sallysetsforth

A few weeks ago, classes come to a close and it was time for the final folio review for my visual arts course. We had worked all year towards this point, and it was wonderful to look back on the body of work created over the year and take in what we had accomplished. There was such a diversity in the student work - you could really tell that each person had travelled their own path in their own way.



For my part, when I saw my selected pieces displayed together, I could finally see what others had been saying all year - that across the variety of techniques, styles, colours and themes in my work, you really could tell that it was all created by one person. By me. I do have a style that is my own and that I'm excited to continue developing.



For our formal review, we were asked to give a short presentation on what we had learnt during the course, and how our folio reflected our chosen career path. Below is a summary of what I said:


A week after the review, I walked out of the building for the last time. I have nothing but gratitude for the experience. It's been intense, challenging and deeply personal. I'm so glad that I grabbed this opportunity.



So what happens next? I'll tell you more in another blog post. In the meantime, I'll finish off this post with a photo from our graduation night at Deakin Edge (Federation Square) last week. I'm second from the right :)

Sometimes a short, fast creative session can yield great results. These three black dogs could easily have taken me weeks of agonising over creating the designs and carefully painting them. But instead they were completed in a single afternoon. And they're amongst my favourite pieces from this year :)



We were given a brief in our last studio drawing class to design a set of three pieces featuring either cats or dogs, that would be of an appropriate nature to emblazon the sides of a large transport vehicle and be seen clearly.

We had half an hour to do any research and brainstorming, followed by about an hour and a half to complete the work. I did a quick internet search for dog profile photos, and roughed up some sketches of head shapes that appealed to me. Then I drew the final versions and got painting. The first one took me the longest, but once I was into the swing of it I worked quite quickly and was really pleased with the final results.

These pieces are a good reminder for me that art doesn't always need to take forever, and that I shouldn't get caught up in overthinking and overplanning. Just do it :)

Eep, I've been so busy finishing up my art course that I'm weeks (months!) behind in posting about all the things I want to write about before this year is out. It's just been a massive year and a great experience, and I have so many ideas I just want to jump on straight away :)

But - before I get sidetracked and start writing about all of that, here is my final weekly index card wrap up from the 2016 Index-Card-A-Day challenge. I managed eight weeks' worth of index card art, reaching a total of 56 altogether.

Here is the round up pic from week 8:



A very painty set of cards, with strong colours and a range of textures. A few different techniques that I hadn't tried before made it a nice way to round off the challenge :)

Towards the end of my art course we each held a mini exhibition. I used about 100 of my index cards as a colourful backdrop to my exhibition, joined together using fotoclips. I'm holding them in the photo below. It was great to see them all together on display like this!



All of my cards for the Index-Card-A-Day challenge (#ICAD2016) can be viewed individually on Flickr.

If you follow me on Instagram or Flickr, you might remember seeing these guys earlier in the year ...



I created these LOL cats for a 3D typography assignment. I was (and still am) really happy with how they turned out. I think they're colourful and cute and fun :)

I also enjoyed the whole process of making them - coming up with the designs, brainstorming different ideas for construction, creating the pattern templates, choosing the colour scheme, drawing and stitching the embroidered details, and finally sewing and stuffing them. It was time consuming, but the end result was worth it.

Here's the final photographic layout that I submitted for assessment:



I've kept all of the LOL cat templates and sketches, and am planning to publish the pattern in future for other people to use :)

Here's my seventh weekly set of index cards, and my second last little collection for 2016. After the fun of creating collage postcards for my art course, I decided to explore it a bit further in my index cards, and you can see some of the results of mixing paint and found images here.



My favourite piece from this week's set was the marbling shown in the centre card. I had just watched a Creativebug tutorial on Facebook about paper marbling using shaving cream and food colouring, and realised that I had everything I needed to give it a try right away. So I did :)



You can see in the above photo that I made a few marbled index cards - first with red food colouring, then adding some blue. Finally I was left with a purple mix that I added a little extra red to. Those last ones were the most subtle yet effective pieces, and I used one of them (with just a small decorative embellishment) for the index card challenge. The others I've put aside for next year.

All of my cards for the Index-Card-A-Day challenge (#ICAD2016) can be viewed individually on Flickr.

One of the elective subjects I chose in my arts course this year was Illustration & Imagery. Fairly early on, we were given a brief to complete a series of illustrations to accompany a nursery rhyme. I chose "There was a crooked man". If you don't know it, I've included the text below:

    There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile,
    He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile.
    He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse,
    And they all lived together in a little crooked house.



This was a fairly quick project that we finished during the Easter holidays. The four pieces were cut from an A4 sheet of watercolour paper, making each piece A6 size. I chose the small format and simple designs, as I was missing working at that scale - we'd been doing a lot of very large pieces, and the index card challenge was still some time away.

