I've tried developing my method of dealing with hippies. I felt like while making work on Photoshop helped get the bold and striking colours that I felt were appropriate but made the image too rigid and confined for free, loving, spirit-y hippies. I felt there needed to be a more loose style. I started experimenting by using watery gouache loosely to define the figure then going round the detail with ink that expanded in the watery gouache. I thought this method worked well. It was probably the best of the techniques I tried; it has an air of spirituality about it. This may be more down to the composition though. Next I tried a style more similar to the one I used for my work on punks and new romantics. This involved loose ink work that I thought might suit the hippie aesthetic I was going for. It may have been too dark and not as detailed as I would have liked however. then splattered some ink loosely over it to try and give it the colourful vibrant aesthetic I want. I thought this looked okay but was maybe too colourful; almost in a childlike sort of way. To try and get a way where I could use a similar method but hopefully get the detail that I wanted I tried working on a bigger scale. I still found it hard to get detail in ink while keeping the colourfulness I wanted and avoid making it too dark with tone and therefore more like my other work. After colouring the original drawing I thought putting a colourful background similar to the type I tried before but first I soaked the paper in water so the ink spread and merged more. Overall I think this background was more effective than the first method as it's bit more subtle but still powerful and atmospheric. It creates a kind of hazy effect that I think suits hippie culture. I like how the background merged into the figure itself adding a kind of detail that I failed to put in before and and giving the skin a cool abstract colouring that I liked.
I thought about making the colourful paper that I posted about earlier from the these pieces. Unlike other subcultures where I've used this paper however, I thought this would make the image too rough and harsh for the aesthetic I was going for.

 Here's some of the paper I tweaked. I tried working directly on it, although I stuck it down on normal paper first to make it more solid and steady when I worked on it. I didn't really like how working directly on the paper came out. This is partly because my drawings on it weren't actually very good but also that what I could do on the paper was restricted by all the creases and loose bits on the paper. This has me thinking that a better bet might be to take a piece I've already done and then make the paper more like what you see here. this way you get the full effect of the paper but with all the finesse that can be achieved on normal paper.

Originally when I started this project I did drawings just to get used to the aesthetic of the subcultures. While doing this I started to develop slightly different styles or use different materials to help represent each group and reflect their own style. For example I tried a detailed, intricate pen drawing for Teddy Boys, a rougher pen style for mods, a pen and ink mixture for skin heads etc. I try developing the technique until I think it is representative of the subculture. I don't have much reason to why I choose a particular style or material for a particular culture other than it seems to fit that group well. For instance I may do a drawing of a punk and then put a layer of ink over it just because I think that makes the aesthetic of the drawing more punk.

Here's quite a good website for modern day subcultures: Yourscenesucks. The website isn't a serious thing  but largely mocks the idea of subcultures or "scenes" saying that they have lost any deaper meaning or philosophy behind them (non conformity, rebellion, self expression etc.) and are now just corporate supported commercial fashions that everyone follows in one way or another and get rid of any sense of personal identity. This is quite a good thought to keep in mind when looking at this subject: all the looks and youth cultures quickly become meaningless, commercialised, commodities.
 The website also has a list and description of a range of modern youth cultures. Each is mockingly described and comes with a drawing which is useful, it actually goes into quite a bit of detail, in a satirical sort of way. I'm going to have a more in depth look at the site as I think it may talk about earlier influences to these cultures, such as punk and glam. This would add some wider perspective to my work as it would help show what became of the cultures I am working with.

I may do something similar to this.The artist is page creator Rob Dobi.

(Source:http://www.dobi.nu/yourscenesucks/)

As always with me Zak Smith was a big influence in this project. He related to this project a bit more than usual however as a large amount of his work focuses punk and hardcore culture, based either in New York or California. His work has a DIY aesthetic which is associated with the culture he is working with.This is down to the rather rough way he uses ink to show texture and tone and how he uses slightly uncontrolled looking patches of acrylic here and there in his paintings: the hair etc.
The largely black and white nature as well as the aesthetic of the models themselves also adds to the punk, hardcore, subculture feel. All this largely influenced my work, not only for drawing and painting punks but for my work surrounding other subcultures where I took the same ideas and tweaked them to make the aesthetic and practice more suitable for whichever youth culture I happened to be dealing with at the time.
 (Source: http://therumpus.net/2009/01/the-rumpus-interview-with-zak-smith/)

Here are two images of a hippie that I created from playing about on Illustrator and Photoshop. I tried using the digital tools to create something in a style that I would or could never do so in my usual method. I decided to play about with the image of the hippie as I'm mainly exploring using colour on the adobe platforms and felt the hippie youth culture really leant itself to a bit of colour in art based on it that I couldn't provide through my normal work.

