Painting

For this experiment I used a few different coloured acrylic paints, tissue paper and brown paper the equipment I used was a few different brushes, a craft knife and potato. For the first sheet I tried hand and finger printing, flicking paint onto the page, creating long brush strokes and painting onto tissue to give an extra texture. For the second sheet I tried potato printing, for this I carved a heart shape out of a potato, painted over it and used it as a stamp. I mostly enjoyed the potato printing technique as it was slightly more challenging to create the heart shape so it would come out clearly. To improve on this experiment I would like to try cutting different shapes out of the potato or maybe painting two colours on the potato at a time. I'd consider using this technique within my final zine. 

Maggie Ayres inspired my ideas although her work is a lot more detailed I wanted to try and create some similar blood/wound effects that I could then build on if they worked well. Here is an example of her work:

Out of all the experiments I think the hand print and potato print heart shape were the most effective. 

Skeleton photographs

These are some of the photographs I took of the college's life size skeleton. 

Paper Cuts

I used three different coloured pieces of card to cut out the letters from using a craft knife. I cut the word inside out from the yellow piece of card in big bold lettering and then placed the red piece of card below it. I then drew the letters again slightly smaller than the previous and cut them out. Finally I carried out the same technique with the blue piece of card and layered them on top of each other to create this effect. I really like this technique as it gives a 3D effect to the typography and it looks bright and colourful, To improve on this experiment I could try using lots more layers of card, more intricut details and maybe shapes such as a heart or other body parts. I'd like to use some form of paper cutting within my final zine to add depth and make it more interesting. 

Eva Markova inspired this experiment as she uses different layers of card to cut out different parts. Here is an example of her work:

I feel this idea was very effective and I am happy with the way it turned out. For this technique to be in my final zine I would have to make it relate to my theme.

Calligrams

For this experiment I drew out a few different objects that relate to the exam theme of inside, outside and in-between. Using a piece of tracing paper placed above the drawing I drew out these words within the object so that when the tracing paper was removed the typography would make up the shape of the object. I like using this technique but I don't think it worked very well for this theme as the words that I can use are very limited. a Possible improvement to these experiments would be to add colour, which may make it easier to tell what the object is. 

These were inspired by Oscar Wilson, an calligram artist that I looked at during the AS year. Here is an example of his work:

I came up with this idea as I felt it might be quite effective with things like the lemon, world and sandwich that have an inside, outside and in-between.

Collage corpse

 For this experiment I used magazines and newspapers to find body parts and text that could be used to make up body parts. For the first corpse on the left I chose the head and then covered it up and got someone else to add in the body, they then covered that up and I added the legs. To improve this technique I could plan it out more and try using different backgrounds to stick the corpse onto. Although this technique can be fun to do I don't think the outcome is that great and I wouldn't like to use it for my outcome.

Trip work

These are my collages from the trip to the Photographers gallery. I had pre made the background by sticking different bits of paper etc on the page to start me off. I then drew over the top of these 4 pages of things I had seen in the gallery, for example parts of peoples work and photographs that I liked.

Exhibition review

We visited the Photographers gallery in London to view the Laura Letinsky, Geraldo de Barros and the Perspectives on collage exhibitions. 

Laura Letinsky is a photographer that lives and works in Chicago. She is also a professor for the visual arts department at the University of Chicago. This exhibition featured her new series of work, III Form and Void Full that incorporates many different paper cut outs that are composed in an obscure way.

Peggy Franck's collage placed in the middle of the floor made you appreciate it more as you have a birds eye view of it and you can see it from many different perspectives. This helps set a mood and makes it become less of a piece of work and more of an expression.

Laura Letinsky's work was set in a white room as it makes the prints blend in with it making them become part of the wall, so that the colour images become key. She has used glassless frames as the glass would take away from the natural feel of the work and would place a barrier in-between the viewer and the work. 

These are my two favourite pieces of work:

These are my two least favourite pieces of work:

Overall I enjoyed the exhibition as I found it really inspiring as there were so many different collage techniques. I didn't find it was very relevant to my exam project as it didn't relate to the theme, Inside outside and in-between or typography. I would like to try out some of the collage techniques within my work, but for my photography course.