The Vacuum Former

The initial mould

The finish plaster cast

 

The vacuum former is a specialised tool that allows you to create basic moulds using the surface of other materials. It is by far one of the coolest things I have ever seen! Which shows how much of a life I've lived. You place a sheet of plastic in what is essentially a oven grill and wait until the plastic wobble to touch. Then lifting the heater you raise your mould until you can just see it pushing the plastic before swithcing on the vaccum. The mesh suface allows air to be sucked from underneath forcing the plastic to literally wrap itself around your materials.

Positive and Negative Space

Drawing was a class that I personally looked upon with great excitement. From a very young age my ability to draw was a comfort to me and in some cases my strongest asset. Whether it was a quick solitary doodle or a laborious body of work, I found drawing and painting to be a source of fun and absolute freedom.

In this instance I was allowed to delve into the world of Positive and Negative Space. The concept of positive and negative space is to take an image and exclude all tone and detail to create block colours of either black or white. By doing this you are able to concentrate on the use of shape and space of an area.

Victor Vaserely

Our first objective was to produce a variety of monochromatic sketches from the college surroundings as a starting point for later pieces. Imagining how to produce a clean cut design that you can identify as being particular everyday objects is certainly a challenge that I had not encountered before; however it was not a challenge I couldn’t overcome. A method that I found helpful was to eliminate texture and colour from what I was drawing and focus on the basic structure of the shape. By training the eye to view blocks rather than tangible forms allows you to draw in a manner that shadows that of other positive and negative space artists.

Jackson Pollock - 'Convergence'

Using these drawings we were then asked to draw elements of each sketch to create an intriguing abstract piece. When I heard the word ‘abstract’, I could not help but recoil and despair as I thought of the work of Josef Albers, Jackson Pollock, and Pablo Picasso. All of whom were credible artists but chose to strip away any control from their work – as Picasso put it ‘I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.’ 

Edward Hopper - 'NightHawks'

My particular style followed the works of J.M.W Turner, John Everett Millais, and Edward Hopper – favourites of mine. Despite, my views I decided to throw myself into the process and create an abstract style of my own. I will not lie when I admit that my first few attempts were feeble, to say the least, but as with most things, I improved with practise. I was able to add elements of the more classical sense of painting to the my abstract interpretation to create pieces that I was proud of producing.

Fruit II - The Evolution

 

For the build up to creating my fruit, I have explored a variety of techniques that will eventually go towards deciding the physiology of my final creations. Above is an analytical drawing of a fig seed. I like to accentuate colour in my work, so I took the slightest hint of colours that I found within  the seed and made them much more visible, as you can see.

 

Mono-printing was another technique shown to our class, I was really quite proud of my results.

 

Some initial sketches for one of my first designs.

 

 

Fruit

Fruit

Fruit.  Nutritious and delicious you might say, but, as I soon discovered those innocent sweet fruits have been involved in some interesting and sometimes sinister pasts. Following my introduction into Creative Concepts, I was given the brief to investigate various fruit as well as adopting a fruit and keeping a diary or journal for my time said fruit. My research could range from botanical terms for a fruit to the habitat and history surrounding them.

Choosing an adopted fruit was difficult to say the least, as it is not often that you find yourself asking, what fruit would make a good friend?

However, after much deliberation I eventually settled for the exotic pineapple, affectionately naming him Jonty. I spent one blissful week with Jonty, walking to college together, taking drives together, spending time chilling out with one another. It was not until one fateful Sunday that Jonty saw his end at the hands of my mother, a kitchen knife and a fruit salad. Jonty – forever missed. Forever delicious.

To recover from such a tragedy, I decided to research Jonty’s ancestry in an attempt to gain closure. I began my research by attempting to find the earliest mention of the pineapple, which was recorded in 1493 by none other than Christopher Columbus. During the famous explorers’ second voyage to the Caribbean, he discovered the fruit on the volcanic island of Guadeloupe. It was here that the exotic fruit was first christened as the pineapple, as the sailors described the fruit as having the coarse exterior of a pine cone, yet, the sweet centre of a apple. Upon returning to Europe Columbus brought the unusual fruit, where it soon became a sorely sought after commodity.

In a time when sugar was a luxury reserved for the rich and aristocratic levels of society, the pineapple was a highly prized piece to own. Voyages could stretch on for months, with even the fastest ships taking weeks to return from the ‘New world’, meaning that the pineapple would reach Europe in a rather grim rotten state. The few pineapples that did survive the journey were not consumed as we would do today; they were instead used in floral arrangements for flamboyant dinner parties as a status symbol. Owning a pineapple proved you had money and influence, as you were able to acquire such a rare centrepiece. This became such a common occurrence that florists saw a business opportunity by hiring out arrangements with the pineapple displayed, allowing their clients to create the illusion amongst their dinner guests that they were able to afford such a grand item.

The pineapple soon became a symbol of hospitality because of these dinner parties, as many were set in the entrance of homes to welcome guests. Architects, designers, and artists later began to include the pineapple in their own designs, many can still be found today in stately homes across Europe and America.

It was not until the twentieth century that the pineapple was no longer seen as a luxury, as travel had become much more efficient with the invention of the airplane. This allowed the pineapple to become affordable for the everyday consumer, reaching its status as a common fruit to be eaten and enjoyed.

The pineapple is one of the more innocent fruits, as no dark secrets surround its prickly exterior , but, there are many more fruits that hold a bloody past, that I may divulge into at a later date.