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beatroot

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Our Body of Work Journey
« on: January 25, 2018, 09:01:17 pm »
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Our Body of Work Journey:
By beatroot and dancing phalanges

(HSC 2017 Graduates and Band 6 Visual Arts Students)

Our Body of Work Journey is a recap of beatroot and dancing phalanges’ body of work journey during our HSC in 2017. In this recap, you will find how we chose our concept, our ups and downs, the changes in our body of works, how we handled our time and pictures of our progress. What we want people to gain from this recap is reassurance. It’s okay if you’re constantly changing your concept or feel that your medium is not good enough. The journey will not be a smooth ride and you will encounter so many surprises along the way. The body of work is stressful but is essentially rewarding in the end. Good luck to all Visual Arts students and please enjoy our recap!

beatroot
Nawawalang Wika (Lost Language)
Painting

The birth of my concept:

In my last term of Year 11, our practical assessment task asked us to make an artwork based on the term ‘displacement’. The term can be applied to physical, mental, environmental etc. contexts. However, I decided to go with cultural displacement. I remembered a conversation with my grandmother one time. She would always speak to me in English, even though she grew up in the Philippines and I was fluent in Tagalog. That made me wonder, how many second generation Filipinos can speak Tagalog in today’s day and age? Thus, the birth of my concept: the loss of language in Western society. When I finished this assessment task in Year 11, I never would have thought I would do this concept again in Year 12. (Picture: My Year 11 Assessment task)

The proposal:

At first I had doubts about doing the loss of language for my BOW concept. I’m just like “I’ve done it already. What more do you want from me?”. I felt like I only chose this option because it was a safe option and I got a decent mark for it last time. I changed my ideas twice but my teacher kept saying no. She told me to go back to my initial concept because she thought it had potential.

The BOW proposal was an opportunity for us to experiment for one last time, present our concept and discuss our artist/s of influence. My Year 11 artist of influence (Imants Tillers) became my artist of influence throughout my BOW journey because he used text as a part of his practice. We were required to do a prototype work to show our teachers what we wanted our work to look like. (Picture: My prototype painting)

The prototype was a bit out of my comfort zone as it was a semi abstract piece but I hoped this risky move would win the hearts of my art teachers. My teachers were also HSC markers themselves so this definitely added pressure. I ended up getting a 95% for the proposal BUT surprisingly my teachers were not happy with my submitted prototypes. They knew abstract was way out of my comfort zone and thought my painting had no basis in thought. Instead of having a completely text based work, they wanted me to have Philippines jeeps as a background and layer words on top. At first, I really hated this idea. How do Jeeps even remotely relate to the lost of language? Which brings me to my summer holidays, where I did nothing at all.

During the holidays, I was trying to figure out how to connect the two seemingly divergent ideas together for my BOW. No matter how hard I tried, no connection was made. I found myself drawing (line work) Jeeps one night in hoping I could find inspiration. Nothing came to me at all. It also occurred to me that progress marks were gonna be given a month we get back from holidays. I thought my one drawing of a jeep was enough to get a decent mark (spoiler alert: it wasn’t).

Ups and downs:

Term two was a term filled with both slow and rash decisions. When I got back to school, I realised what I did was nothing compared to the other girls in my class. I just drew jeeps in my VAPD until my teacher suggested to put them in a highway scene. Strange but I knew I could trust her. One night during the weeks leading up to the progress mark date, I had figured out how the jeeps related to the lost of language. I thought it was a bit strange at first but the longer the night went on, the more it made sense. Sleep deprived me thought “Jeeps are a mode of public transport. If we put them in a highway that kinda represents the western world. A lot of Filipinos migrate into Western countries. But wait? What does that mean for second generation Filipinos? The lost of language of course! The Jeeps are clearly displaced in the highway which is representative of my concept”. Sleep deprived me was so proud.

I drew out my composition for the next two weeks. I showed my teachers my composition and they were still not satisfied. Apparently my jeeps looked like cereal boxes! (Looking back, they DID look like cereal boxes. But 2017 me was stubborn and wanted to get this whole thing over and done with) (Picture: My 'cereal boxes' aka my composition)

Speaking of canvases, why did I chose to paint in the first place? I didn’t experiment much in Year 11 and stuck with painting throughout my preliminary year. I wanted to do a film but it got turned down immediately. So I retreated back to my comfort zone: painting. By the time I got approval for my composition, I was one week away from progress marks.

