiemagazine.com/peace%20angels%20new.pdf.

Peace Angel Project 2016, viewed 1 June 2017, http://www.paxangeli.com.

[ihadalotoffun]

Rebecca Earley

Rebecca Earley, also known as Becky Earley, is a textile designer, researcher at University of the Arts London and Textiles Environment Design (TED), and has been the Director of the Textiles Futures Research Centre (TFRC) since 2010. Recycling garments as her motif, Earley’s main focus is “researching the role of the designer in creating institutional and cultural change towards more sustainable and circular, closed-loop practices” (University of the Arts London n.d.). Her techniques include eco-friendly printing processes, and creating collections in workshop environments while replacing industrial equipment with basic sewing utensils and information sheets. This theory-led practice has resulted in successfully producing her famous Top 100 projects, which contain ‘upcycled’ items that lower waste and increase energy efficiency (Earley, R n.d.).

In her 1998 collection East End Shirts, Earley developed an exhaust-printing process where textiles are printed without causing water pollution and dye usage is kept to the minimum. She experimented with discarded materials and printed with the weed and plants that grew in her street. The collection was printed on polyester shirts (Earley, R n.d.).

Before and After

Heritage Lace Shirts (2008) is a collection that further explore the exhaust-print process by reprinting an old nylon lace shirt while reusing the sheet of dyed paper behind it. Her results varied, but the colour change from the dye was subtle. the cheap machine-made lace and fragile, damaged hand-made lace gave each shirt a brand new durable life (Earley, R n.d.). 

Both of these collections have one thing in common - emotional durability. While it is prominent that these collections preach sustainability, each remade shirt is given an idiosyncratic story to tell. These stories are what attract consumers to the industry, in hop to increase the chance of attachment to the garments to make fashion sustainability a success (Hemmings, J 2009). 

Becky Earley, University of the Arts London, viewed 1 June 2017, <http://www.tfrc.org.uk/author/becky/>.

Hemmings, J 2009, ‘Rebecca Earley: Upcyles Style’, Fiberarts, January/Feburary, p.38-41.

Earley, R n.d., ‘Upcycling Textiles’, viewed 1 June 2017, <http://www.upcyclingtextiles.net>.

[ihadalotoffun]

Week One Reflection

RThe workshop began with an overview of the ‘Ground Work’ module and the overall outcome of completing the assessment. There are four exercises: to create a collage photo release, a vector illustration, a duotone design and then finally to hang up in an the final exhibition at the end. However the primary sources of these exercises were to come from rubbish that we collected throughout the campus... So that was our first task: to collect, select and record.

We were given approximately 45min-1hr to walk around and collect. I found a variety of items including:

cigarette butts

socialism protest poster

kit kat packet

600mL coke bottle

nuts and bolts

plastic straw

glad wrap

strawberry Zappo lolly wrapper

broken plastic cup

4 coloured pen

broken yellow rope

earphones

hubba bubba wrapping 

After we were told to sort through our rubbish to finalise the items we would use. However since you continue to refine your items throughout your creating process, I just decided to record and experiment with all of my items. When it came to recording, there were three ways we have to do so; photocopy, scan and photograph. the scans and photographs would be used later on for our vector illustrations and duotones. 

We used both black and white backgrounds to get more outcomes. We also experimented with the light intensity in the photocopies. For my results, I experimented with the composition of my raw data. I crushed my coke bottle, squished and stretched my glad wrap, positioned my coke bottle top so that is only partially copied and tangled and straightened my earphones and rope.

After we completed our second task, we sat down for a quick talk about composition. Composition is the construction of an image. It’s communicated through visual literacy - the language of art and design. I really liked the quote by Rob Roy Kelly,

“Visual Literacy is an ability to view an image as an abstraction, to understand what is happening in purely visual terms, as well as knowing and understanding visual terminology. It involves training the eyes to see minute detail and being sensitive to colour, shape, form and line. It has little or nothing to do with content or style.”

I had taken notes however I misplaced them and unfortunately I was unable to have them with me throughout the task and future tasks. This did somewhat impact my ability to create a collage to my potential however it was still successful nonetheless. These were things I did not know.

