Foundation

These photos are from my trip to the Barber Art Institute of fine arts in Birmingham. In my opinion it was like no other gallery I've been to. It was packed full of outstanding artwork as it was such a small gallery. This is an advantage, however, as it gave the museum more of an atmosphere which was very uplifting and inspiring. I found all of the paintings there very realistic, all with a great message to pass on. The artworks were inspiring and amazingly well painted, some, melodramatic almost and they offered a glimpse into the past of art and how it was like to paint hundreds of years ago. Altogether I found the gallery to be a great experience and I would explore it in more detail, if I were to go again, which I probably will.

This was a project I started at the very beginning of Foundation. The visual quality doesn't match that of my current work, but it was a fairly long project, so I'm giving it a chance to shine. These are a series of photos taken throughout the development of this piece to show the progression and development of it. The photo is of my friend that I took. There is nothing special about the photo, it is a portrait photo, the angle isn't heavily distorted and the lighting is fairly standard. I wanted to get as much light on the face as I could all to add to the beauty and life to contrast the acrylic I would put over it, softness vs rigidity. When drawing a portrait, I always start on the eyes, finding the right shape and size and with this I can create a rough outline of where the other facial features should be. I start working on one eye to get the right tones and depth of the rest of the face and put in a rough nose and mouth (it's still just construction lines at this ...

Pinterest board that influenced my work  This is going to be a very short post about the work I was doing during quarantine. It's all in response to Koidl and it's not work that I feel is meant to be explained, only interpreted. Hope you enjoy both the work and the influences.    The work below is in direct response to the Pinterest board linked above, mainly made up of Koidl's work, with a few other influences, such as Tim Burton.

Artist Research Arinze Stanley and Kelvin Okafor Kelvin Okafor The two main artists that have had the most impact on my work and techniques are Arinze Stanley and Kelvin Okafor. I look at Okafor for the techniques and processes he uses, how he handles his tools etc. I find his compositions differ too much from the reference photo to look at the final outcome of his drawings.    This photo taken from his instagram depicts perfectly what I mean. The final outcome looks too airbrushed and unlike the reference photo. To be more specific and critical; the iris is the wrong shape, certain parts of the lower and upper lids are too dark, the eyebrows are deformed and the detailing of the iris is all wrong. Despite all this, the processes Okafor uses throughout his compositions are extremely helpful.   A perfect example of this is pictured above. Okafor uses a paint brush to spread graphite across the composition, creating an extremely soft and realistic base tone for the skin tha...

Above: Final Major Project..... "I" https://photos.app.goo.gl/VQAFTLRghFAf1ARD6 - Progress shots of "I" With the deadline soon coming to pass, and with my final piece nearly complete, I feel it's the right time to compose an evaluation of the 10 month project.  As I mention in my proposal for unit 6, I would have much preferred -in hindsight- to start my final major when everyone else did because with all the knowledge I have now, it’d take half the time to complete and could be even better. There have been lots of struggles and mishaps along the way but now I’m at the end of the road, it was all worth it. The biggest challenge has been the overwhelming patience I’ve had to develop in order to not abandon or ruin the piece. There were many times I wanted to give up and start something new, many times I wanted to tear it off the wall and burn it. However, what kept me going was visualising the final result, the complete outcome. It excited me so much, knowing th...