Very Superstitious

Charley Perrio

A collection of British superstitions, fuelled by my own superstitious rituals and beliefs, passed down through generations. Each aspect within the collection explores and celebrates the oddities and quirks within British culture. 

I began to gather old English Superstitions and anecdotes from my leading textual resource: Iona Opie and Moira Tatem’s A Dictionary of Superstitions (1989). Research into object and nostalgia alongside Jessica Roux’s Lucky You zine inspired the form of a collection, showcasing both Britain’s commonplace and lesser-known superstitions. Further exploration into Feng Shui, amulets and symbols led me to create a collection based on an individual’s superstitious possessions within the context of the home. The final outcomes within the collection combine my love for printmaking, textile design and embroidery, inspired by my leading influences: Alice Pattullo, Katie Scott and Ellie Mac Embroidery.

The collection celebrates both good and bad luck in equal measure through prints, textiles and objects associated with the home and personal belongings. I consciously chose to create a collection as I felt this was appropriate in documenting my leading subject matter - British superstitions - with themes of amulets, luck and fate leading back to the object, nostalgia and possessions. Within the final outcomes the combination of text and image is needed to illustrate more obscure superstitions, educating and informing the audience in a light-hearted, satirical manner. The personal aspect and narratives within this project have been significant with developing the final outcomes and has strengthened my viewpoint on the subject matter, making the collection organic and unique.

Parrots - Annabelle Scott

At the beginning of this project I wasn’t too sure how I was going to Illustrate my chosen animal as I have never really illustrated anything apart from people before. However I have, in the past, done projects based on colour and pattern for the human form. I decided that through my initial research of looking at the different species, I could incorporate this idea of colour and pattern into some small paintings of these birds. Parrots are themselves so colourful that creating some small colourful paintings was quite easy. However I felt these were too simple and not well thought out. I decided to do some secondary research at Bird World and get some first hand images of these birds.

After going to Bird World, I realised there was so much movement with these birds and trying to get precise and detailed drawings was never going to happen. I wanted a way to come up with quick, fun was of depicting the beautiful splashes of colour I saw when I saw them flying around in real life. I decided to use finger prints as this was a very quick and quirky way of showing off these birds who are quick and quirky themselves.

After coming up with my repeated patterns I decided to use them in a commercial way by creating some carton designs for tropical juice. I decided to go down this path as two of my key words to describe parrots were ‘Exotic’ and ‘Endangered’ and this way I could create some exotic juices and raise money for the organisations that are trying to help them. I am really glad I went down this path as I think it created some interesting final outcomes. I based all the information off other juice cartons that I bought from Tesco’s, I tried to include all the correct information and include fun facts so that it would look authentic.

These are my final cartons from this project. I think making the cartons was effective and each flavour together was unique and interesting to look at.

Fish - Micky Orchard

During my Research Methodology project, my work focused on fish. In my opinion, fish are very interesting for various reasons, such as their colourful and shiny scales, and the incredibly diverse shapes and sizes they come in, ranging from a great white shark, to the tiny goby, which is about the size of your finger nail. Starting off, I began looking at the anatomy and biology of fish. I did this by drawing visually diverse fish species, such as the thin mackerel, or the blob like trunk fish. I also researched different types of fish scale, and researched how their gills work. In short, they take in water into their gills, then oxygen is extracted from the water, then flushed back out.  

After the first tutorial, I began researching a lot more things in relation to fish. I also had the opportunity to experiment with a wide range of materials, such as the Wacom Cintiq, a graphics tablet where you can draw directly onto the screen. The Wacom Cintiq tablet is a piece of equipment that really interests me as a wannabe digital painter. During the project I created various illustrations using this tablet, such as the image below, a visual experiment from my research into skittish fish behavior. It is inspired by the African Trout, which are known as particularly skittish fish, due to the abundance of predators in Africa, such as cormorants, otters and humans. 

In order to explore new research methodologies, I created a survey which I shared online for other people to answer. I used the survey to get peoples opinions on a range of topics regarding fish. From the survey I came to the conclusion that most people only really cared about fish in terms of food and keeping as a pet. Some stated they were important as they keep the marine environment clean. Therefore from the survey, I wanted to further explore themes of marine ecology and the effects of water pollution. I wanted to make something visually communicative that might take the appearance of a visual metaphor and subtly shock people about the impact of water pollution.

The most interesting of my five words i researched were "Struggling" and "Diversity". An article from Credo told me how pollution was responsible for an alarmingly high amount of fish species extinction. Below is one of the visual experiments from the five word methodology, an image that shows both fish diversity, and the struggle of water pollution, represented by the littered pattern on the fish and how fish are having to adapt to these polluted environments and die due to mutations or habitat loss.

With this I found something I wanted to communicate. After researching all of my words, I decided to take what I had learned from these two further. That water pollution is heavily affecting marine ecology and is responsible for reducing diversity in fish species, as most species are dying out. After evaluating multiple ideas I decided to create a communicative sculpture which would act as a visual metaphor and communicate to people how drastically pollution is affecting marine ecology and the diversity of fish species.

The sculpture itself is made up of a slate base, and an arch made from two driftwood pieces. I added both natural and unnatural elements to the sculpture, to show how the ecosystem is drastically changing due to pollution, such as shells, barnacles, fishing wire and glass. The sculpture itself communicates the effects on the ecosystem well, however the two aluminum fish communicate the effect of pollution on fish diversity and biology well. There are only two fish, and both are made of the same materials, and are exactly the same shape. This subtly communicates how fish have to adapt to the pollution, as well as visually representing a lack in diversity, again due to pollution. The fact that they are made of cider cans communicates fish mutation, which I learned about from a Credo article, which is one of the key reasons why diversity is decreasing, fish are mutating and dying due to their polluted waters. I hope that my sculpture will bring this to people's attention and shock them about the frightening truth. 

Lost and Found with MyDogSighs

Upcycler, recycling artist, street artist and can-man MyDogSighs worked with us today to help clear the streets around Winston Churchill Avenue and encouraged the students to create artwork from discarded items. Intrinsic to the workshop is the idea that the item is found - transformed and then left in-situ for anyone who wants to keep it.

In the spirit of Free Art Friday the students explored the techniques and concepts MyDogSighs employs and responded individually to the item they had found. These might be worth looking out for around the Eldon Building over the next day of two.

Samantha-Jo Carter - Dragonflies

Chalk and Charcoal.

For my Research Methodology Project, i chose to research into Dragonflies because of the many miscommunicated ideas about them. Through my research i found that depending on where in the world you are, and what culture you lean towards, Dragonflies can be seen as either an evil creature or on the other hand a creature of peace and tranquility.

Wire Sculpture.

For the first half of this project i experimented into different ways in which i can portray the dragonfly with numerous materials. When it came to experimenting with different materials i wanted to keep the out come of the image somewhat relative to the research into culture i was working on at the time. For example the image below was made rather dark, with thick colours to show how in European culture the Dragonfly was considered to be the Devils insect, and as a rather evil creature.

Acrylic paints.

This image is of my final image, a piece of wallpaper sample that i decided to create after researching about Japanese cultures and their relations with the tranquility of Dragonflies. After researching into how the Dragonfly is often used within him Decor, i thought i would try and incorporate both decor and Japanese culture into one image in order to create my final piece.

My final piece was created with a mixture of drawing inks, charcoal and chalks.