I opted for having multiple canvases as inspired by Tillers’ practice. I didn’t really have a plan on how big I wanted to painting to be. I winged it and ended up having 45 small canvases. I remember it being so difficult to draw my composition on my canvases. I’ve never worked on a huge scale like this before. I hoped that my half drawn composition was enough but when I got my progress mark I got 65%. Because of this progress mark, my ranked dropped from first to fourth. I felt that I’ve disappointed my teachers big time.

I finished my composition a few days later and I picked out a colour scheme. Once I started painting, I could never stop. I would paint at home. I would paint in the art room during my studies. I would sometimes paint in the common room. Before the second term ended, my class received news. Both my teachers were forced to go on long service leave and were gonna be gone for the third term. They got their friend who used to work at North Sydney to be our sub. I just knew that I would be lost without my teachers. I just prayed that things would flow smoothly for the next two months.

Continuation and progress:

Nothing happened much in this term. I just kept adding more jeeps and hoped for the best. Once I had finished my jeeps, I added text. (Picture: BEFORE text) (Picture: ADDING text) *My work used to be divided into three parts because I wanted to stand out. But then I realised I was being too pretentious and scrapped the triptych idea. It didn’t contribute much to my BOW’s overall meaning.

For 2-3 days a week, I was bringing home paint and canvases and vice versa (to school). It was a pain having to carry 30 canvases or 8 tubs of paint on the bus. The time I spent per day painting depended on my schedule and my motivation. I painted the most on Wednesdays. From 12:20pm to 5pm, I was painting. I usually had art, then lunch, a study and then two hours of our studio sessions after school. A lot of my studies were for art alone. I think it was because the library was too loud to do work anyways so I just chilled in the quiet art room.

There were bits that still had to be fixed up, like the wheels of the jeeps or areas where paint was scratched off by the velcro stickers on the back of each canvas. It felt like no matter how many times I painted another layer, more paint scratched off. This was probably the most annoying challenge I encountered during my BOW journey.

The final problem:

After attending the AN Ancient History Trial lecture, we had a studio session at school the next day. As soon as my teacher arrived, she was ecstatic at the work I’ve done and she suggested to just keep on adding layers of texts and add designs on the Jeeps. As soon as I finished my last trial exam, I was free to do whatever. I forced myself to go to school during days I was allowed to stay home. I drew inspiration from actual jeeps to add elaborate designs for my own jeeps. I was so close to the end. We got our final progress marks and I got my first rank back. I spent all my studies and lunches in the art room during this term. The art room was not only an art room. It became home. It was a place where we can hang out, chill, eat, etc. whilst we were doing what we did best: our works. It was so cool having this exclusive hang out place that the other girls in our year group didn’t have.

About a week before our school’s art exhibition, I thought I was done. But my teachers were not completely satisfied. What more did they want? They remember going through my VAPD whilst they were giving me a progress mark and saw the line drawing of the Jeeps that I did during the holidays. (Picture: composition for the final layer)

This comes to show that you should never throw away all your VAPD stuff even if you think they are crappy. They might benefit you in the future. I added the line work to my painting and that was it. This work was going to be displayed at my school’s art exhibition the next day. Around 6PM the next day, excited students from my school and my brother school (it was a collaborative art exhibition) were keen to attend the exhibition. We got praise from the guests. Throughout the exhibition, we got our awards. We got our praise. We got closure to a journey that felt like a decade. Two days later, we had to take down our works which was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I would never see my work displayed in an exhibition space ever again… as I thought.

ARTEXPRESS 2018:

I thought my final submission to NESA was the end of my BOW journey. I thought the next time I would hear about my BOW was when I got my HSC mark for Visual Arts. I was wrong. It was November 8, 2017 when I got an email from NESA saying that my work got nominated. I discovered that my friend got nominated too which was really exciting. We were informed that ARTEXPRESS finalists were going to be announced in the last week of November. I really didn’t think I would get in at all. Then came November 27, 2017. I got an email from ARTEXPRESS. The word ‘congratulations’ appeared.. No way. It said my work will be displayed at the Orange Regional Gallery. We always get girls nominated from our school and since 2015 we’ve always had one girl selected for the exhibition. From the 2015 cohort, a girl did a series of drawings and got into the Wagga Wagga art gallery. From the 2016 cohort, a girl did a series of paintings and got into the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Now, I’m the chosen one from the 2017 cohort. Here I come Orange!

