Works

Striped Drum Skin

This was done on a total whim, and funnily enough it would become the starting point for the reoccurring element of stripes in my work. Painting on a drum skin is not a totally new idea, it was done before by the New Zealand artist Julian Dashper, but I had not heard of him until afterwards. 

Untitled #2

This was my first attempt at the idea. It was a bit of an experiment. I wanted to keep it simple, yet interesting, so I originally had it at 3 elements; the brown tone and texture of the recycled paper, the strong black ink, and a diluted white acrylic. It wasn’t until a little while later that I added the stripes, which came directly from the drum skin that I painted on. I feel that the stripes finalised the work, whilst staying true to the simplistic feel that I wanted in the first place. The stripes were fairly difficult to make, given the papers tendency to tear and pull apart. Masking tape would rip the paper, and simply using sheets of paper as a guide was proving to be too messy, and did not provide a shape enough line. In the end I used a sheet of adhesive paper that was weak enough not to rip the fibres as it was peeled off.  Although the lines were not perfect, I decided that I did not mind so much, as the imperfections did not impact the image negatively.

Colours

This piece took the ideas of the simple 3 elements of the brown tone and texture of the recycled paper, the strong black ink, and a diluted white acrylic in the other work, and went in a new direction by splashing colours over the image. It was an experiment essentially to see how I could utilise colour in such a way and bring colour into the idea.

Sharp
This time I wanted to essentially consolidate all the ideas of the previous works (Colour, White figures, Stripes) and combine them with an influence from the artist known as ‘Dragon’. The stripes have made their return, this time alternating and darker, and set in the centre of the image only.

The Shattered Reflection

This image was created by photographing a shattered reflection through a broken mirror. Anne Shelton was the inspiration for the repetition and rotation of the original image. I went in this direction because I saw the possibility of a kind of pattern within the photograph.

I felt that the black and white repetition in the bottom left corner broke up the set in a positive way. The repetition and pattern appearance is something I appreciate that I achieved.

Fawn

This shot is one of the most photographically interesting images that I have taken. I felt that I had not played with the depth of field or perspective enough in my photo shoots, so I am pleased with the achievement. It was taken at unitec, under a tree funnily enough. I was Lucky enough that my grandfather had a dead fawn in his freezer (he is a hunter, and it was left over from a deer he shot a few years back).
I again looked to Ann Shelton for inspiration when I decided to mirror the image, and alter the colour. Again I feel like it worked in the images favour. 

Isaac in Watercolour

My idea for the graphics brief was to create a publication that looked at the musical culture within the university demographic, of which included posters, profiles, illustrations, music, paintings, etc – all to do with musical culture. This was one such painting – based on a photograph of my friend Isaac who plays bass in the band ‘Halo of Ashes’, and who is a student at unitec.
I originally planned for this image to be in a set of 3, relating to each other through the same subject/figure in the centre of the work. In this case I tried painting in water colours for the first time and I quite like how it turned out. The drips came later; I decided that it needed something more to finish it off.

Izzy

This work was the second but unfortunately last of the planned 3. It was a return to past ideas of white figures, stripes, and instances of colour - but in a more developed way. It is probably one of my favourites of mine.

Gig Posters

These gig posters are my attempts to create effective visual advertisements for gigs. I felt that many gigs these days aren’t as successful as they could be because there is an obvious lack of proper advertisement which plays a crucial role.  A professional looking, eye catching  poster can really boost numbers and it is something that is frequently overlooked or poorly done. My favourite of these would probably be the kings arms poster, was created by laying blurs, colours, and other various Photoshop filters over a photograph of one of the bands, and then included the necessary text.

 

SciFi Lamp
This is a mock-up of the final design for my lamp for craft. It would be constructed from steel, and the gaps would be covered by a cyan or lite blue coloured plastic to allow light to shine through, creating the sci-fi appearance. I devised the shape by looking at the forms and shapes within the wire models that I constructed of Science fiction elements. I would have loved to have finished the piece, but I simply ran out of time.