Negotiated Project

Finally the time is here where we basically have complete artistic freedom in a module, we have to write our own brief and also think of a marketable final product. I will paste below my synopsis from the Learning Agreement to present my idea: 

My proposal for this project is based around creative and artistic people of the past century. I want to celebrate the people who have inspired me up to this point in my artistic life. I will focus on three main areas of the creative industries that have always held a great deal of interest to me: Photography, Comedy and Film. Within these chosen industries I will look at people such as: Bunny Yeager and her risqué pin up portraits, British comedians Steve Coogan, Monty Python and The Mighty Boosh and finally directors David Lynch, Alfred Hitchcock and Quentin Tarantino.

I view these people as my creative saints of the modern age and to instill this idea in my drawings I will produce a range of experimental portraits in a sketchbook, portraying these people in pseudo religious poses. I will, to all intents and purposes be creating new personas and characters for my chosen subjects, meaning the illustrations I produce will be my intellectual property and I can avoid any copyrighting issues. I will also research into this by contacting one of the main influences in terms of style, Maria Herreros, whose naïve portraits of celebrities are brilliant. I feel as though if I do get in contact she will be a wealth of knowledge on the subject of copyright.(LO4)

 The style of drawing I want to employ is that of the Lo-fi movement that is emerging into the wider market at the moment. I will look at trend journals and the market to research into how well I can expect my style to be received. I will also conduct a survey to gain my own primary research, as I feel it is important to start to do this when beginning a project as I am not relying on other sources figures and feedback on a product.(LO1) (LO3)

 As further research for these drawings I will look at medieval Italian saint triptychs and portraits from artists such as Master Francesco and Jacopo del Casentino, trying to incorporate some of their style in with my more contemporary illustration creating a quirky fusion of the two. (LO2)

 As further research I will look into contacting the living creatives I have chosen to see if there are any possibilities of a meeting in which I could draw them, giving my project it’s primary research. I will also look to see if any of the comedians are touring close by and attend. Alongside this I will go to life-drawing sessions to further my experience in drawing portraits. Other than this my project will rely quite heavily on Internet and book research. Rather than copying existing portraits I will look at stand up shows, sketch shows and documentaries. I want to capture their characters and I feel by studying them in this way I will be able to achieve that better that if I were to copy from photographs. (Excluding Bunny Yeager’s photographic portraits).

When I have completed this experimentation I will then go on to begin my final product for the module. Through some market research I have seen that illustrated tote bags are really popular and I want to create my own. (LO3) I will choose three portraits from each group of people and will have them in classical religious poses, with the gold disc behind their heads and a banner beneath them, proclaiming them “Saint …”. I will produce five of each bag, ensuring that I work to make them as professional as possible. To do this I will ‘clean up’ the images on Photoshop and expose them onto screens, running test prints first so I can really monitor the quality of the final images. I will buy plain canvas tote bags, so I know that they are properly made as this will add to the professional finish.(LO3)

In addition to the bags I plan on making a variation of Italian religious gold triptychs, based around my concept and featuring my ‘Saints’. It will be a fold out print with the same gold border as you see on the originals, but with my simple illustrated portraits, giving this art form a new lease of life in modern illustration. The subject of this project could be seen as controversial but the demographic that I am aiming for of artistic people aged eighteen and up, should appreciate the overall style and humor of the pieces. (LO3)(LO4)   

From looking at various style and trend websites for the last module I know that this simple, charming style is very on trend. I know what look I am going for and know that by placing my stylised illustrations onto a tote bag and filling that with art 'goodies' is a very effective way of marketing my work and selling a product, because lets face it... most people love a good tote bag.