Final words:

The whole point of this recap was to show that you can always rise up from your laziness and procrastination. Don’t feel disheartened if you feel that you’ve done nothing at all. It’s all about being resilient and getting your head back in the game. Also, as you can tell, I had a lot of bumps in the road during my journey; being a lazy student, doing nothing for the holidays, getting a 65% progress mark, both my teachers gone for an entire term and being stuck in a limbo. Don’t expect a smooth ride. There will be surprises waiting for you on the way. Don’t be scared of them. I didn’t expect to do a highway scene, or do line work on top of my painting or using jeeps in the first place. The surprises you will encounter will reward you at the end. What you do initially might not be what you do. Look at how much my work has changed since my proposal. Even compare my BOW to my Year 11 assessment task. So much has happened in a year’s time.

When you’re doing your BOW, you’re still technically doing schoolwork but just in a completely different form. So don’t worry too much if you think you’re spending WAY too much time for your BOW. The BOW is due in August. Once it’s submitted, you have all the time in the world to do your HSC studies. Another piece of advice is that, please don’t overwork yourself. We all have different paces. Avoid staying up late doing your work. Most of all, the greatest piece of advice I can give you is to surround yourself by loving people because this will give you support that you need during this hectic yet rewarding journey. Good luck to all current and future Visual Arts students. I can assure you that this is one of the best experiences during the HSC year.

(Picture: Nawawalang Wika (Lost Language) completed)



dancing phalanges
Beneath the Surface
Photography and Painting

The birth of my concept:
My concept was actually inspired by a previous HSC Student. Annelies Crone’s ‘After the Storm’ featured in the 2016 Art Express exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW. I highly recommend visiting the gallery during your BOW journey as it is a fantastic opportunity to see the quality of work other students are producing. I was particularly drawn to Crone’s work for two reasons. Firstly, her subtle variation in colour and texture was highly successful in creating an abstracted view of the natural world. I also found her concept itself highly interesting. Crone wrote:
“Symbolically, my landscapes convey how rapidly our beautiful surrounds can alter even with no human contact, confronting the viewer to consider the power of nature.”
I could immediately connect with this idea through my studies of Romanticism and the theory of Sublime in Extension English, which expressed the uncontrollable power of the natural world. I planned to create a work that essentially explored the complex layers of nature with a link to the Sublime. However, quite evidently, I realised that this idea was definitely not original and too closely linked to what Crone had achieved. (Picture: Annelise Crone ‘After the Storm’)

My real concept was discovered when I was out walking in a bush track near my house. Whilst wandering, I was intrigued by the various rock forms that surrounded me and their beautiful yet subtle differences in colour and texture. It was almost as if the rock faces were abstract paintings in themselves. From this came my epiphany – my work was to be an abstract expression of the beauty of the subtle variations of colour and texture found within rock faces. We are so often absorbed the overwhelming pace of our daily lives that we rarely have a chance to stop and appreciate the intricacy of the world around us. Hence, through the use of tone and texture, I aimed to invite the audience to look closely at the minute details of my work and therefore be inspired to also more closely appreciate the wonders of the natural world. (Picture: rock faces)

Starting off:
The first term purely consisted of experimentation. As much as I wanted to start straight away, it is vital that you first investigate how different materials work together. I spent the majority of the term exploring texture. For this, I attempted using tissue paper to create a jagged texture similar to that of a rock. This process was essential as it allowed to realise what I would and would not use when starting my real BOW. I thought that the tissue paper, whilst effective, was overdone and concluded that in my BOW, I would use it sparingly. I did, however, like its use as an outline to the rocks. My progress pieces also helped me to realise the importance of having a fairly consistent colour scheme. Admittedly, I was using the “crap paint” according to my teacher, and while she loved the richness of the colours, I found that the paintings looked too much like a rainbow. Inspired by Crone’s work, my aim was to have a similarly muted colour scheme of colours which were emblematic of the natural world such as blues, oranges and browns. You will see later that this changed dramatically by the final product! During the first term, I also went out and took plenty of photos as these were originally to form the basis of the paintings I would later make. This, of course, also would change.
 
