Art and Design Foundation Diploma

From the beginning of my project, I visualised that my final piece would be digitalised, despite experimenting with a range of materials. I always thought that no matter what I try, my piece would look the most refined if I made it in Photoshop. I believe I felt this way because my previous project was very digital based and it made it look professional. However, after completing the mock up for my final piece I was left unsure about which movement I wanted to work in - traditional or digital? Although I am pleased with the outcome of my mock up, I found it difficult to include colours that go together aesthetically. With traditional methods, such as painting, it is easier to find ideal shades by blending colours together with whiter and darker tones. Traditional pieces are also more interactive than digital works because texture plays an important role in individual interpretation. Digital images look flat and lack value as unlimited copies can be made of them - every piece o...

In order to help me develop and choose the most suitable style fro my final piece, I thought it would be important to reach out to my target audience by posting pictures of my different drawings on Instagram and for them to tell me their reasons why. I decided to use Instagram rather than any other source of social media because the majority of my target audience follow me on there. I am aiming for my pieces to attract viewers who have interest in art/illustration and appreciate the varied forms it holds. I want it to attract enthusiastic and insightful people who are open to different interpretation - many people like this are artists themselves but some are not. I also believe that the age group of my audience is a similar age to me as I believe the younger generation are more open to individuality and diversity and the energy from young artists is extremely expressive. After seeing the results from my Instagram posts, I have concluded that my audience liked the drawings done in the ...

I began working with lino printing in my previous project, and it is one of many creative mediums that I want to progress with further. I carved various sleeping positions into pieces of lino and cut out the negative spaces. I decided that I would do this at home instead of at college. This is because the ink colours I wanted for my prints had to be mixed in advance - I thought it would be easier  if I made them at home myself. The inks at college were also not water based which meant I could not put any excess ink down the sink and it is more tedious to clean up. Therefore, I found printing at home to be more suitable as I was able take my time when printing and clean up quickly. I also liked having my own inks because these would last me for a long time and I can use them whilst I am at university. Overall, I enjoyed working with lino, even though I found the outcomes to be unpredictable because we did not have a professional press. This is a downside to worki...

So far, I am pleased with my outcomes in relation to the artists I have researched. My piece featuring the sleeping girl with foliage around her was inspired by Mariana Ruiz Johnson and Helen Wells. I am pleased with the composition of the image and how the colours fit together, but I think my piece would look better without the black outlines - especially around the girl, as it looks too harsh against her pale skin tone. I am really happy with the result of my response to Ricardo Cavolo's work. I think I interpreted his style very accurately whilst displaying my project theme, making it more individualistic. After completing these two pieces, I realised that I preferred working with bold lines around large, simpler shapes than  finer lines around intricate shapes. For my next step, I need to think about the composition I would like my final pieces to have - whether to include full bodies within the canvas, or make them focus on portraiture. Additionally, I must develop/find...

Stefan Koidl is an Austrian freelance illustrator and a concept artist, who creates eerie illustrations in Photoshop. His works feature various creepy motives, ranging from urban legends to mythical creatures. Stefan has been drawing since he was a child, but started focusing on drawing professionally in 2016. When asked what inspires him to create these eerie drawings, the artist said: “Artists, films, games. I always wanted to make paintings like the “professionals” do. A huge inspiration is also the ability to paint stuff from your imagination, creating your “own worlds.” “I love Lord of the rings, Shutter Island, Stranger Things, and everything that has to do with fantasy or horror,” the artist told  Demilked . Stefan's Stefan most influential artists are Feng Zhu, Sabbas Apterus, John Park, Darek Zabrocki, Greg Rutkowski and Simon Stålenhag. (Demilked, 2019) Stefan also told Demilked that his works normally take between 6-10 hours to create. He is heavi...

As noted in my project proposal, I was planning on focusing my project around narrative illustration. I was going to look at artists which tell a story through storyboards and captions. After some thought, I believe this was too commercial and I want to create a piece that is more conceptual. I think the success from my previous project influenced this decision because I was hoping to create a book with a range of stories that my audience could enjoy viewing. However, I like drawing faces and I think it is important for me to enjoy this project as much as possible because it is the last of the course. I am hoping to continue with expressing narratives but in a more abstract manner. After discovering artists that are suited to the theme of nightmares and my primary observation drawings, I decided that I did not want to make my project about scary and disturbing imagery. I believe that some nightmares can actually represent a good change in your life and do not necessarily  have nega...