TIME PASSING BY

Overall I found my research during my project very successful. I began my project by developing my initial intentions. These focused on the idea of our eyes witnissing time passing by.

For my initial experiments, I researched into the artist Mark Santiago who created a hyper-realistic drawing of a trypitic of eyes. I researched initially into the artist as I felt I had to grasp an initial idea about eyes and Santiago captured my attention. Initially due to the intense detail, before I did any research I assumed it was a photograph. During my research I found it hard to find alot of information about the artist to help me work later on in the style of him, and therefore had to email him. Within the email he stated among many other things that that womens eyes within the drawing was Anni Suvi, a photographer who takes photos of herself and her eyes. It was clear that he had taken inspiration from her because of the form and tone of colour within the artwork. He also stated that the reason he focused on womens eyes was because of the majorty of them wearing makeup. I liked this aspect alot, and thought it would be more relevant if i were to continue the theme of women throughout my project. The majority of my family are women and therefore would be more personal.

To work in the style of Santiago, I produced a selection of photos of my eyes focusing on different view points and cropped them in the same position as the artist. Afterwards, to introduce the theme of age I also took pictures of my grandmother and mother, and cropped them in the same style.

 

Again to enforce the theme of time passing by, I have edited the photo enhancing the wrinkles.

To edit the photos themselves, I used the photo editing app Instagram. This had multiple filters and setting that allowed me to darken and enhance certain areas of the face. The particular adjustments I enjoyed and found successful was the ‘Shadows’ aspect that meant I could deepen the section of the face that we already fairly dark. This meant that the blemishes and wrinkles within the face were enhanced and stood out more.

Following on from this experiment,  to introduce the theme of time further I experimented photoshopping images of clocks into the eyes of my family members. At first I created an initial experimented using  photographs of my grandmother and my little sister. I felt the contrast of young and old within the subject of the image itself would have more effect with the clocks. At first, within the experiment I found it hard overlapping the images. Therefore, to refine my ideas more I created more developed experiments where instead I created eye clock edits using different photos. This time, rather than using my younger sister I used images of myself, my mother and my grandmother. I decided to leave the aspect of my younger sister behind due to fact that in my opinion, her image represented how much time she had left within her life, and how the clock shows how much time she had left to live her life. Where as the image of my nanny, showed the opposite and how little time she had left. I felt this meaning was a lot more effective due to the fact that it was a lot more uninviting and disturbing.

To work further in the style of Santiago within this experiment, I lay each experiment out in the same way making sure to a-line them and crop them. Afterwards, I added a greyscale effect similar to my previous experiments and his work.

 

Following on from my research into Santiago, I introduced a new artist called Carla Bromhead. The main aspect that caught my attention about her work was the focus on the facial features within her drawings especially the eyes. This made the artwork appear unfinished, which was one of the main aspects I wanted to take from the work. As well as this, during more thorough research into her work after I received no response in an email I sent, I found some photographs that she had taken of anonymous old aged individuals. This inspired me to  produce a refined photo-shoot of my Nanny. To make it more effective, I ensured that instead of my nanny being against the backdrop of her usual environment, I made the backdrop a white surface so there was no distraction from my grandmother herself. Working in the style of Bromhead herself, I asked my nanny to pose in similar positions and created the same perspectives as within her photography. I also still asked her to incorporate different eye positions and viewpoints to keep the influence of Santiago within my work.

After I had taken the initial photographs, I used the photo editer on WIX to add more depth to my photos. I selected a fe of my favourites from my photoshoot and initially, similarly to my previously experimented added a greyscale effect to them. Afterwards, I added more contrast by increases the highlights and shadows within the image. I felt this really helped to again enhnace the wrinkles within her face, making her look older than she is which in this case is good. I also used the cropping tool to crop the images in the style of Bromhead. In a handful of her images, the faces are very close to the camera, or half of the face is cut out.

 

At this stage, I felt it was appropriate to introduce the artist Jelena Bulajic, who creates artwork of old aged people on huge canvas'. Due to the medium she uses, I was unable to work directly in the style of her because of a lack of resouces I have. Therefore, I took more of a visual interpretation of her work and created a selection of crumple photo experiments of my grandmother and my younger sister. Even though before I had established that I would no longer use my sister within my work due to the lack of emotion refelcted from her image, I felt that within this particular experiment it would give off alot more contrast. I created these experiments inspired by Bulajic due to the fact that the meaning within her work focuses on the effect of age on the human face, and therefore wrinkles are a very significant aspect within he work. Therefore, I felt personally that the crumples within the experiments represented the wrinkles in the face. This is why I felt it was appropriate to use my younger sister as she has no wrinkles. This shows that even on photographs of the young and old that their face can be distorted, and can be made to look older than previously imagined. I created both harsh wrinkles and minimal ones, to add even more contrast within the theme of age and how it can effect everyone differently. To refine my ideas, I took photocopies of the original experiments and found that they were surprisingly more effective as they enhnaced the shadows within the creases in the paper further.