Like Bea, I had one artist in particular that resonated with me – Caroline Rannersberger. Rannersberger’s paintings themselves are breathtaking and her concept also connected with me. In her works, Rannersberger engaged with her own surroundings in Bruny Island. She depicted a landscape in the process of formation, chronicling the folds of mountains, cloud formations and overlapping shorelines. These elements are a reflection of the extreme landscape of southern Tasmania, a site of great beauty and immeasurable force. Her use of panels to demonstrate the movement of the landscape as well as her subtle colour scheme was to inspire my BOW until its completion. So, the first term of Visual Arts in the HSC is more than anything a time to experiment and research artists – your idea will change, as I am about to demonstrate.

Constantly changing:
The next two terms saw the creation of my BOW. I began by creating my canvases from scratch (1.8m x 0.6m). My first canvas was set to be based off my favourite photograph that I had taken at Narrawalee Beach. The interplay of grey, black, yellow and pink was perfect and I could already envision the final product in my head. Unfortunately, what you will learn in the HSC Art BOW journey is that your piece is highly unlikely to ever live up to the high expectations you have of it. I was able to be successful in creating a sense of depth and texture within the bottom half of the canvas, yet the top half was not the delicate mix of natural yellows and reds that I thought it would be. Rather, unlike Crone’s piece, which perfectly balanced and blended the colours together, the top half of my work looked like the result of someone throwing up. I hated it. The black tissue paper line that I had used so successfully before also looked terrible on a big canvas as it was far too noticeable. To make it less apparent. I attempted to fix it by making the painting itself darker and here began the journey of slowly slipping away from my original plan of pinks and yellows. By the end of this it looked even worse. All the beautiful colours were hidden behind an ugly layer of brown. I was at crossroads.

At this point it is important that you do not panic. Simply identify the issues like I did and think of ways in which you can counter them. I had two main problems:
   •   The artwork was too dark.
   •   The central line of tissue paper was still too prominent.
I found a solution to fix both of these – tissue paper. However, this time I did not paint it black. Rather, I took inspiration (again – I really should just credit my whole BOW to her) from Annelies Crone and attempted to include tissue paper shapes to balance out the darkness. It somewhat worked yet also appeared a bit stark in contrast to the rest of the work. It is likely that during your BOW journey you will be stuck and not know where to go. In this case, I started on the second canvas and left the first one unfinished.

It was here that my BOW suddenly changed in many ways. First came a suggestion from my teacher to combat the dominance of the black line in my work. She advised I turn my work over to portrait and see how it looks. Shockingly, my piece already appeared far better! I still was not sure where my BOW was going… but I now knew it would not be a landscape. With this in mind, I began work on my second canvas and stopped looking at Crone’s work for inspiration. This is the point where I believe I began to really form my own style. No longer was I attempting to replicate someone else’s work. Instead, I began to be more loose and experimental in my painting style and discovered a very effective and enjoyable way to express the subtle beauty I was trying to create in my work. I began painting small amounts of paint onto the canvas and then immediately would throw water at it from different angles. It created amazing patterns and by using different tonal variations of one colour, my work began to appear more balanced and closer to what I originally intended.

Logically, the third canvas was relatively easy to make as I emulated the same painting style as the second canvas, yet employed a slightly different colour scheme. Overall, however, the one constant between both canvases was an opulent royal blue colour. If you intend to make a collection of works, it is crucial that you view them together when working on even one as it allows you to see how they could work better together as a BOW. In my case, after reflecting on the last two canvases, I realised what my first piece was missing – that same royal blue colour. I chucked it onto the brown area of the canvas and threw water at it and was delighted at the patterns that emerged. Throwing water at the blue area also ensured that some of the pops of yellow and pink from the original coat of paint shone through in the background. It was VERY different to the light and subdued colour scheme I originally intended, yet it was all starting to come together…

Final changes:
My BOW finally had cohesion. Yet, the dark blue contrasted too harshly with the white tissue paper. As a result, I decided to paint watered down ink onto the tissue paper. This immediately fixed that issue. Yet, as is the nature of the BOW, another problem emerged. The dark blue and grey of the tissue paper now blended too much, to the extent that my whole work now was without any real contrast. It appeared too flat, void of the texture that I was hoping for. This is when I went back to my photos. Inspired by the pops of subtle colour found on the rock faces, I began painting detailed sections of the tissue paper and this significantly lifted the visual appeal of my work. Only finishing touches were needed and I would be done…

