Final Major Project
I am currently studying a Foundation Diploma in Art and Design. My final Major project has been an entirely self lead project, based around censorship, an exploration of my own sexuality and finding my place as a female artist in a world viewed primairly through the "Male Gaze".
Nicole-Rayner
As Nicole is primarily a photographer, we worked together on a time exchange basis. The original plan was that I would photograph Nicole for the first 2-3 hours and then she would photograph me for the same amount of time after, however, as we were working in a studio with a lot of natural light it didn’t seem fair that it may be dark by the time Nicole had chance to take photographs and therefore we decided to both take it in turns to model and photograph. I am so glad we did, as the whole day turned into an amazing collaboration! I had explained my ideas and concepts to Nicole before and during the shoot and she put in a tonne of energy and creativity to bring my ideas to life!
The fact we were both shooting and modelling meant we got to combine our ideas and skill set to produce the best results! Nicole is such a creative person, I found her very inspirational to be around, let alone work with!
I feel a very strong creative connection to Nicole, she has become a real inspiration to me and therefore I have used the photographs I took of her to inspire a variety of artwork. She has motivated me to try things I never have before with the intention of finding the perfect medium to express how much of an impact she has had on me and my journey as an artist and creative person!
Photography:
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Screen Printing
After researching artists such as Simon Claridge and Andy Warhol, I became interested in learning the process of screen printing. I fund it hard to see how Simon Claridge makes his prints his own as he mainly uses imagery from Playboy or of Marylin Monroe in his latest colletcions. I feel the photography or creation of the original image is a vital part to screen printing and therefote I used my own photography to create these prints.
Click images to see a step-by-step and mini evaluation of these screen prints. I created a whole "technical processes" Sketchbook based around my print work experiments but here are a few samples of the work I created inspired by Nicole.
Explanation of the process used
I used photoshop to chnge the image into black and white dots (bitmap). I then used a thermal imaging machine to transfer my image onto the screen.
Here I started to create the prints by placing a large blob of ink at the top of the screen and pulling down towards me with a squeegee.
Here are a selection of prints as I had just created them. I used various colours and fabrics/papers to print onto
I found Cartridge paper to work really well for screen prints as it picks up a lot of detail. Here the image is distorted at the top though, as this was one of my first prints whilst I was still figuring out the technique!
Here I tried a different coloured ink, I think the squeegee was the wring size though and therefore I have ended up with a dark line running down the print.
Here I used one colour directly after another without washing the screen. I absolutely love the effect created as it is quite abstract but also suggests a lot of movement!
Here I used a third colour without washing the screen to create another mixture of colour - I really like these prints!
Here I used green ink to print onto fabric, I really like this print so decided to work into it with machine embroidery. I didn't mix the pigment thoroughly before printing which has added the darker sections, I feel this adds further texture to the image and I really like this.
Further print work / experimentation:
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Jaime left a reference for me on a photography/model networking site following our photo shoot (quoted from Purpleport.com):
“Well I feel so lucky to have met and worked with this fabulous lady!!
I was very honoured to work with Miss_Rose at the Pit studio! Pre communications were great and I was very excited for this shoot as she sounded very lovely indeed and I was not wrong! Such a down to earth genuinely lovely lady, whom I had lots of fun shooting with! We explored, we tried out props, we got very dirty, we even tried our hand at a bit of self-art which was lots of fun indeed and we laughed lots!
Miss_Rose is very creative indeed and it shows in her shots - she doesn't just go for your big standard straight shot, she tries to do a different take, which I really admire in a photographer! The shoot was a huge, exciting collaboration and it was great to work with someone that was on the same creative level - eager to give anything a go! If it doesn't work, it doesn't work - that's the beauty of digital, but why, when it does, it does!! And I think we managed. Few of those crackers!!
Miss_rose has already produced some wonderful images and I must say her skills do not seem to end - amazing behind the camera, amazing in front of the camera and fabulous at processing images also!!
Had so much fun working with Miss_rose and I am so excited to be working with her more in the future!! Both as a photographer and a model! We instantly connected and work very well together!”