Pavement Artist's

Pavement drawings are another art form to fascinate me. When working on the topic of deception, these amazing pieces fall very well into it. They work with perspective to trick the viewers eye into believing that the images are 3D and merging into the ground. Deception and perception are both present in my current work so I will be using some of the techniques I can find within some of these pavement

Illusion and Deception

This project is currently ongoing. I am focusing my attention towards a different route which has spun off from the political side of my work. The focus is on deception. Deception is one of the strongest elements of politics to interest me. People’s perceptions at altered as a means of control. Methods are used in providing this deception and these are what I am interested in finding out about.

Over many years artists have used deception to create a certain perspective amongst its viewer. If I am to create awareness with the aim of creating change then deceptive art work seems to be a promising method.

I began experimenting with illusion; this deceives the eye and creates a different experience. I have always been fascinated by illusion and surrealism and so it is important that I include at least some of it in my work.

Again I have begun painting, but this is a method I feel happy beginning a project with as painting leads to further developments. With a digital image it is important to know what the final outcome is going to be before you start whereas whilst painting, new ideas are sprouting and they can keep developing in whichever way. That is what I love about painting.

I began painting a chequered symmetrical pattern. I had used this technique in the first year of university but had never taken it further even though I really enjoyed doing it. The pattern is coming out of a skulls mouth. The skull was rushed and not done well as I was eager to get started with the pattern. It was drawn in light pencil as I didn't know if I would want to change it or have nothing there at all. The initial idea of the skull was due to the skull sign generally speaking being a negative image, usually meaning danger/death. I

felt that this worked with the deception title.

The image needs to be taken a lot further. It will never be used as a final piece due to the lack of exact symmetry and correct measurements to ensure that the cheques are all the same size. I would also need to work harder at making the swirls look more 3D. This will be something that I need to learn how to do it. The other fault is simply that I am not very good as a painter and so I will be creating similar images using computer software’s. They do not have the sam

e criticisms attached.

I extended the image, and had a lot of fun with it, but this was just a means of practicing my skills and exploring with what I can do. I drew the patterns in different ways with different contorts, twists, turns and colours. Here is what I have done:

My practice in these patterns also went further and I have been creating more and more images, then I went onto painting onto a Mannequin Torso. I hand drew the pattern to flow with the contorts of the body, the squares stretched and grew bigger and smaller. This took a very long time, in fact the small painting there that you can see above took me 3 days, this is really showing to be a problem and is taking up too much of my time. Here are a few images of what I have been doing:

"Welcome?" project

The 'Welcome?' project was in response to my abroad holiday in the Canary Islands, Fuerteventura. Whilst in Fuerteventura I became very aware of how subjected it had become to the first world companies greed for money, these companies being holiday package businesses such as Thomas cook and Thomson's holidays as well as high street shops such as H&M and Zara.

The traditions of this island had been taken away from it and its people. Whilst looking for any traces of the islands origins I found none but those that met the wants of its tourists, for example, sangria, a traditional alcoholic drink, very popular to those commonly found British and German tourists. It was disheartening to find the island riddled with American and British poison. Those being Mc Donald's, Burger King, Dunkin' Donut's, etc and commonly found stores that in Britain are found on almost every next street. Once taking these factors into account I started recognising into further depths the corruption this island faced. The individuals from that island are being faced with the motive of struggling as a money insufficient island or to take on welcoming tourists onto their land where they can sell property, earn money through the tourist’s uptake I.e. accommodation, food, drink, entertainment. Generally the cash flow would benefit hugely but this is at the cost of losing their precious and private land. The people will be forced to learn English and German so as to communicate with the tourists and remain or become employed. Agricultural work and employment will suffer as land will be bought up so as to build new tourist facilities such as hotels and villas. Water mains will need to be built, which will first come at the cost of the locals, and their own water supplies may be minimised. They will be forced to decorate the land to meet the needs of the tourists and by doing this, hundreds of years of memories and important personal factors of the place may be ruined as a result.

I wanted to incorporate this into my project as this was a current issue I was facing and I felt strongly about some of the opinions that I had formed. The project involved a large 3D cardboard, collage image containing a mix of photographic Images and painted images. The image as a whole was made to look like a foreign holiday destination with clear bright colours and a sunny background and within it included images portraying a Spanish land with other images showing the corruption that the first world countries had upon it, in particular, Britain and America.

I am not satisfied with the final outcome. The image looks naive, especially with the painting. It was not very well put together and it needed a lot more time spent on it and a lot more of an attention to detail. As it was my first attempt at a cardboard collage I am putting this to reason. I have seen professional cardboard collages and they have looked really effective. I know that with more practice I can achieve this. Originally the image was supposed to be a digital 2D photo montage but with the limited time I had to complete the project I didn't have enough time to learn how to create it properly and I didn’t have a very good understanding the resolution settings. My talent lies in digital art so I need to progress with this.

I have continued to use painting as a means of creating a project and I have come to learn that this method does not work well for me. The painting and the disorganised, unplanned arrangement of the collage images meant for a disappointing result. The lack of quality in the image took the strength away from the view I had and the statement that I was making. I am happy to have found a few of the steps I need to climb towards progression. The images that I used would have also benefitted the piece if they were my own images; many of them were taken from the Internet. All around the piece needed much more planning as I don't feel it did much justice in representing what I felt and as my objective as an artist is to create awareness, I don't believe this picture did it well.

When I asked people what they thought of the piece, they would asked me what it’s about. If I am to create awareness then my work will need to be clearer and more obvious, this piece was too scattered and it didn’t provide any level of ease when looking around the image. The eye would not dance around the image because of the bold, abrupt colours layered out in an irritated manor.