Two of the pieces are inspired by the crooked house, one is the crooked cat, and the other represents the crooked mile. I quite like how they turned out, especially the white house on the black background. The individual pictures are included below (clicking on them will link through to Flickr, where details of the media used are provided).

Okay, here's another week of index cards to round up. This post is quite late, as I finished these cards about a month ago and have since completed the daily challenge for this year. At the point that I completed this set I had equalled my total number of cards from last year, and then continued on to finish after eight weeks (56 cards). So it's good to know I've been able to push this challenge a bit further each year :)



As I look at this set and the ones before it, I can really see how my use of colour has grown stronger and more confident over the last few years. I've also gravitated strongly towards pattern-based designs. I find them really relaxing and satisfying, so just in case I was getting too comfortable I made sure to push myself to try a few different things each week as well.

My index cards for the Index-Card-A-Day challenge (#ICAD2016) were posted on Flickr, Instagram and Tumblr as I created them. Now that the challenge is finished, the Flickr set is probably the best place to view them individually.

I'm running behind both on creating daily index card art and blogging about it. I finished this set a few weeks ago, and have completed more since. I'm not sure yet if I will complete the full 61 cards (I've never managed it yet) or choose my own finishing point.

I remember that this lot took quite a while to create, as I agonised over a few of them for several days! The trio of flowers in the top right of the photo took me ages to finish - I really liked the design I'd come up with, so I took my time over choosing colours and getting it just right (not that I necessarily succeeded!). In fact most of these cards were a multi-step process, with time required between each layer of work.



A few new things here too. On the right hand side some crinkled tissue paper lent texture to a card. On the bottom left I used the inside of a security envelope as the background pattern. There are acrylic and watercolour paints used here, as well as fineliners, markers and watercolour pencils. The bottom right card explored a pattern I'd been trying out in one of my assignments - it also covers up an unsuccessful experiment with rubbing alcohol :)

All of my index cards for the Index-Card-A-Day challenge (#ICAD2016) are posted on Flickr, Instagram and Tumblr as I create them.

This project was one of the last assignments in first semester, and one that I thoroughly enjoyed. Our task was to create a set of postcards using mixed media collage. They could be created manually or digitally (or both), and we needed to incorporate the following principles of design:

• Colour (colour theory / schemes)
• Contrast (dominance / subordinance and emphasis)
• Movement and direction
• Pattern (repetition and rhythm)

You can click on the image above to see a larger version of my set of three collages in Flickr. Following is a description of how my design came together, as well as individual pictures of the three pieces.

I'd never really done collage before, and found it difficult to decide on a theme beforehand. But as I thought about potential supplies that were available to me (textiles, tapes, magazines, patterned paper, wood, stamps, maps, paint, string, books, buttons, photographs, etc.), I started to form ideas for where I might begin. I enjoy origami, but I accumulate origami paper at a much faster rate than I can use it (thanks Daiso). So I decided to use my origami paper collection as a starting point for my collages - they would certainly provide the pattern element at the very least!

While sorting through my papers, I found a set that featured famous Japanese woodcut designs, including several from Hokusai's Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji series. Beginning with the Fine Wind, Clear Morning design (sometimes called Red Fuji), I started to play around with how I might incorporate images of Mount Fuji into my collages. I held a piece of red patterned paper next to it to see how I might combine them, and found that the origami paper was slightly transparent and allowed patterned paper underneath to show through. I loved the effect, and this became the key to developing a design that included both dominant and subordinate patterns through the use of cut and layered paper.

I really enjoyed the fiddly cutting that was required to realise my idea, especially for the Shore of Tago Bay design. Total satisfaction for the side of me that loves details! The next element that I incorporated was pages from a Japanese book I found at a Little Free Library - you never know what treasures you will come across in a Little Free Library just when you need them! These provided a great accent, and an additional source of pattern.

Finally, I wanted to add the kanji characters for Mount Fuji (Fujisan) to the pieces. I did some research on the characters and how to draw them correctly. I used a Japanese brush ink set with an inkstick and inkstone to create them. I ground up fresh black ink (very exciting to finally try this out!), and wrote out the characters many times. Rather than draw directly on to the collage, I selected the best of my practice efforts and scanned them onto the computer. I then added them to the collages digitally using Adobe Illustrator for the final printed layout.

Fine Wind, Clear Morning



Shore of Tago Bay, Ejiri at Tōkaidō



The Great Wave off Kanagawa



So there you go - my little tribute to Hokusai and Japan in collage.

Special thanks to my friend Kate for gifting me the patterned origami paper that I used in these collages. It was just perfect for the traditional Japanese origami designs that I wanted to showcase :)