Mood board – ‘Identity and Portraiture’:
My mood board is centred around my passion and love for art. From as early as I can remember, I have always relished in a creative environment; playing and experimenting with paint, fashion, makeup and colour. When creating art, my particular style has always been focused on people, human anatomy and portraiture, as well as my identity. Therefore, the images on my mood board are all of women, faces and bodies. In addition, almost all the photos are photographs of my very own artwork that I have produced over the course of my artistic career. In terms of my colour palette, I have chosen colours which make up my personal colour palette; my hair, skin, lips, eyes, etc. This links to the running theme of identity which is present throughout all of my artwork. These colours are also very neutral and muted tones, often consistent with flesh, bruises, blood and scars, linking back to human anatomy and people. The font I have used in my mood board is called ‘Hoefler Text’. I have chosen this font because it has a very traditional, sophisticated look to it, and I thought it coupled well with portraiture as it traditionally dates back to Greek and Latin portraits, as well as royal portraits that would have been commissioned. I think I have done particularly well in expressing my passion for art in a very personal way, especially through my incorporation of my own paintings, sketches, prints and digital sketches. To improve I think I could possibly expand on my colour palette and add some more colourful/bright/vibrant colours, alongside the more neutral tones.
Creative writing – ‘My art is Me’:
One piece of writing in particular that has inspired me is a poem by Sarah Howe, titled ‘A painting’. This poem has inspired me as it describes the process of finding the beauty in artistic chaos, something in which I wanted to articulate in my own writing, expressing the process of creating, along with the chaotic nature and messiness of art. In addition, Howe’s poem also outlines the process of making art, through her use of descriptive language. This allows the reader to follow along in the poem and acts as some sort of storytelling. In terms of my own work, I also wanted to be very descriptive in my writing, describing the paint strokes, the different motions I take whilst painting, etc, and this travels throughout my short story, from beginning to end. Overall, I think I was successful in my creative writing as I believe my story to be both engaging and thought-provoking. Not only did I describe my passion for art descriptively and deeply, but I also created feeling within my writing, displaying the emotional attachment I have to my creative outlet and the impact it has on my wellbeing and life. In terms of improvement, I think I could create more of a storyline next time, possibly including other characters and even changing the tone of voice, e.g. writing in third person.
Audio – ‘Paint with Me Q&A’:
For my audio piece, I again chose to focus it on my passion for art. I conducted a Q&A between me and one of my friends who is also very creative and studies an art-based course at university. We discussed our interest for the subject along with what inspires us and makes us passionate about it. This Q&A was conducted while we painted, creating diegetic sound effects, consisting of strokes on a canvas, paint mixing, cleaning of brushes, etc, enhancing the artistic mood for the audio. In addition to this, during post-production, I also added non-diegetic sound effects and background music, to emphasise certain parts of the conversation and to make the piece more engaging. Furthermore, post-production also consisted of trimming portions of the recordings, combining different takes and increasing and decreasing audio to help the piece to flow and make it as coherent and clear as possible. Overall, I think I conducted a very engaging Q&A and accurately expressed my passion for art through audio alone, whilst meeting all of the assignment requirements. However, next time, I think I could improve by having more people involved, in order to create more conversation and diversity in the speech.
Film:
For my last creative output, film, I decided to focus on a passion different to art and instead chose travelling. Becoming an adult, I have found that travelling has become more of a goal and passion of mine as I feel an urge to experience more of the world and see new places. Due to this, I decided to film my trip to Barcelona and take you with me to a place I’ve never been before. In my opinion, I have successfully captured the beauty of Spain and Barcelona and shown how much I enjoy travelling with my friends through various scenes in my film. Similar to E1, I have included a range of shot sizes, consisting of mostly extreme long shots to medium long shots, as they allowed me to showcase large landscapes, architecture and scenery. I have also included different camera angles, such as aerial views and back shots to create the illusion that the audience (the camera) was a person on the trip too, following along, and camera movements, along with scenes that accurately showcase the 180-degree rule. However, for E2 I developed upon the skills I learnt previously and added more to this film. For example, whilst editing, I swapped between disjunctive and continuous editing in order to create contrast in the film, but also create a story line that the audience could follow along with. I have also added sound, such as background music, in various places in the film in order to enhance certain scenes, and also left in narrative world sound to bring reality to the film and hear what is really going on. Overall, I think I was very successful with my film, especially in the editing of it, as it was a more difficult process than last time but really elevated my work compared to the last film. In terms of improvements, I think I could have been smoother with my filming, although I used a tripod for most of it, during walking scenes/scenes with movement, it was hard to stay steady, hence, I would reduce shakiness next time.