-FMP Final Evaluation-
The theme assigned for the final major project is “Flipside”. I was given a list of words with their opposite meanings as a starting point to generate and develop ideas for the project.
Out of the list of words I was given I had to pick 3 flipside themes and create a detailed mind map for each one, the following themes I chose were:
-Utopia & Dystopia
-Strength & Weakness
-Trapped & Free
The first two weeks of the fmp was us being introduced to the fmp themes, generating ideas and creating mood boards on the themes we chose.
For the third week, I have now chosen out of the three flipside themes what one I wanted to focus on (Trapped & Free). Also now starting practical work the first task we had to do was create a collage based on the theme that I chose then trace it. After we did this we had to create a maximum of 6 mandalas but I only ended up doing 5.
It wasn't until the fourth week when I was doing digital symmetry postcards that I noticed that in the last postcard I did the butterfly wings formed a shape the reminded me of a human ribcage. This is when I started to think about changing my flipside theme from trapped/free to Life/death.
When researching about life & death two major things inspired me most, the first one being the artist Lauren Marx its something about her work that really fascinated me. I've always loved taxidermy and dead animals have always piqued my interest so seeing her work really caught my eye since then she has been the main inspiration throughout the rest of the fmp.
The second inspiration for me has been old-styled book illustrations.
For my fmp, I've decided that I wanted to focus on the circle of life that way I could somehow include both life and death in my final outcome.
Definition of the circle of life:
"Nature's way of taking and giving back life to earth. It symbolizes the universe being sacred and divine. It represents the infinite nature of energy, meaning if something dies it gives new life to another."
Once I read this it gave me the idea for what I wanted my final outcome to be. My aim is to illustrate the circle of life through nature. I plan to do this by drawing one bird dead and decomposing while another bird eats the dead birds remains. But first, I had to choose what birds I wanted to do, I had a go at drawing a few birds but they weren't what I was quite looking for.
Until I thought of drawing 2 of my favourite bird's magpies and crows. the reason I chose magpies and crows is that I am fascinated by the magpie's metallic colours in their feathers while I have always been intrigued by crows. Another person who inspired me while I was doing artist research was innocent. What I love about his work is his style and how much detail he puts in, so I just had to give it a go but instead, I did two the first illustration, I based it on a crow sitting on a metal fence but instead of it normal face, I change it to a skull. For my second one, I decided to do a magpie with its rib cage showing and guts falling out.
Finally starting My final outcome I drew a draft of a decomposing magpie and a crow eating it. I originally had 2 choices one being a Lino outcome and the other being a hand-based. I gave the lino outcome a go first to see if it would give me the old style-book illustration I wanted but to no .avail, it didn’t turn out how I wanted it to.
For my final outcome, I made a few changes compared to the draft I did and out of the two I prefer this one more. for the magpie wings, I tried out different ways in which method would give me the metallic effect I wanted. As much as I liked the eyeshadow it wasn’t giving me the effect I wanted. So I went with using a metallic watercolour pallet and mixed the silver with the colours I wanted.
In the end, I’m really happy with how the outcome turned out. If there was one thing I could change it would be that I would have liked to add more around the birds as the background looks too plain but besides that I love it.
Since I had a little time left I decided I wanted to see how my final outcome would look like in a book. Using one of my books I turned to an empty page and headed outside. once I got the photo's I wanted I then headed back inside to do some research on what quotes I wanted in the book. I ended up finding 2 quotes made from the same person(Angela Abraham). since I now had all the stuff I needed I then opened up picsart and started editing.
I'm really happy with how my outcome turned out and I also really enjoyed this project.