Miss Rose

In the past, I worked as a full time professional model. Amongst the opportunities and experiences this provided, on occasion, I also got the chance to work along side other models. This was often very different to my usual work which involved posing myself in and amongst my otherwise entirely still environment. Working with others required a whole new set of skills including: communicating levels, what each person is/isn’t comfortable with and working as a harmonious pair rather than two individual bodies.

Having worked with a variety of other models, I found everything from bitching and back-stabbing (as is quite stereotypical) through to genuine connections and friendships. Camilla is one of the few models that I found to be genuinely interested in the artistic side of model photography and someone that I became good friends with over the years we worked together.

I wanted to go back and re-capture those moments through a piece of art work, mainly as a deeper exploration of that artistically based friendship in comparison with the more recent work I have been doing, and the models I have recently met.

Having been given permission by Steve Plant (the original photographer) to use these images in my artwork I started to think about how I wanted to portray this friendship.

This image in particular, has received vast amounts of views online and is one of my favourite images of me and Camilla together as I feel it is quite natural, not very typically posed and shows genuine connection that is not awkward or forced.

As the connection/friendship was/is very real I don’t feel that an abstract style would be appropriate but I also want to enhance the image by giving it a more ‘dreamy’/idealistic representation. I see this as looking back at a positive time in my life that I want to remember by capturing the moment in a piece of artwork.

I have already used stitch work to create artwork inspired by this image, which I found to be very feminine and delicate, but it lacked detail. I think a painting would be most appropriate as I can change and adapt certain parts as the “feeling” of the painting takes me in specific directions. I am also keen to improve my representative style of painting that I enjoyed figuring out with a previous painting of Lucy.

At the beginning of this course I started to look at landscape artists such as Bob Ross, William Turner and Lawrence Coulson. I would like to combine what I learnt from these artists into this painting, especially in terms of techniques. I really enjoyed my first paintings in the style of Bob Ross and could transfer these skills into a mixed landscape/figurative piece.