Self Directed Statement

For my self directed project I wanted to look at light and it's effects on peoples mood and feelings, specifically artificial light such as neon. I started to look at light in an environmental sense, and how it can mix colours and forms shapes in an open room - but I soon decided I wanted more to focus on it's effects on people. I looked at scenes from films which rely heavily on using coloured lighting to convey a specific feeling. I wanted to look into this and did some research on colour theories. I decided to pick three strong, colours (Red,Blue,Yellow - traditional primary colours) and use them as lighting for a photograph each respectively. Initially I used theatre light gel on a lightbox as lightsource, but I soon found it wasn't powerful enough. Instead I used a lamp, positioned differently while I took photographs. I then manipulated them in Photoshop. Using these photos as a basis, I painted the images on canvases. I intend to display the 3 images together, each piece is titled after it's respective colour - it's up to the viewer to make up their mind how that specific colour makes them feel, or the impression it conveys.

Drawing Statement

For my drawing project I wanted to focus on people, specifically the face. Portraits are something I've never really done and from a purely fundamental level, is something I'd like to improve on. I didn't want to just draw faces and call it a day without doing something differently. I looked at a lot of portrait artists and illustrators and was influenced by their use of strong line in artists such as Oliver Kugler and Jesper Waldersten. When working I started the think that the portraits, which were all drawn from photographs I took, showed very subtle characteristics of the people they portray just with certain nuances. From this I wanted to go a little deeper and literally show who they are underneath and develop a skull and muscle structure for each portrait as a sort of medical examination. I decided to leave the hair on each portrait as a stylistic touch, it looks far more visually interesting that way I feel.