ruth franklin

Foundation student in Art and Design 

[ruthtfranklin]

MAN-MADE LETTERFORMS

[ruthtfranklin]

NATURAL LETTERFORMS

[ruthtfranklin]

This painting study is A1 sized. I used a household brush to paint the background, using brisk, untidy brush strokes. I wanted the main focus to be the foreground so decided the background should be more abstract. For the foreground, I took a large piece of chicken wire and covered it in acrylic paint (not paying much attention to choosing particular colours). I then pressed the chicken wire onto the paper, while the background paint was still wet. This technique was partly successful as the pattern of the chicken wire did transfer onto the painting in some places. However, the result was not as good as I had hoped, as I had expected a bolder, less messy pattern to be created.

[ruthtfranklin]

After taking a number of photographs of the chicken wire in different lightings and positions, I used a photoshop app to combine the images, attempting to create a complete image. I think the combination of photos that I took work well together and have a great likeness to the original image. When I printed the finished piece, it came out much darker and undistinguished than I was expecting, which I was unhappy about. The app I was using crashed and did not save my progress, so I was unable to make changes to the image I had produced. However, I think it was partially successful overall.

[ruthtfranklin]

For my photographic studies of the chicken wire image, I focused on the shadows cast onto the background and how I could exaggerate that.

[ruthtfranklin]

As I did not finish my first interpretation, I wanted to produce something that captured the whole image. I used several watercolours for the background and a black fine liner pen for the foreground. I like that this technique looks very detailed and dainty, when in reality it did not require a great deal of care to produce; the lines are random and guessed in places.

[ruthtfranklin]

The first idea I had for recreating this image was to embroider it, because of the thin, two-dimensional lines. I like the effect of this, as it brings the image much closer into the foreground and gives it an illustrative quality. However, this technique took a very long time, so I decided not to finish it, as I feel like I will not learn more from completing it.

[ruthtfranklin]

I again tried to recreate the original with this photograph, adding an effect to the photo to make the hairs on the plant whiter and more contrasting.

[ruthtfranklin]

This particular section of the image reminded me of book pages wedged together, so for my photographic studies, I decided to try to capture this image using books.

As there is light falling onto one of the sides of the split open straw, creating a lighter colour, I chose two books with different coloured pages.

[ruthtfranklin]

As the holiday homework suggested to do so, I tried some photography interpretations of the bones image. I do not consider myself very good at photography and do not do it very often, so wanted to try to produce my own interpretations of a few of the provided images. I attempted to capture images of these bones with a lot of light contrast to emulate the deep contrasting detail on the original image. I took the photos very close up to remove them from the context of their surroundings.

[ruthtfranklin]

I wanted to try another study of the bones reference image. I noticed that the original source image shows areas where the ink has been oversaturated and therefore created a subtle colour spectrum throughout the whole image. Because of this, I used coloured pencils to show areas of colour over the black and white of the bones. I decided to work on to black paper because I believe this allows the overlayed colours to stand out more obviously, without being garish. I did not finish this study as I decided the technique I was working with was successful and therefore I didn’t need to spend more time on it. 

[ruthtfranklin]

In these next experiments I removed the top layer of the painting, just leaving the layers making up the different colours of clouds in the painting. I again experimented with orientation of the three different layers and focus of the lens on the projector. To me, these projections are a lot more abstract in terms of relation to the sky, but instead remind me of the shadows created when sunlight shines through leaves/trees.

[ruthtfranklin]

A few experiments with projection of my acetate paintings. I simply playrd around with the focus of the lens and orientation of the paintings to create slightly differing effects. I prefer the more blurred/abstract projections to the clearer ones - to me they appear more like a sunset than the painting itself. The refracted light caused by the projector reminds me of what sometimes happens when you point a camera directly at the sun - the light is spread into colours. I like this relation to natural to natural light even though all these projections are createe unnaturally.

[ruthtfranklin]

I decided to have another go at my layering experiment, but this time using white emulsion as a replacement for white poster paint. This dried properly so I was able to continue with the next layers. I identified each individual colour Hanson used to layer the clouds over the sky and painted a basic version of each colour on a different piece of acetate. I want to use these quick paintings to see how they look projected as well. 

[ruthtfranklin]

Some photos I took of the sky, coincidentally in a similar colour range to the photos I took previously in the projection room. 

[ruthtfranklin]

I wanted to try a final interpretation of Erin Hanson’s ‘Gaze of Dawn’ painting.

I began by painting a quick interpretation of the sky background using basic colours in poster paint. As I had no white poster paint to work with, I tried using a white water based printing ink. However, for some reason the ink would not dry on the acetate, and was acting more like an oil based material than a water based one. Because of this, I rubbed away all of the white, leaving just the dried poster paint behind. 

[ruthtfranklin]

Following my experimentation with layering; 

Rather than creating different layers by use of different mediums, I wanted to instead use multiple of the same mediums to create each layer. This quick experiment is still based lightly on the ‘Radiant Sky’ painting by Erin Hanson, in terms of the composition. 

I like the idea of this technique but not the effect of this particular experiment - I think it looks too cartoon, which is not an aspect I want to include in my work at all.