I also brought forward the eye clock photoshop experiments, and as an even further refinement added clocks to the eyes within my crumpled experiment photocopies. I found these just as successful as my previous experiments within photoshop due to the fact that despite the distracting crumples within the face, that the eyes themselves captured my attention and were for me still the main focal points. This shows that even after age has changed our bodies and distorted our face, our eyes are still as piercing as ever and are still the focus. I almost found it easier experimenting on the photoshops due to the fact that in my opinion the creases within the face make the eyes appear larger and more striking, making it easier to edit.

As a seperate experiment, but still using the same medium I created a layered photograph experiment. Within this, I used a photograph of my nanny and behind this was an image of myself or my mother. For this, I ripped certain sections of my nannys face, which reveals the image of myself or my mother underneath. I made sure to rip the eye in both experiments, to show how age has effected each of our faces in different ways and to emphasise the similarities and differences between our eyes and faces now. For this experiment, I was mainly informed by an anonymous image that I found on Pinterest, but believe it still links in with my previous artist research and experiment due to the medium and technique used.

 

Another artist I introduced as this stage was Mark Powell. To experiment in the style of the artist, I asked my grandmother to collect a handful of old documents she has lying around the house. I made sure to mention that the documents had to consist of a variety of things such as maps, letters and books. From the resources she gave me, I scanned various pages that I found visually interesting and thought would make an effective background for a biro drawing that I would carry out myself. The document I chose to draw ojn, was a simple neutral coloured page from a textbook. This pag included small simple black writing that I thought wouldnt be too distracting from the image I would be drawing ontop of it. Once I had printed the image out, I used the grid method to sketch out the outline of my nannys face using a simple HB pencil that would allow me to rub out the unwanrted lines later. Once I had the simple outline, I was able to start to draw the facial features in. Afterwards, I was able to build up the detail in the face using a biro pen. Initially I found it hard as I was taking my time to esnure I made no mistakes that I was unable to erase. But the reason Powell uses biro pen is due to the fact that you cant erase it and therefore cant make any mistakes. This inspired me to be more careless and free about the lines I was making within the face. Although, the only problem I found whilst drawing on the document was I felt it was very flat and didnt give the drawing itself much justice. Instead, to bring forward my previous experiment crumpling and ripping paper, I experimented drawing on tissue paper. I found this alot more effective due to the fact that the medium often crumpled as the pen went over it which enhnaced the wrinkles and lines I was drawing making it appear more reaslistic. I also oddly found that because the tissue paper was so thin and soft, that the pen smudged and blended. At first I found this a bad aspect as whenever I leant my hand over an area I had just drawn often it smudged. But afterwards, I found that the softness of the paper and consistency of the pen allowed me to create more blended shading and depth within the face. 

 

After my biro experiment on tissue paper, I felt even though it brought an aspect of my crumple experiments forward, it lost the aspect of an old document inspired Powell. Therefore, I scanned in the drawing of my grandmother on the tissue paper and used Photoshop to layer the drawing and a map image together. The map image I used unfortunatley wasnt an originally source from my nanny, as the only old map she had was a mao of London, and therefore felt it wasnt relevant to her history and her as an individual. I felt the map of Northumberland was more appropriate as thats where my grandmother was born and therefore had a more personal meaning. As if the background was actually the background of her life. I found it very successful merging the two images together. I also added filters to the original edit to make the drawings stand out.

Following on from this experiment, during a search on Pinterest I came across the artist Silke Werzinger. Straight away I noticed simililarites between his and Powells work, and felt it would be appropriate in comparing the two artists. It helped me develop initial ideas for my final piece and what I liked and disliked within aspects of their work. For example in Werzinger's case, I didnt like the appearnce of the blue biro pen as in my opinion it makes the work look cheap and too modern for my theme itself.

 

The final artist I researched into was Jonathan Yeo. Again he focused on the 'unfinished' appearance within his work but instead used oil paints to create his portraits. The use of the unfinished appearance again was the main aspect I wanted to take from his work. As well as this, another style of his work incorporate the use of collage. I did experiment in this style using old photos of mine, my mothers and my nannys past and changed the colour of the images using photoshop to match certain sections of my grandmothers face from a photograph. Although, I found it very difficult to carry out the experiment and therefore was unsuccessful.

