Captured angel

This piece was a piece I put quite a lot of experimental work into. I like the brush that I used, gave a paintbrush-like effect, and worked well with the atmosphere of the picture. Im really proud and happy with the colours that I used in it, dark, depressing colors.

The only thing that I dislike about this piece is the anatomy which is incorrect and the hands are back to front, but these are mistakes everyone makes from time to time. Luckily the colour takes more attention than the anatomy, which hopefully means I've executed it well.

Sketches

I've done various sketches, including the one above of two of my skulls. I really love the grungy feel of this sketch. I also like the way I did the sketchy coloring on the skulls, and the painty background. The fact the skulls are facing opposite ways and their composition also pleases me quite a bit. Overall, I am very satisfied with how this sketch came out. It has a very graphic look to it.

First drawings.

Drawings

My first drawings for college were of basic internal organs, namely the digestive system, to get then anatomically correct. The drawings I created were as follows.

This was the first one. I wanted to get an effect which looked like they were spilled. I also really like the shading technique and detail that I put into this. I used highlights to give the work a rather cartoonish-shiny look, whilst keeping with the realism. Its somewhat a happy medium. I decided, however, this was more of an anatomical practise..which I then pumped up into a collage from previous drawings I'd done prior the course.

Its a busy picture, but I honestly really like it. The background is interesting, but it doesnt distract too much from the main subject, which was the drawing mentioned above, due to the white outline. I like the colours, too. All very natural.

This was the next piece I made, attempting composition. I really like the binding look it has, and the way the depth of feild shows with the darkness. Really it was just copying and pasting parts I'd already done, but I was very happy with the overall effect. However, I thought the colours didnt really look right, too saturated. So I decided to change them up a little, and I like the final result a lot more.

The final result, with added color.

Skulls

Bones.

Context of my work.
My art and design activity is Fine installation photography,  as well as sculpting. I do it not only because its quite aesthetically pleasing but because I also wish to show respect to the animals in death as well as in life. I intend to show this through my work with the way I photograph the animals in a respectable manner, just like if they were alive, possibly by using the lighting and softness as well as quite delicate poses to aid this.

I have a collection of bones at home which I have applied into my work, as I am doing internal body parts. I believe they'd be good for primary research as they are physically in front of me. I took various photos of them which I tried to make quite dark.

I really like the composition and effect I added onto this photo, it gives it a really unclean and untidy, quite grungy and mysterious effect. I like how I placed the bones at random around the baphomet too, and the angle. I like the contrast between the black of the cloth and the white of the bones..and the colour filter gives it that whole eerie effect.

I also like this picture. The angle is slightly more basic but I love the lighting and again, the eeriness, especially of the older fox skull. 

I also like the way the spine is leaning.

This is my entire bone collection. I also have intentions on drawing a lot of these in my studies, as they make some interesting shapes.

Year Two

The second year has begun and the theme of our first unit is "Vision" and we get complete freedom of how we interpret it.

I have personally chosen internal beauty. The inside of the human anatomy. I have chosen this theme as some people find it extremely disgusting and others find it beautiful. I believe this is good for vision as it allows people to form opinions of what they want to think about it themselves. Its a very see-saw like subject, which I'd like to base my unit upon. 

Research

Suzzan Blac

Suzzan Blac is a surrealist artist from the UK. She's a traditional painter. I like this artist because she has been through a lot of physical and mental trauma, and likes to express said trauma and pain in her art. Its very human, but it is also very distorted and somewhat discomforting. I like the fact that the pain is very visible in her art. She puts a lot of thought and emotion into it. She wants to call out to survivors of abuse. 

I also like the fact that her art is quite grotesque, which is very good at drawing people into it. People will either be disgusted by it or attracted to it, its almost a hidden beauty, which is something I want to interpret into my subject. 

I like the realism in this piece, and I think it really does focus on my unit, as its a woman- done in a typical beauty queen pose, however, she has been gutted and skinned. Its finding beauty in the most disgusting things. Its also drawn in a very realistic fashion, possibly for shock value.

This piece is called "When Mother Got Angry" I think with the title included, the picture is possibly one of the most emotional pieces I've ever seen. The disfigured faces show obvious pain, and the hands are obviously trying to cover them up. Its a very threatened piece which a lot of people could possibly relate to. 

Gunther Von Hagen

Von Hagens preserves bodies in a very artistic style. He finds the true beauty of the inside of the body, not just preserving them and putting them on display, or just cutting them open, instead he opens them up in very artistic ways, usually like they exploded, but with very clean cuts. 

An example of Von Hagens work, almost butterfly like. He puts a lot of effort into them.

Von Hagens has a travelling exhibition called "Body Worlds", which has both human preservations and animals. He is very well known and his work is very controversial.

This is one of my favorite pieces by him. I love the concept of the piece, and the way the man is holding his own skin. Its quite a deep concept to me, and a very cleverly done piece. Its almost like hes hanging himself out to dry. 

Von Hagen is the inventor of the method of preserving muscle tissue. He calls it plastination. His work can be quite obscene, ranging from pregnant women to dead bodies having sex and a crucifixion.

Marc Quinn

Marc Quinn is well known for creating a sculpture of his head- out of frozen blood. His own blood. He makes a new one every 5 years. His work changes form as he ages, which is interesting to note how the body changes over time. He likes using materials which fuel human life. He is one of the first people to make a self portrait out of his own body. He uses them to record his life.

He uses his entire blood in a single head, around 9 pints, and he has spent about 60 pints of blood on the heads in total. He uses it as a way to express the regenerating powers of the human body.

The second part of the research for my project is based on actual murders and accidents.

I will not include pictures in this post as many photos are real and people may find them discomforting.

Murder.

Murder has made a huge impact in my life, as I've witnessed it first hand myself as a child. It is an influence to a lot of my pieces as I cannot get the images out of my head, and it has probably had some sort of mental impact on me.

If it is photographed right, I honestly think murder can be a beautiful thing, especially if the story behind it has a deep meaning. Bloody murders appeal to me the most, as I see blood spills as a form of art themselves which tell a story if you observe them for long enough. Every kind of blood splatter can tell a different story about what happened. It hits very close to home with me and I have a lot of emotion towards the subject as a whole.

I also see death as a beautiful thing. Taxidermy is something I enjoy. Life after death and the idea of time running out.

I enjoy drawing pained faces, distorted figures as they catch a lot of emotion.