Meg Campbell 1908015 YR2 Art Blog

Prints and Print making Motif follows a lot of my work and for this I thought that experimenting with printing would perhaps make for interesting concepts. Prints allow you to make multiples of the exact same thing without too much by my of discrepancy between each print.  For this I also wanted to start working in more of the art nouveau elements that I found so aesthetically appeasing so as to create prints that would look good wither on their own or as a group.  My first print was one of my fungi women which I carved into lino and printed in red ink - the colour of the fungi cap that adorns her head. I wanted this to be more messy looking and whimsical, like she appeared out of the ink blob itself, so I decided to be lose with how I applied the paint to the lino block she was carved into, creating this effect; For the next set of prints I wanted something more professional to look at, so I worked out a simple, yet elegant design on paper before hand to transfer onto my lino...

Photography collage Photography is a large part of how I think about creating my work, so it seemed logical to use this as a base for collaging elements together to create larger works. For this, I once again took a large sheet of black paper and painted on the background in large swirling motions, choosing to keep some of the black visible through the acrylic paint. I then printed out the photographs and stuck them all lined up on a white sheet of paper and drew designs over the top of them in marker and POSCA pens. After this I cut out each individual photograph once again and arranged them on the background paper which was now dry. I used hot glue to stick them down so they were as flat to the paper as I could manage.  I really enjoyed creating this work as it combined both my love of photography and the collage effect that I have been experimenting with. I liked the freedom of colour I allowed myself as well as the added detail photography allowed. My only criticism to myself i...

 Black Paper Experiments: For the following I used a blank sheet of thin black card and allotted myself certain implements to experiment with over various sheets. These included: Other paper types Glue (PVA) Hot glue (from glue gun) Acrylic paints POSCA pens Grey Scaled marker pens Pencils (2B, 4B, 6B and 8B) Sponges Paint Brushes The following are the outcomes of these experiments. For this, I used acrylic paint and a sponge to apply thick layers of metallic and white acrylic paint to form a base of swirling and random patterns to create thick texture and interesting colour mixes. On top of this I cut a circle out of a separate sheet of black paper and drew my usual motifs (eyes, mouths and fungi as well as skulls) onto this in a circular, overlapping motion. On a separate sheet of white paper I drew a ball python with grey scale marker pens to create definition.  To put all these elements together I used more of the metallic paint as well as PVA glue. This created an interes...

 Sketch experiments: Having decided on using the fungi women as a focal point for my art, I needed to work out a method for which to best showcase them as well as create a motif to cover them as this is something I find aesthetically pleasing. I wanted to use disembodied facial features similar to how both Villalba and Bacon do to create an uncanny and whimsical feel to the art. The following are experiments to see how best to create these works and the best materials to do so to create texture and movement. For this I allowed myself to use pens and pencils to sketch as well as figure out the best scale for this work to take place on. I also tried out different shapes of paper, seeing is circles created interesting viewing windows for my figures to occupy. 

  Colour Experiments Following are my paint experiments to try and find an interesting and creative method of making a back drop to place art onto, rather than relying on a plain background. I wanted to try and create more texture in my work and feel a more colourful, abstract background could help me achieve this.  Firstly I started out with acrylic paint and pushed it around the page from a central point with only a sponge. I noticed however that when the paint was allowed to run freely it created a marbled effect that I found aesthetically more appealing than the smeared effect achieved by the sponge. For this I spread acrylic paint in the centre of the page directly from the bottle and repeatedly tipped the paper up and down in a singular direction to create a linear marbled effect. The way the colours shone through each other was interesting to me and created a softer effect than my previous experiment. For this one I used circular motions to tip the paint where I wanted ...

 Sympathetic Magic Pitt Rivers Museum - Oxford Links used to find and learn about the exhibit: https://romanmagic.wordpress.com/2016/06/10/magic-the-pitt-rivers-museum-a-reflection/ https://guerillaarchaeology.com/resources/witches-magic-and-medicine-pitt-rivers-museum/ https://romanmagic.wordpress.com/2016/06/10/magic-the-pitt-rivers-museum-a-reflection/ https://web.prm.ox.ac.uk/england/englishness-Object-biographies-details.html The sympathetic magic exhibition is a collection of artefacts from around the world used in rituals of magical or spiritual nature. The collection was put together by General Augustus Pitt Rivers and was donated to Oxford University. T he  Pitt Rivers Museum   is a free, public display space incorporating the 18,000 or so archaeology, anthropological and ethnographic objects donated to Oxford University by  General Augustus Pitt Rivers   and, subsequently, thoroughly expanded to over half a million individual objects....

  The "FunGirls" Moving forward with the "fungirls" I decided that colour was something I wanted to add, but I didn't want to make the colours too bright because I wanted to make the figures still seem whimsical and fantasy-esque. This lead me to using watercolour to keep a washed out effect as well as then defining key details using both fine liner pens and darkening certain areas with pencil. I did this to create more shadow and make them seem more real on the page. The made me feel a lot happier to look at, the colours added a level of happiness to the figures and made them seem more alive, rather than something that haunted my dreams.  I tried to use reference imagery from real mushrooms that exist in the world and my own photography to create a further link between myself and them. These have become a mild obsession of mine through my art and I really want to now experiment with them in more abstract areas to see their visual interaction and create textural...