studio brief 4

A MATTER OF OPINION

I chose the quote 'We are what we repeatedly do' - Aristotle
3 illustrations, any format presented in a minimum A3 scale, I have chosen to work with image as communication. 

What I have understood from this quote is that our actions define who we are, so if we were wanting to excel in something we must repeatedly practise at that skill. But equally if we are repeatedly doing certain bad habits such as constantly eating junk food, that starts to define who we are, we begin to show similarities to that habit i.e. we begin to get fat like the fatty food. 

Like the idea of showing the gradual pattern of change, like the person eating the burger slowly becoming the burger. Also the image of a person looking like the food they eat the most. Think this could lead to an interesting project - exploring different unhealthy eating habits and how that is reflected in the person. So for example, those who only eat salad being depicted as very bony, malnourished in terms of protein and essential fat.

More difficult than I thought to depict people as food, have tried to look first at shape of food then try and fit a figure into it. 

Kate Blegvad 'Wall of Skulls' 2010

I really liked this ink painting by Blegvad, it is very simply done with lots of blotches of ink but I think it is so effective. By having so many skulls, it becomes easy to just get lost trying to look at all the different expressions/features on the skulls. Just as light wash of a darker colour or a thicker line makes it much more than blotches of ink and becomes a wall of different personalities. 

Thought this style would work well if I was to look at smoking as a bad habit, the idea that by constantly smoking we are, in a sense, just becoming a cloud of smoke - always smelling of smoke, constantly smoking so there is always a cloud of smoke around anyway. Could try and get a variation of faces, different types of smokers. The ink washes will be effective in creating the visual element for the smoke, will have the faces gradually becoming lighter, more smokey.

Want to experiment with different formats, looking at a circle where there is a figure smoking and the smoke is circling round and going back into the figure, to show the endless cycle of smoke going in and out of a smokers body. Although I don't feel this test worked, I tried to make it look like the inside of an ashtray but that makes it too convoluted, would be better if figure was the centre of attention. 

Used 'Quink' instead of the usual black ink, has a much better effect. The way it fades out, and goes slightly yellow when watered down has a much more smoky effect.