Project Update 6:

Sixth Project Update: -Being at home a lot has definitely impacted my creativity. Having a lot of free time has allowed me to work on other things outside of University, such as realism drawings that I haven't done in a long time. I have felt more encouraged to things for my needs over my Uni needs which I should have been more careful about. I will often at times find myself doing things I want to do then have a wave of doing things for University. What I have enjoyed about working from home is there are no limits at all. I can often have a wave of creativity at 2 in the morning and not have to worry about getting up to attend Uni. There definitely have been positives and negatives to this experience. Something I have to understand though is this is a new experience for everyone, we are in uncertain times and I just have to be patient over it instead of thinking what else could I be doing.

As I have been working with different often cheap or low cost materials, I wanted to try something new. I have many plain, black, over sized t-shirts that I don't really wear. I don't have fabric paint, so I painted a portrait with acrylic paint. As I have talked about Natalie Gale and being sustainable, that is something I wanted to try with this. It was interesting for me because I didn't know what would be best for it. I made the decisive decision to paint the whole shape white first, as I know some of the paint wouldn't show up the best on the black t-shirt. It also gave me a base to work with, meaning it was flatter and less creased. The problem with working on this was I had made mistakes, which I corrected with black paint, and it gave it a messy, crusty edge to it. I was actually really happy with the way it turned out, I thought my designs would look good on a t-shirt for a long time and I am happy that I went for it. In the extreme close up, I'm hoping the edges can be seen with the clean up of black paint.

I loved painting on wood, and a specific piece from my ART281 module has always been my favourite. The picture of the eyes and the text in the background is something that I have loved. The wood was a beautiful quality and the paintings turned out really nice. I had found some cheap wooden boards in Poundland, and decided to buy a few of those to recreate this in a series. The wood boards are smaller then A5 and have been painted with watercolour and acrylic, then lined in fine liner. As I have always said, my eyelids have been such a massive deal for me, until I met Alex. I thought my eyelids were too hooded and ugly but he made me feel like they are beautiful - because they are. I wanted to paint a variation of eyelids to show all eyes are beautiful and I wanted to make this something that was known. I think these pieces look really good within a set, my only issue with them is I couldn't really find the right size for them so I don't know how much I love them in the sense of lack of detail.

What was successful for me has been material exploration. I love trying to work on new thing and when the result turns out just as positive as this one has it makes me feel really encouraged to keep going with my work. I think had I have changed a few things then all of the work I have made for this update would have been my best and really successful.

My weaknesses have definitely been the lack of detail on my wood boards. Something about them doesn't feel quite right, and I think it's the scale. The smallest blue one is my favourite because I think it uses the space well, but too much of the wooden board was left just to be clouded with a wash of colour.