Week 4

At the start of this week we had a contextual studies workshop, which was meant to help us with our research by encouraging us to look at artists/designers from different time periods. During this workshop I came across the work of Georgia O'keeffe, an American artist best known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New Mexico landscapes and New York skyscrapers. She lived between 1887 and 1986, playing a huge part in the American modernist movement. Soon after 1918, she began working primarily in oil, a shift away from working mainly in watercolour. By the 1920's O'Keeffe began creating large scale paintings of natural forms at close range, as if seen through a magnifying lens. Her work had been mostly abstract, but works such as "Black Iris III" (1926) prompted people to believe that her subject was a veiled representation of female genitalia 

while also accurately depicting the centre of an iris. 

O'Keeffe consistently denied the validity of Freudian interpretations of her art. The fact that many people at the time thought O'Keeffe's paintings were of something other than what she intended emulates her ability to transform her subject into something else. She therefore turns something from its "real"/original state into a "fantasy"/untrue form.

The foreground image in this painting obviously resembles leaves however the layered leaves in the background makes the viewer question O'Keeffe's subject. The brighter lighting in the foreground in comparison to the darker background may lead the viewer to believe that the leaves are falling down an abyss or a portal into another world.

The close up nature of O'Keeffe's paintings also make her subjects i.e.flowers or leaves look like separate landscapes. These therefore could be interpreted as a "fantasy" world within the "real" world, further relating Georgia O'Keeffe's work to my theme of "Fantasy verses Reality". 

I thought O'Keeffe's work might be useful in helping me to create more designs/experimentations. In response to her work I decided to make some rubbings of leaves from my garden and experiment with how I could  use these to create imagery. Like I did with previous designs, I decided to scan the leaf rubbings and layer them on photoshop with another image. I came across this colourful image of flowers that I took whilst on holiday in easter and repeatedly copied and pasted the image of the leaf onto the picture of the flowers setting the layer blending options to "difference" each time. I also experimented with using the "difference" layer blending option using the image of flowers with a plain background. The resulting image over exposed each of the flowers, seemingly revealing their inner skeleton, almost echoing O'keeffe's close up perspective and "magnifying" technique.

After adding the first two or three leaves to the image I wasn't sure wether I should add more and try to cover the whole page or just leave it how it was as the irregular shape of the layered leaves added to the aesthetic of the picture. With the picture as it was at this stage in its development it was almost as if the outline of the leaves created a window in which the original image was distorted. I liked how the multi layering of leaf rubbings in some areas of the picture created various sections of differing transparency around the image. 

I continued to layer more leaf images and ended up with the image above, still leaving small traces of the original flower image around the picture. I liked this version better than the partially collaged one as it is fuller and therefore gives the viewer more to look at. I also thought it was interesting how when I added two layers of leaf images with the layer blending options at difference it were almost as if I could see right through to the original image however the colours and shapes were much more faded and distorted.

I experimented with this image further by layering it with yet another image of a muddy puddle with a reflection in it, which I used earlier on in my project. This ultimately made the image much darker whilst also adding different textures to the image. I particularly liked the effect the reflection of the tree branches had when layered with the purple/pink sections of the image as it was almost as if they cut paths or veins into the image, seemingly making the print come alive. 

After having done a number of image making experiments, I wanted to test my prints on different fabrics using different methods. I got some heat transfer paper off amazon that you can print on using any normal inkjet printer you have at home. I decided to experiment with my most recent image first and printed the whole image to the size of the A4 heat transfer paper.

I first experimented with printing it onto organza, a thinner more porous material, which was probably not the smartest thing, but I wanted to see if it would work and end up being see-through like when I experimented with printing on tracing paper.

This didn't work very well as after I had removed the paper I had to then quite forcefully pull the printed organza off the canvas bag I had ironed on top of to protect my work surface. The design seemed more or less ok but various sources had said to use the silicon paper the heat transfer paper package provides to finish the design. Alternatively you could use paper to absorb any excess ink and leave a softer finish, so I decided to do this. However when I came to pull the paper off after ironing it partially stuck to the material and ruined the design.

After  this I tried printing on some silk-satin that my mum had lying around as I thought it might give the image an interesting shine, however the material turned out very stiff and ridged, probably because by applying the print this way I was ultimately applying a coat of plastic onto the fabric.

This was not the type of finish I wanted for my designs so I decided that the only way to achieve the quality I wanted for my final outcomes was to use the fabric printing facilities at Ravensbourne.

Mars project

To kick start our idea development after the Easter holidays we were set a joint "MARS" project with the Lens Based media pathway of the course.

"Mathematics, Art, Religion and Science are the four cornerstones of our cognitive understanding. They have drive us to search into the depths of the heavens and have propelled us forward in our need to understand why?"

In this project we were encouraged to look at all our research collectively thus far and consider how we could apply or extract Mathematical, Artistic, Religious, and Scientific modes/methods/meanings to or out of our work.

There were four of us in my group, including three Lens Based Media students and one Graphics student (me). We looked at our themes side by side in order to find common ideas within them so that we could produce one or more mini outcomes.

One person in our group had the theme "Colour and Anxiety" and we thought that it went quite well with my theme of "Fantasy verses Reality". We therefore decided to mainly go with those two themes thinking about how they might work together in a visual way whilst also keeping in mind the other two students topics of "Lost and found" and "Theories".

We came up with the idea of maybe having a girl who suffers from anxiety being the main character in this project's narrative. With the occurrence of a story, we thought that it might be appropriate to do an animation. Our final idea was to set the scene for the animation in a dark woodland where the girl is seen being over crowded by trees, representing the oppressive nature of her anxiety.