Overall, I found within the development of my project that using the old photos as a background was alot more effective, especially with the map merged together with them. I found that the black and white theme running throughout the majortiy of my project stood out at this point,

 

 

 

Initially to start off my final piece, I used the grid method to map out where the outline of the face went. As I had used this method within my previous biro experiments I found this easy to carry out. Afterwards, I was able to fill in the rest of the features within the face. Because I had planned to create an ‘unfinished’ appearance within my work, it was important that the outline of my grandmother was correct otherwise it would affect the rest of the drawing. Before I started the actual drawing and detail of the face, I had to place the tissue paper base down. Because I had sketched out the outline of the face onto grey board, it was easy to apply the tissue paper over the allocated area. Because the tissue paper was slightly oppaque, I was able to apply the prit stick within the lines of the drawing and postion the tissue paper in the most effcient way over the outline. Due to the main reason in using tissue paper in my final piece was because of its ability to crease, I had to crumple each layer together and stick it down one section at a time to ensure that the creases stuck down in place and wouldnt come away or lay flat. I tired to move the creases in the direction that the wrinkles appeared on the image to later on make it easier to draw and to make it look realistic. Once it was stuck down, I was able to cut around the access tissue paper in the shape of the outline of my Grandmother. I did this using a scalpel and pressing lightly to cut the tissue paper but not the grey board underneath. Once I had an outline of my grandmother using tissue paper, I noticed because the tissue paper itself was so thin especially because of the colour being white, it was showing the grey board and glue streaks underneath it. Therefore, I had to add another layer of tissue paper using the same process as before.

 

Once the tissue paper layer was stuck down, I was able to thoughrougly go over the lines that I had previously made. Because of the medium the pencil lines under the tissue paper showed through making it easier for me to go over with pen. The specific biro pen I used was a BIC ball pen due to the fact that these are the types of pens Powell uses. He states this is because they are one of the most common pens and for alot of people they are everday objects lying around that he wants to show can be used to make something very beautiful and intricate.

Once I had created an outline of most of the face minus the hair that I wanted to leave out to create a more finished appearnce, I was able to go into detail within the features of the face. I began with the eyes as I wanted these to be one of the focal points within my piece. I started off by creating depth and contast within the skin around the eyes by using small circluar motions. I had sure to follow the creases in the eyes that were in the photograph. The folds that I had created within the tissue paper made it alot easier to fill in the face and enhanced the detail in the skin. I made sure to press lightly when filling in the lighter areas of the face, and for the darkest areas of the face such as the wrinkles I made sure to increase the pressure of the pen. As I wasnt filling the the full face and had to create a gradient where the shading wasnt as intense I began to create more spaced out lighter circular movements that allowed the shading to blend out more gradually. I had decided to not fill in the hair/forehead of the image due to the symbolism of the memories that we store within our head.

 

A final touch that I added within the biro drawing itself, was a faint clock hand outline within the eyes. As I had experimnted with adding clocks into the eyes but decided it was too obvious being related to the idea of tike passing by, I felt adding a more sublte clock was more appropriate. As well as this, to notice it you have to look closer into the image, and therefore like the aspect of only a hnaful of people viewing the portrait noticing it.

 

To add the background to my final piece I had to print 4 A3 sheets of my background edit off using photographic paper. The 4 sheets covered the surface area that I had to cover around the image of my grandmother. Although at first, there was still a strip at the side of the grey board with my drawing on once I postioned the background. Therefore, i had to reduce each side of my canvas by 2.5cm using a scalpel and a long ruler. Afterwards, I was able to position the background images ontop of the board and figure out where the drawing was positioned so I could cut directly around it and have the background of my images surrounding the drawing rather than covering it. I did this by placing tissue paper over the drawing first to stencil around where it was positioned and then transfered this over the the photographic paper so I was able to draw on where to cut. Once i had cut it out using the scalpel, I was able to stick them onto the background.

 

 

 

 Due to the fact that the background of the piece incoprorated so many memories, I wanted to leave the head completely clear to symbolise that even though my grandmother is old aged, that her head is still being filled with memories. Although, I much prefer the idea that it symbolises the aspect of nostalgia, and how even though we may try as hard as e can to remember the special aspects of our lives, sometimes we forget and an empty clear space is left. This is more common within old age and enhances the physical age of my nanny.

As I had explained within my final outcome eperiment, that the photograph edit in the background represents my grandmothers past, as well as mine and my mothers. The combination of these photographs and the map enforce that these memories were all infused from one individaul orginally - my grandmother. Without her my mother or I wouldnt be here.

 

 

 

One of the problems I came across during cutting the tissue paper was because it was so thin and delicate, when I was crumpling it and sticking it down often it was ripping. Although, in a way this has created more of an old ages effect re-enforcing the idea of nostalgia and how are memories can be ripped or ruined and are often forgotten.

If I had had more time, I would of like the idea of placing the map behind the tissue paper drawing of my nanny also, so the maps rivers and landmarks seaped through the tissue paper into the veins and wrinkles within my nannys face.

If I were to carry out the background edit again, I would of strengthened the image of the map behind the old photographs. This is due to the fact that I feel as if the map isnt very noticable unless you look closely.