Book Work - Images only

Our first project, which is the graphic design and visual communication element of our course, has the title bookwork, and one of the end components will be a 'book' in the loosest translation. We had various themes to choose from and I've chosen fashion. I decided to concentrate on modesty - Amish clothes, Quaker clothes and modern Christian women who dress in a modest fashion. (Once you start looking at this on the Internet you will discover there is a big difference between 'Modest' and 'modest'!) I was surprised at how much my faith influences what I wear, and I want to try and combine all these ideas together. Nothing like setting your self a challenge! I've been a bit concerned about how to do this, and I spent a lot of time over the weekend thinking about what I think and believe about this, because I think art should reflect the things that are important to you. I've been quite challenged today by some of the things that the others are doing - tattoos, genital mutilation (anti - not pro!) and some of the images they are using as research. It is so completely the opposite of my project, which is seeking to think about beauty in a very different way.

So what have I been working on? Here are some of my pieces with short comments.



We started by cutting out silhouette shapes to get a positive and a negative. We then used these to make photo montages and collages. I used Amish quilts, and CD and book covers for this image.



As you can see this is a negative from the above image, combined with a CD cover. I did more with this image later.



This is the image above, photocopied and overlaid with an acetate on which I drew some other images. I used a photocopy of some plain fabric as my border. Although my tutor thought this was too busy I really like it, because the project is not just about Amish simplicity but also about modern modesty.

A bit of a head covering theme going on here - I've included Amish, Quaker and Catholic images here, on a quilt background with a modern CD cover too.

For this image I used tissue paper to give the skirt a 3D feel, to emphasize the gathers. I used acetate again, and coloured the paper underneath. The background is more copied fabric.

Another tissue skirt. I think I prefer this one to the one above. I love the background quilt and the rich pink and burgundy colours. Vicky Beeching also has such a lovely smile. If you don't know here music - she's a fantastic Christian artist, with an amazing voice and very cool hair!

I took this photo to help me see if this composition would work. I've included a t - shirt of a longer length which is my choice of modest clothing as it stays tucked in and doesn't reveal items of clothing I would rather not have on display!

It's been a challenge working just with images, and I'm not sure it's saying what I want it to say, but then when you've been working on something sometimes you need to take a step back and look at it after  break. I love the colour palette that I've got going on, especially the blues and burgundys. Next week we work with text so I'll see what happens then!