Applying Illustration to Different Surfaces

Aside from the paper experiments i wanted to try drawing on a number of different surfaces these included Perspex, glass, ceramics and foils to show i am open to many different areas. I also wanted to experiment and use medium i would not usually. I felt the teapot was the most successful although the ceramic surface was very slippy to draw straight onto I could collaborate with a 3d student in the future to investigate other ways of applying my drawing. I want to develop the idea  further into a mini project of teapot designs. Offering an alternative to the traditional crockery. This is another context i could investigate further as another side to my practice. 

I also felt that filming my work would be something i want to try and improve at so i decided to record part of me drawing on this as an experimentation of film and to see how effective it was. The outcome was a very quick way of engaging my audience with my work. Although there is a lot of room for improvement with quality i am going to keep developing towards creating a youtube channel to work alongside my Instagram as another way of engaging the public in future.

Pyramid Development

Making the Paper cut lamps and book sculpture was a good starting point but i wanted to make larger scale work. Therefore i needed a shape that would be easy to make and quick to make a large number of. Also i wanted to focus more on how i would apply my drawing to the shapes rather than constructing them.

I realised that mountain shapes are a common occurrence in my drawings especially ones inspired by my nordic inspiration. This made me think of the Pyramid shape which would correspond with my drawings and is easy to make. Below is my mood board i produced as research of already existing pyramid installation art.

From the research i found the smaller pyramids most appealing because they looked like little mountains from my drawings and together created a textural environment. I felt that because they were small they would also force people to really concentrate and look closer at the details of my installation and experience my work more. 

I began to make a range of different sketches and ways the pyramids could be used. They could all be one design or they could all have separate identities each representing a character or place. I really enjoyed the process of quick sketching because it allowed me to get all the ideas out of my head for others to see and understand better. It is something i will continue to do in the future because i think of a lot of ideas but need to record them more. (see below).

Initial Ideas

Refined Designs

Paper Installation and Initial experiments

During the first week of the Unit I wanted to reflect on my feedback from the practice Unit and start work on my new concept. Therefore i started to find research in general for paper art using the Final Cut exhibition as a starting point. I then produced a moodboard of a range of paper installation (see below).

Paper Installation Moodboard

Because working 3d large scale was a new territory for me I wanted to progress and work up to that scale slowly so I started with paper cut art sourcing inspiration from Rob Ryan.

Rob Ryan - Entire Map of my Life

I enjoyed using the negative space as my way of revealing detail and silhouettes giving my illustrations a very graphic feel. However they were still 2d which is not what I was aiming for so I started to fold them into cylinders and shine light through them to bring the drawings more to life. I particularly felt the light through the pin prick holes worked well giving a star detail effect to the drawing (see around moon below).

2D combination of Illustration Paper cutting and light.

(left) Paper cut with Pin Detail Lampshade, (mid) combination lampshade and (right) Paper Cut with textural detail Lampshade.

Although i felt the Lampshade experiments worked well i was still working 2d so i looked again at my research and found Guy Laramee a book sculptor. I enjoyed how he carves book to create 3d worlds (see below). 

Guy Laramee - 'Grande Larousse' 2010

Responding to Guy's work i bought some old books and attempted a book sculpture myself. I really enjoyed the process of each page building up to create a piece of art and overall it was successful. I wanted it to look like a cave within a book. I also screen printed and painted the cover to add some of my illustrating to the sculpture. This is something i would like to revisit and make more of. However, i felt i was still confining my work to small scale so wanted to progress further to large scale.

First Book Sculpture Attempt