While focusing on the punk/new romantic segment of my project I thought about the paper I was using. Ian showed me some paper that another student was using. She had screwed normal paper up and soaked it in water and black ink and let it dry to make this grayish rough scrappy looking paper full of tears. There was something very punk about the paper and this made me think that it would make a good material to use for my images I'm making. 

I made a range of the black paper, varying the amount of ink, water and tearing I did to make different pieces. I also used a similar technique but used different coloured ink  instead of black to make paper I may use for my Glam/ New Romantic based subculture images. 

So far I haven't actually used any of the paper I've made in the way I'd use normal paper instead I've experimented with sticking the paper over the top of drawings I've done instead or working it into the background.

In this piece I've stuck the paper on as the girl's top. 

 

I've been playing around with Photoshop for this project. I know next to nothing about Photoshop and have only been doing basic simple things. I've been meaning to explore using Photoshop and Illustrator for a while but have never got to it, mainly because I'd have no idea what to do or even how to begin. This time though I thought I'd give it a try never the less and just play around to see if I could make anything that looks good. So far I'm mainly just using it to try and figure out a way to colour my work as I've still not found a way of working with coulour that I really like or think works with my preferred drawing styles.
I'm probably going about it the complete wrong way but I'm going to continue pursuing Photoshop and eventually Illustrator as well because I think it will open up a lot of new opportunities and directions for my practice.

Jo Brocklehurst was an artist I looked at for this project. Her work focuses on the punk/new romantic scene as well. Her work is very Egon Schiele like in the way the figures are proportioned and composed. I think her work really gets across a good idea of youth culture. Other than the purely aesthetic components such as the hair and clothes I think this is mainly down to the composition of the figures. They all look effortless and casual in there stances but in a way that makes them seem posed at the same time, as if quite a bit of though has gone into how look as relaxed or not interested as possible. Also in these drawings the figures are generally no making eye contact looking down or turned away. There is however another sort of composition to her work (though not much of it), some of her figures go for almost the opposite. They embrace a blatant pose and/or make direct confrontational eye contact with the viewer. The ironic thing about his is those obviously posing probably put a lot less effort and time into there pose than those seeming disinterested. This go me thinking about how important pose can be to representing a subculture and how slight changes to a pose can change the meaning the figure conveys entirely.

 (http://www.theblitzkids.com/site_archive/erics_club/brocklehurst4.JPG)  (http://s208.photobucket.com/user/killyourpetpuppy/media/Jo%20Brocklehurst%20drawings/TonydrawnbyGeorge.jpg.html?sort=3&o=1)

For my work on UK youth cultures I wanted to draw from real photos of people from within the cultures to make sure I got an accurate idea of how the people would have actually looked and that I didn't fall victim to false stereotypes. It was quite tricky to find a good amount of photos for each subculture, especially the earlier ones (anything pre-glam really). This may be down to photography not being as big or good back then or maybe the members of those earlier cultures were less concerned with getting photos of themselves out there. I found quite a few good photos on pinterest but in general I was able to find a lot more from the Glam to Goth segment of my timeline.

This is mainly because while reading an issue of Varoom magazine I came upon an article on another magazine called The Face, a music, fashion and culture magazine from the 80s which in it's early days focused on the sorts of youth culture that I am looking at. In the article it mentioned several photographers who worked for The Face such as: Derek Ridgers, Pennie Smith, Kevin Cummings and Shelia Rock. The work of these photographers, and others from The Face formed the basis of my reference material for this project and is why most of my work is based in the subcultures of the 80s.

Derek Ridgers book London Youth: 1978- 1987 was especially useful for this project covering a range of youth culture and including dates for all photos so I know exactly where they fit in with my time line.

My work became a lot more culture based and less class based as I started to create more work. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but the work doesn't have the original meaning I wanted when I started this project and is now more of a map of 70s-80s youth culture and taste which I actually prefer as it has allowed me to make more varying and impact-ful work.

There were several things my research into subcultures revealed to me. One was how much cafes reoccurred, especially at the beginning. I also noticed that most youth culture rooted in the middle class tried to reject perceived notions of the middle class, Beats, Hippies, Punks, Hipsters etc, and tried to emulate a more working class or bohemian lifestyle instead. Working class cultures however tended to still be very working class, Rocker, Skinhead, Punk etc. The only real exception to this is mods who aimed for middle class sophistication.
Most of the subcultures, especially the middle class routed ones, seem to have some element of taking down gender divisions, getting more androgynous.
I have more to say on this but I've left my notes at home.