There are many components to Visual Literacy:

1. Positive and Negative space: + space is the area in which a form or object can be identified. - space is the surrounding area. This relationship is shown through contrasting, or complementary, colours. + & - space are also known as, and used in techniques such as figure and ground (which is also a technique that can create illusions. This is seen in a famous artwork called Rubin’s vase, which was developed by Edgar Rubin around 1915 ()), form and counter-form (where a form has ‘empty space’ within it’s structure e.g. an outline of a circle and silhouette (where the contrasting colours alternate and the darkest hue creates the form).

- White Space: White space can also be used as a negative space. If there is little or no negative space it can feel as though the composition is confronting, or disconnected and oppressive. However, sometimes that can be used to an advantage if that is your intended meaning.

Rubin Vase

Empty Circle

Silhouette

2. Form: Form are the components of an object such as lines, shape, direction, scale, tone, colour and texture. This is what communicates the intended structure before it is even recognisable. This also relates to form relationship, which constructs relationships through the organisation and placements of forms in a composition.

Form relationships include:

Clustering: Forms are composed into a group. This creates a sense of connection within a group.

Aligning: (To me, this one felt like a geometrical type of relationship and it reminded me of design areas such as architecture and interior design) The relationship occurs between edges of forms. They can be aligned from top to bottom, left to right and this makes them parallel.

Overlapping: Overlapping constructs a foreground and background. This is also a good technique to use when you compose a three dimensional piece and also want perspective.

Layering: Layering is similar to overlapping with the addition of transparency. Transparency is what enhances the illusion of three dimensional space, especially in clustering.

Bleeding and Cropping: Bleeding and cropping go together quite well. Bleeding is a technique that creates the illusion of the forms leaving the composition. It further creates the illusion of a three dimensional space. This is caused from the objects beings cropped. Cropping is to manipulate an image to remove unwanted areas. It’s a simple method to construct abstract forms and create new compositions. 

Kinetic Sequencing and Repetition: When an element is ‘rotated away from a grid orientation’ is creates the illusion that the sequence is kinetic or moving. Similar to kinetic sequencing is repetition, where a form is repeated. This can create a sense of movement, time and change.

Implied space: this reminds me of kinetic sequencing in the way that since it insinuates that more is going on outside the compositional space, it also is moving. 

Perspective: Perspective reminds me of bleeding, layering and kinetic sequencing in the sense that creates a live, three dimensional space. However, perspective creates an illusion of ‘depth’ and space. This is depicted through variating volumes and scaling on a flat surface.

3. Arrangement and Visual Hierarchy: I find these similar in the way that give the composition a starting point, or point of focus in which the story of the image begins. 

We than began our collages. We were recommended to experiment with different compositions on both black and white backgrounds. At first, I didn’t quite understand what I was doing, so i evaluated my resources and chucked some lousy design together. It was dreadful.

For starters, it read absolutely nothing. There was no visual hierarchy and I had extremely poor form arrangement. While I was happy with the balance between the positive and negative space, there was too much black on black. This meant there wasn't a lot of tone and contrast, which didn’t make it appealing. I was happy with the use of scaling, but it wasn't portrayed well. It would have looked better if I hadn't abused my clustering technique and didn’t have as much spread out. I think I could have removed some things, but I ended changing my idea. This was provoked from the cling wrap in the middle. It reminded me of a cloud. 

This was my second attempt. I thought it was a bigger improvement. However this time my cloud was too literal, and my visual hierarchy was still poor. It was too spread out, and my use of clustering was unsuccessful. I was stuck, so I asked Jo for help. This was her suggestion:

She said this way, there cloud was more abstract, and a lot more techniques were visible including bleeding, clustering, visual hierarchy and there the negative space was lot more visible and clear. It was also suggested that I use a white background since my photocopies were so dark. One thing Jo did note was that the trimming of my objects needed to be a lot neater, but she id like the variety of forms I had. So I fixed those problems and altered the collage to my final presentation:

I was quite happy with my result as it was my first time doing this area of design. I cropped some objects such as the coke bottle top on the right and the cup bottom on the left to portray some implied space that the rain is falling outside the composition as well. The use of scaling with the cigarettes as well as the different tone and contrasts of light throughout were really helpful as it added some perspective. I added the miniature cloud as another attempt at scaling and perspective, however I don't think I added enough overlapping to do so. 

We did two prints. I chose to print one in the top left corner and then one in the centre.