Studio Practice 4: Adaptation, Interpretation & Appropriation and External Projects

This new module is split into two parts. The first is like the other studio projects I've done, exploring the title Adaptation, Interpretation and Appropriation. From an illustrative point of view the best way to approach this project would be to take some sort of text and make your work based around that. The brief for this project is purposefully very vague to make us think about what we really want to do. This project reminded me a lot of the Deconstruction of the Grand Master project we did in year 1. That was one of my favourite projects so doing a similar thing for this project seems like a good idea. The text I've decided to appropriate, adapt and interpret is A Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare. I chose this text because I actually had the idea of reinterpreting it a few months ago, I did a few sketches but never got round to producing anything substantial, now however I can.

The other part of this project is External Projects. This is essentially developing your project outside of uni with: exhibitions, competitions and commissions etc. Me and some friends have been looking around Huddersfield for potential venues for exhibitions. We have three places where we may be able to exhibit at the moment and are n the process of organising that. There are also a number of exhibitions to enter, many at http://www.dandad.org/. I also already have a freelance job at http://www.stamp-press.com/ which I could make work for in this project.

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.