My Visual Logbook

After becoming more confident using Adobe illustrator and getting a few tutorials from my friends, I begun to experiment alot more and realise how much it has to offer in terms of creative freedom. I discovered so many new brush strokes which made it look as though I had used actual brushes ontop of my prints and I experimented and played around with different strokes and weight, whilst still trying to compliment my images. After exploring the digital side to this I wanted to see how it would compare to physically painting onto prints. I used acrylic paint and a selection of different brushes to try and recreate the effect which I had done on the computer. I found this alot harder and I couldn't undo mistakes so it left me having to waste quite alot of prints that just didn't go right. Below are all of my attempts, the bigger ones being the images which I deemed to be more successful and my final images. 

When choosing my methods for my five approaches I looked back at my previous work from my A Level photography course. I'm excited to see how my new work compares with my old, and to be able to see how I've improved over time.

I want to experiment with doing this digitally also as I think it would really refine the process and make it alot neater; all of these were done by hand.

When making this work I looked at artists David Blottiere and Michelle Caplan, who use collage to create new work. I used found images, something I don't plan on doing now but looking back at images I made two years ago is really interesting to see how I progressed.

On 2nd December we had a lecuture we had four MA photography students show us their work and talk to us about their work. I hadn't really considered doing an MA after my BA but its definitely the best way to refine your practice if you are still struggling to find yourself after a three year degree. What I found really interesting about the MA and how its structured is that you have group crits across the courses, so peers from other courses can collaborate and give feedback to everyone.

The student who's work I felt was most relevant to me was Demi Hopkins. Her work immediately stood out as innovative and experimental; they were different to anything I'd seen from a student before.

When looking into what I could do for my rough cut brief I immediately thought of Demi's work and want to use paint and other mediums to to make marks on my prints by hand.  This physical aspect of manipulating my images really interests me as I really enjoy being hands on.

My first approach is inspired by the work of Hattie Stewart. Once I knew I had room to experiment I knew I wanted to get to grips and practice with the Wacom drawing tablet. Living with animation and graphic design students who use the equipment almost every day, I had previously had a go but had really struggled with getting use to it and quickly given up; Although I knew I wanted to master it I borrowed one and persevered. The first image was the outcome of my first test using it. It took some getting use to the hand eye coordination aspect of it but I was really happy with this first outcome. I hadn't shot anything for the new brief at this point so I practiced on images which I have taken for the previous project.

After shooting for the brief I went out and bought my own drawing tablet and had another go with it and using adobe illustrator; I started off in photoshop and quickly realised I was making the process alot more difficult for myself, as illustrator will take any drawn lines and perfect them for you to look more defined and alot less shaky. This helped my work look 10x better and professional just by using a different programme. I am happy with the outcome of this approach; it was enjoyable and I had fun experimenting and using new means to create. 

As I begin to work on my second BA2a brief, I wanted to gather up all the images I know which I definitely want to submit for my BA2a project. I am happy with these working together and know that I now need one more still life, two more portraits, and one more landscape. I feel like I have the images I need already, I just need to go back through my work and take another fresh look at my images. I plan to do another portrait shoot tomorrow where I experiment with props similar to Mansur Gavriel.

In our group crit on thursday Sophie suggested that I go shoot more landscapes which are coherent with my work, and to get the tropical subject matter, to go to either Kew gardens or the Barbican Centre Conservatory. I hadn't been to the Barbican centre before so decided to go there. I went yesterday not really knowing what id find and not expecting too much and was pleasantly surprised. Although half of it was closed due to private functions, I still had access to the majority of the space.

Overall I'm not happy with the images I got, It didn't go well for the following reasons;
It was getting dark really early, which I didn't account for, so lighting conditions were poor and didn't want to use flash to try and keep consistency within my set of images. My images have soft lighting and this wasn't achievable, the only available light was quickly disappearing to leave only harsh coloured spotlights. I wasn't properly prepared and didn't have anything colourful to
Even though I took some images that I like, none of them match my aesthetic and the colours were  way off, I didn't want to photoshop too much as this isn't the look I'm going for either, the compositions are far too complex and just didn't work for me.

I now plan to go back over my Rome landscapes because they definitely go better with my portraits and still life images.