This then reminded me of an image I once took whilst on a walk in my local park (see bellow).

The reason I like this image was because of the interesting reflection of the surrounding woodland on the water and the relationship between this and the dull looking mud. I interpret this image as a sort of portal into another world. The reflective nature of the water along with the light seems to create this heavenly or even holy atmosphere from which the view might interpret the reflected image as an insight into parallel universe that is perhaps better than the one from which the photograph is taken.

This lead me to think of the work of John Stezaker who's work includes collaging classic movie stills, vintage postcards and book illustrations to give old images a new meaning. The majority of John Stezaker’s collages seem to create the impression that there is a world within a world, transporting the viewer into another dimension through the negative spaces within the images that almost act as chasms or tunnels. 

In his piece Mask xxxv (seen on the right) although the post card could be interpreted as preventing the viewer from seeing into the world of the woman, it could be seen as a visual illustration of her thoughts.

We as the viewer are able to see what she sees, images that literally could be in front of her or what she thinks awaits her in the future.

In Underworld III, positioned precisely to match the contour of the top of the film star’s head, a silhouette cut from a painting of birds and bats in flight obscures the woman’s face, neck and central body. The juxtaposition of the found images and the starlet and twilit creatures within them is summarised by its title Underworld III and the title’s inference of a covert other-worldliness, in which the viewer becomes enveloped

. Much of the found imagery that Stezaker chooses to work with was produced as promotional and advertising material for films made during the middle decades of the twentieth century. As such, this imagery takes its place replete with the pop culture glamour, most notably the intense styling, of its period. This allure then ‘time travels’ through the art of John Stezaker, arriving before the contemporary viewer as representative of an earlier age- and one whose iconography, exotica, poignancy, eroticism and cultural temper are heightened with time, yet oddly destabilised by the artist’s interventions into the image. The silhouette of the additional person is almost like a portal into another world. The scene could perhaps illustrate her visions for the future as she gazes into the distance contemplating life. The title Underworld III in itself suggests an additional world behind the initial photographic portrait and thus further implies that this gap in the image leads off into another world which could be either in the past, present or future.

This also relates to the work of M.C Escher an artist I looked at just before we started the MARS project. His work includes intricately detailed illustrations that focus on illusions and the transformation of one image into another.




Escher's illusions make the viewer question the validity of what they see before them. This image was particularly relatable to my photograph and the notion of being transported into another world e.g. from fantasy into reality or visa versa.











Both Stezaker and Escher made me think about other ways I could look at my title. It isn't just about the obvious images of fantasy or reality that you might see in illustrated children's books but it could also be about making the viewer question what they see. It could be transforming one image into something else maybe through the merging of two. For example the picture on the right could be seen as combination of two images. The image in the crystal ball could be a reflection or is might be a window allowing the person who is holding it up/ the viewer insight into a parallel universe. It therefore makes them question what in the image is fantasy and what is real. In my images/patterns/prints that I produce in the duration of my project I hope to make the viewer question their perception of these two concepts and create visuals that don't just illustrate the common images associated with Fantasy and Reality.

As I am not very good at animating, I decided to leave that up to the rest of the people in my group and we decided that I could do a poster describing our concept. 

For the top image I used a photograph I had taken previously of woodland and layered it on photoshop with a watercolour image I painted. I also edited the photograph of woodland to make it darker and creepier looking, helping to portray the dark emotions the girl will be feeling as she tackles with her anxiety. This relationship between colour and mood therefore  helped to combine the other members topics specifically the one entitled "colour and anxiety".

For the second image I layered the original coloured photograph of woodland with a combination of green and yellow watercolours instead of the slightly darker tones of blues and purples. This was meant to emulated the sense of a "better" fantasy where everything is good and perfect, and a world that is very different from the reality that the girl is living in.
For the animation we were going to have the girl starting off in her reality where everything is dark and where there are limited colours. The idea was then to flip the scene 180 degrees to show a much brighter and more colourful fantasy, where the girl is seen to be smiling and in a much better place emotionally.

My poster is therefore like a visual representation or explanation of the idea, exploring the fact that people often need a form of escapism from there everyday life, no matter how big or small the problems are that they face on a daily basis, people always need time to themselves to reflect and find their own peace.

This image making was supposed to be quite experimental, I wasn't sure how it would turn out but the end result seemed to be quite beneficial to my own project as well as the group's. The collective project gave me an insight into others ways I could look at my topic, rather then just focusing on the obvious associations with the words "fantasy" and "reality". It sparked ideas of how I could look at the transportation and transformation of things from reality into fantasy and visa versa.

After having made these images I started to think about how I could use them in a different way in my own project. One idea was to print one of the slightly more non realistic images (seen on the right) on tracing paper. This would leave some areas of the photograph more transparent than others, I therefore thought that I could layer it on top of text perhaps from the fairytale Little Red Ridding Hood or Alice in Wonderland (a story that also sees the transportation of a girl from reality into fantasy and back again). This would therefore add additional meaning to the image and let me explore the possibility of having my prints based on or illustrate particular stories or poems. I really liked how the image and the writing turned out when I put them together on a window as the light shined through the more transparent parts of the image to reveal different parts of the text better than others. It also seemed to enhance the colours of the image making it look more like a fantasy realm and the addition of the text from Alice in Wonderland made it seem as though the image could be illustration the "fantasy" world that Alice falls into.