Exquisite Corpse- Final Outcome.

To create my final outcome I first went through a series of development stages to select which techniques and processes work best to produce my piece. I was inspired by both historical and contemporary artists, some of which were multi disciplinary. These artists were; Christina Mrozik, Caitlin Hackett, Michael Cheval, Arthur Rackham, Ozabu and Jeremy Hush. These artists are all unique in their style but all produce illustration based pieces, some of which uses the disciplines I wanted to use in my own piece and some inspired me to use similar imagery and styles I wanted to use. 

I ŵas asked to produce a multi disciplinary outcome, I wanted to incorporate my illustrative style and decided to combine drawing with painting. 

I developed my outcome from my own photographs and observational drawings, I first experimented with the different techniques to create my piece, once I happy I then started pencilling in the piece onto a piece of watercolour paper. This watercolour paper was taped into a wooden board to make it sturdy and to avoid creasing. The tape would also allow me to create a smooth and crisp boarder. I first photocopied one of my own drawings and made this larger, I then traced this image as well as other imagery onto an A2 piece of tracing paper.

I then back traced this onto my watercolour paper as well as free hand drawing onto the paper itself to fill the space as best as possible. 

Once I had finished drawing in the basic image I then began to add watercolour to the background with added salt to distort the paint, this gave a blotchy looking background. Once the watercolour had dried out I then brushed away the salt to reveal the blotched background. I then started to pencil in the birch trees in the background using a mechanical pencil and a blending stick. 

Once I had finished the background and pencilled trees I then started working on the inked body (horse section) I used different marks to manipulate the fur of the animal and concentrated marks to show the tone of the piece. The marks I created allowed me to give an illusion of the wounds I had created. I used small marks to create the inked piece so they would be very subtly when worked into with watercolour. I also started adding watercolour to the meadow using a watercolour wet in wet technique with added salt as well as using watercolour to paint the flowers in the foreground.

Like my crevices watercolour and salt work, once dry I brushed away the salt to reveal the effect. Now that the watercolour was dry I started finishing the ink work on the horses body and also started to distort and pencil in the subjects face and torso. These distortions werein the style if both artists Christina Mrozik and Caitlin hackett to give the piece the gruesome feel I was looking for. I also tried to mimic Ozabus pencil techniques to create a delicate looking piece and natural looking hair.

I also used fine pencil marks to manipulate the subjects hair. 

Once the pencil work was finished I moved onto adding colour to the horses body. Like my ink work I used small marks with a small paintbrush in a range of grey and brown tines to manipulate the fur without adding too much detail this was concentrated in areas to add tone giving the illusion of a more realistic and three dimensional figure. I left out the wounded areas so I could work into them last making them appear more realistic. 

Using a very fine paintbrush and watercolour paint I then started adding in the wounded areas and bees nest in the style of artists Jeremy Hush. I used a small paint brush to allow to create very detailed areas. 

I wanted to add further definition to the flowers in the foreground to bring them forward slightly and make them more vibrant. To do this I worked into them further using prismacolor coloured pencils. I used these to show the detail in the petals and add further colour. 

Finally I use the back into the piece and touched up any unfinished areas and used the fine tipped brush to fill in all the gaps left by the watercolour as well as adding further bees to the meadow, body and flowers. 

I slowly peeled away the tape yo reveal the finished piece and crisp boarder. 

Digital exquisite corpse.

I decided to create a digital exquisite corpse using photoshop, my own photographs and found imagery. To do this I first collected a series of imagery that I felt would be relevant to my chosen theme. But before I created my workshop outcome I created a piece exploring the techniques I was going to use in order to learn how to use the different tools on photoshop I hadn't used before, the imagery was provided by my lecturer and included found imagery.
After I had created a mock up digital exquisite corpse I started creating my own sample. To do this I first selected which of my own photographs to use in my workshop outcome and changed the image saturation so the image became black and white.

I used the magnetic magic wand tool on Photoshop to select the area I wanted to use in my digital collage. Once I had selected the appropriate areas I then inverted this selection to only select the areas I did not want, I then deleted this selection.
I repeated this with each image I wanted to use in my collage.. Once I had removed all of the unneeded areas and empty space I then copied all if the images onto a separate photoshop document with a watercolour background.
I arranged my imagery in a way that was relevant to my exquisite corpse theme and in some cases I changed the opacity and filters to create unusual textures.
My final image was then group together to merge the layers to create a flat image.
I decided to create two of these digital collages to experiment with the theme of exquisite corpse, my first collage was using an image I had found on the internet of a Chinese style bonnet, I placed this on top of the subjects head. I chose this image as I felt it would work best with my colour scheme due to the pastel shades of blue and pink within the piece.

I felt that the chosen imagery did not appeal to theme of exquisite corpse as well as I would have liked so I decided to remove the bonnet and add two curled horns on top of the head. This would allow me to create a hybrid anthropomorphic form in my collage. Combining animal and human components.

3D mask and anthropomorphic photography.

For my photography workshop outcome I decided to create a 3D wire and paper mask worked from my own observational drawings. I decided to make a rabbit mask.
To create my mask I first created a wire structure frame using thin aluminium wire and pliers to construct and bend the wire. I first created a basic face shame and built up the cheek structure of the rabbit to give a realistic impression of the rabbits face. I then create the rabbits ears using slightly thicker wire to make them more sturdy. I found this process very time consuming as the ears were difficult to secure in place to ensure they would not flop or move. The weight of the ears caused them to droop slightly so a wire support was needed to secure them to the face.

After I had finished constructing the wire rabbit mask I then used thin tissue tracing paper with a similar consistency to tissue paper to cover the mask. I decided to use off white paper as I felt it would give an eerie and transparent look to the mask. I used watered down pva glue to stitch the paper to the wire frame working up in layers to give an impression of the rabbits contours.
Once dry I then fastened thick yarn to the mask for a support allowing it to sit comfortably on the head. I then placed this on my models head and began to use the mask in my photography.
I used a flat lighting set up with a dark background in my photography. I then asked my model to do unusual poses that I felt would suit my theme. I also got her to do some rabbit style poses to add to the anthropomorphic look. I placed my models hair over the yarn I used to secure the mask to head to hide the yarn as best I could.

After I had finished taking my photographs I then edited the photos using photoshop to darken the background and lighten the subject and mask itself. I used curves and levels to lighten the highlights and darken the shadows. I also used the cloning tool to clone the hair over the remaining yarn that was showing to make the mask appear as though it was suspended on the face without support.
I created a series of these photographs in different poses to explore the way the might effected the showdowns of the mask.