This particular blog post is probably going to be a long one. I've been working over it for the last couple of weeks rather than just posting little blogs that don't have to much to them. This project so far has been a blessing and a major ball ache. You know when you know the sort of thing you want to do but you don't know how to do it? I've had that. And now I've got too many ideas! So, let's hope tomorrow's tutorial will help!
For the first part of the project, I really enjoyed doing the skills audit. It had been a great task to use to reflect on me as an illustrator - what I like to do, what I'm best at and what I can bring to the table. From this I was able to reflect on roughly the sort of thing I'd like to do for one of my final major projects. I like tattoos. I like making people think. I like writing and typography. I like drawing female figures. From looking at this and also reflecting on my dissertation, which was based on tattoos in modern society, I had a brainstorming session with the two tutors and Holly and Laura.
I found myself to be in a bit of a pickle. I really wanted to look at reasoning behind tattoos - society's views. I wanted to mix things up a bit. The idea came around of illustrating why people have their tattoos. Although I do believe this is interesting, I don't think it's right for me. As much as I can personally appreciate why someone would get their own tattoo, I don't really care enough to do a project based on it. I think for me, to make a self initiated project work it needs to be something that I really care about - I don't want to do a half assed effort on a project I've set myself to do.
With this in mind I did some brainstorming from this idea of tattoos and identity/meaning to see if anything came up that did stand out to me. I filled pages in my FMP diary with ideas and mind maps relating to ideas, techniques, and generally anything that came to mind in relation to a project based on tattoos. Main ideas stemmed from Women and Tattoos, Tattoos and their owners, Tattoos and the old folk, Tattoos wearing the people, Common tattoos and the common characters who have them, The joy of words and finally From skin to wall: tattoo art.
These ideas all reflected and responded to the subject of tattoos in Britain today. They varied from the sarcastic (i/e looking at the stereotypes in personality of people who have certain tattoos) to the thought provoking (looking at quotes and poems and illustrating them in relation to tattoos). I think that if I had an endless amount of time I would do all of the ideas - but I don't and I don't want to be doing mini projects either. I want my work for this project to be well research, well informed and developed and ultimately I want create and clever illustrations that interact and speak to everyone.
From these ideas, I've basically sat and had a think about which out of these ideas really appeals to me the most. The one that I really really want to do. The one that makes me go "Fuck yeah, go Kitty!".
I managed to narrow it down to the idea of women and tattoos, Skin to wall - typical tattoo art as "real" art and the joy of words in relation to tattoos.
With these I was at a stand still, stuck on which one to tackle first. Then I realised: The style I do it in could be the skin to wall... The subject matter could be women and tattoos and the joy of words could be what I was illustrating/what the illustration relates to.
Boom. Sorted! Writing this now I'm in the process of developing this project, I cannot express how excited I am for this project. I'm so excited to be doing something that is so.... me. And I'm looking forward to seeing how it develops. I've yet to write it out formally for the project - I'm waiting for my tutorial tomorrow so I can refine and make sure I'm on the right tracks before I get carried away!
In regards to style ideas and so on I really want to focus on texture and develop ideas from there. In my final project for second year, I really enjoyed the processes and endless pages of experiments I did creating different textures of skin and ink and character. I really want to re explore some of those techniques and work on them more. Re-develop them and refine them for Final Year Kitty.
As I've only just really got a confident grasp of what I wanted to I started texture ideas and experiments - using tracing paper, different pens and water to see how they blended, crinkled and what texture this created.
For these particualr quick experiment I used a pro marker pen, watercolours, Bero fine liner pens and a Sharpie Pen. I really like how the fine liner pen completely blurred out - it gave a really phantom grey/green shade over the yellow tracing paper which made it give a slight feel of decay and age. The watercolours worked really well as they collected in certain areas giving different strengths of colour intensity. The sharpie pen didn't really budge so I know if I needed to use lines and then water over the top it wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon! The Pro marker pen came out lighter on the tracing paper than expected and didn't bleed as much as I was expecting. It gave quite a calm, ghostly tone to the tracing paper which I thought worked really well and was a delicate touch on the thin paper.
One of the ideas that I initially thought about with the project starting up was looking at taking the tattoos physically off of the skin and bringing it "to life".
I looked maybe leaving a plain silhouette on the figure where the design was and then have the full colour design brought out into the illustration - as both background and focal point - working around and with the figure of the person illustrated. (Weather it's more of a stylized person or realistic person remains to be decided, I think it will depend on what type of contrast I want between the tattoo design and the wearer.)
I made a couple of quick concept illustrations so I can confidently show my tutors what I'm trying to say as I've found I tend to struggle to say what I mean but I can draw it a lot better!
I think these concept illustrations - even though slightly tattier than I'd like, demonstrate this concept of taking the tattoos off of the skin of the wearer confidently to help me explain what I want to get across.
While looking at this ideas of taking the tattoo off of the skin I wanted to look at ways of defining where the tattoos was. I wanted to look at ideas that didn't just leave the skin area blank. I wanted to keep colour and text in my illustrations and I thought this could provide an opportunity to experiment with concepts for the skin.
From this, I had a really simple idea. Rembering the paper craft we'd done in previous years, I simply made an outline of a tattoo design, in this case, a rose, and cut out around all of the outter edge on tracing paper. This left a white shiloutette and the exact design that would fit there free to be moved about.
For me I think this could be a key starting point looking at taking the tattoo off the skin. Using layers of paper and texture - probably with some experimental "print making" experiments I could find a way of de-flattening the design off of the skin even though the illustration would more than likely be completly flat.
I think this simple idea of cutting out and replacing could be a really good starting point to develop.
I started to further develop this idea by again sketching a female figure with some tattoo designs. From this I cut out the designs and then photocopied onto paper. This left the white shilouette of the tattoos that were there on a flat piece of paper (for this I just wanted to make it easy for me and this seemed the best way to do it.)
From the shapes of the tattoos and what they were, I re drew them around the character in full colour, while i left the tattooed areas on the skin plain and the skin colour of the figure in grey shades - shaded and dreary. This created a contrast of the skin without tattoos and the background with the tattoos. I think with these experiments I could really be onto an interesting and thought provoking project - even with just the contrasts of colours and textures in the piece.
From looking at these cut out ideas of colours and texture I had another idea I wanted to explore. It sounds mad - but bear with me, madness breeds genius - or something like that... Anyway, I had this idea. I thought that to create added texture - and have a play with the concept of tattoos and needles - drawing the tattoo design with a sewing machine. Now, I did experiment with this, and it's bloody hard - so I may just use some fabric and hand stitching instead, BUT, I do think this could work. I think it could be a clever play on the tattoo and needle relationship but also be another texture and, especially in a patchwork sense - mixing it around with my make shift "print making" with tracing paper, water and god knows what else - could become a really interesting collection for this project. I had a practice and like I said - really bloody hard - but, I do think this could work. Even stitching in the writing could work -
I know what I want - I'm again struggling to write it - I'm going to try and create the vlog soon to help bring my ideas together and make more sense. But, I think I'll leave it there for now, if you're reading this you must be bored senseless! Wish me luck for my tutorial tomorrow and I'll have some more posts up by the end of the weekend, hopefully for FM Project, FM Presentation maybe a vlog or two and my personal work too!
I have done this because although I am keen to include the main aspects of traditional tattoos within my work, I'm am looking to keep it new, creating pieces that show influences and appreciations from all tattoo time scales, old, modern, traditional and new. My scope of research will keep growings as my project grows. Examples of pieces of research can be found below.