Yet, I still felt as if the photographs I originally took were an important part of the formation of my work. Hence, I decided to feature them as photographs to place next to my BOW. The photos I chose and the way that they were printed were still important choices as I needed to ensure that my BOW was cohesive as a whole. For instance, glossy photographs would not have worked well as they would not have matched the soft finish of my paintings. As a result, I selected a matte finish. I also selected photographs which included similar variations in colour and patterns to those found in my paintings. As evident, when creating your BOW, it is important that you do not view each work in isolation and rather that you consider how they complement each other.

Three Key Tips:
•   Your BOW is going to change… A LOT – be prepared for it. I was quite stubborn at first in envisioning exactly how my final work would look. Once I became more open to other possibilities, I started producing my best work.

•   Keep up to date with your VAPD. My VAPD was definitely helpful for keeping track of my progress and expressing ideas. However, I was of course like everyone else in neglecting it halfway through the year. This is fine. Yet, make sure it is completely full with artists… research… sample drawings etc. by the end of the year! If your BOW is given a Band 5 by one marker and Band 6 by the other, they often use your VAPD as the deciding factor as to which band you receive.

•   While research and preparation is key, try do a lot of experimentation with materials in first term! Every mark counts and I was able to hand in 6 canvases for my progress mark at the start of the second term. They do not have to be perfect – you just need to show that you are actively experimenting with new ideas.

As Bea said, the creation of your BOW should be the best part of your Year 12 journey. You dedicate a whole year to it! I spent a lot of my lunch times in the art rooms working on mine and like Bea, it became like a home for me. Passion is key! It was so easy for me to commit time to working on my BOW as I loved every minute of it. Ensure that you choose to make your BOW about something that you feel strongly about. However, most importantly, be open to change – it is the only way that your BOW can develop! If you want an example, I have included a timeline below which visually depicts how my work changed over the year. Good luck – the making of your BOW should be the highlight of your final year of school.

(Picture: 'Beneath the Surface' completed)





Which will hold greater rule over you? Your fear or your curiosity?

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beatroot

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Re: Our Body of Work Journey
« Reply #1 on: August 26, 2018, 07:50:11 pm »
+6
Fast forward to August 26 '18

I think it's best to reflect here and add more to my part of the 'Our Body of Work Journey'.

ARTEXPRESS opening @ Orange Regional Gallery:

I went to the ARTEXPRESS exhibition opening at the Orange Regional Gallery yesterday. It was so cool seeing the locals from Orange visiting our exhibition as well as my fellow artists who came from different parts of NSW. Not gonna lie, I did feel a bit ~uncomfortable~ seeing my work displayed in an exhibition space again. I think it was because I'm so well into my second semester at university that I felt weird revisiting a piece of myself from the past. Uni me has developed so much since HSC me.  But also, I was scared what strangers would say about my work. Nevertheless, I did learn to be comfortable in the space and even found myself talking to the deputy mayor of Orange! (who was also an ex teacher from my school, what a small world!). Nawawalang Wika (Lost Language) is still in good shape- she hasn't changed a bit! Though she did look bigger and brighter(?). This is possibly due to the exhibition space it was in. The other artworks in the exhibition were so darn good! A lot of people did portraits and realistic drawings and I was in awe. I also saw works that were also displayed at the Art Gallery of New South Wales at the start of the year.

I just still can't believe that I spent so many hours on painting my body of work!! The amount of lunches I skipped and studies I could've used for other subjects- was of a huge amount and were used to develop my painting instead. But it was worth it. It made sense that I would spend most of my Year 12 life on Visual Arts because this is the direction I want to head into in the future- a career within the arts (film). I still can't believe that I had managed to bring my canvasses, paints and paintbrushes to and from school whilst on public transport (I couldn't drive during my HSC year). HSC me is so darn resilient and I am proud of her. Always.

Anyways, Nawawalang Wika will be displayed until September 23. I know that my girl is safe and sound within the space of the Orange Regional Gallery. I guess that's my body of work chapter finally closed in my life. Time to move onto new projects ;D
Which will hold greater rule over you? Your fear or your curiosity?

Please note that I am no longer active on the forums.
If you need any assistance, please message an admin or a natmod instead.