Its been a little while, but I’ve made some good progress since last checking in!
This week, I’ve been working constantly on concepts for my Cheltenham Awards piece- I want this to be culmination of my progression throughout my degree, so I want to make sure it’s suited to the brief, artistically and technically sound, and also something I’m proud of and can connect with.
When mapping out ideas for ‘Unity’ (the theme of the Awards this year), I thought back to my trip to China last year. The contrast between old and new Shanghai architecture, as well as the exceedingly blurred divide was reflected in the community around the city. It was a wild and dizzying blend of temples and traditional teahouses that were hundreds of years old, stood literally metres away from futuristic skyscrapers and the latest architectural marvels. It was so stunning, and unlike anything I’d ever seen! This really felt like the perfect thing to base my ideas on, so I set out making some concepts:
I’ve experimented with different background layouts, figural poses and blends of traditional and modern imagery. I chose the Pudong skyline as the background (very recognisable and iconic), with a selection of traditional architectural motifs based on the places I visited for the foreground surrounding the figure~
The idea fell into place quite quickly, as I was able to envision a rough layout after looking into my initial artist research, particularly the work of Sarah Joncas, as well as taking inspiration from my own past work:
The combination of figural elements and landscapes is something I’m already familiar with, and I was eager to work on something that is both beautiful and detailed, with architectural elements that were new territory to me.
I think I’ll be able to realise this piece fairly ‘easily’ compared to my other projects, where half of the battle was technique and workflow. I’m confident in my ability to produce this piece on Procreate, even thought that in itself will be a slight learning curve. However, that just means this is a good opportunity to fully immerse myself in the software- I plan to do final tidy up and processing on Photoshop, but Procreate boasts most of the same functions, so I want to make sure I’m widening my skills as much as possible.
I’ll have to keep a close eye on my time restraints and other projects (e.g. this blog!), as not keeping up with any one of these will negatively impact my progress. This has been a major weakness throughout my degree, and it’s never been so critically important to keep this in check!
Targets for the next few days include working on this piece (probably constantly), while also finding time to start collating my portfolio work and prepping for hand-in~
References
Collingwood, C. (2019). Haru ‘Springtime’ [mixed media].
Collingwood, C. (2019). Modernisation Concept 1 [digital].
Collingwood, C. (2019). Modernisation Concept 2 [digital].
Collingwood, C. (2019). Modernisation Concept 3 [digital].
Joncas, S. (n.d.) Night Life [oil, acrylic].
chalon joy collingwood 