Karen Li - Dragon

For my Research Methodology Project I decided to do it on Dragon, As they are very fierce and scary features recorded from myths and legends. I looked into the history of cultures stories of dragons, from this I found that origin of the legends of dragon emerged in the course of Chinese history. The Chinese believed that dragon was a benevolent creatures with powers to bring rain and good luck to the people.

In this project I experiment from wire modelling, origami dragons, Lino prints and 3D clay modelling. From those I found that my Lino prints came out very successful, which I decide to use my continuous line drawing made from my clay modelling into Lino as a little illustrated book.

Two pages of fold up book (Final Piece) 

Unicorn - Darcie Couch (784365)

                                         Unicorn - Darcie Couch (UP784365)

 Choosing an animal for this project proved difficult as many of the animals I had considered had a range of possibilities in regards to producing a final outcome. In the end I decided to study my project on a Unicorn because although finding primary resources would be difficult, I would have had a fluid approach to experimentation.

I began to work on the unicorns appearance, studying its poise and characteristics. As the Unicorn is a mythical animal it wasn't surprising to see that there were many varying illustrations/photos, showing different features in each; such as having wings or horns. These were initial studies I made using the references of what a Unicorn is described to look like. The varied mediums used and mark making explored what I felt would best successfully represent the Unicorn image.

I closely looked into comparing Horses and Unicorns. I made a study of a Horse using only white ink on brown paper. Making this study made it easier to compare the appearances of both animals, especially with their similarities in facial features.

Later on in the project I looked into more than the similarities and made both mathematical and scientific diagrams on their hooves, skulls and torsos. In the picture above I've included the hooves and shoes with their diagram labels and angular measurements. I found studying the contrast between the myth and the math fascinating because it dipped into key points of the broad projects spectrum.

Rats by AmberAtlantis

For my 'Shakespeare's animals' project I decided to focus upon the rat, as it's my favourite animal and they posses some interesting superstitious qualities, as well as similarities to the human body which are used for scientific study.

After conducting broad research into the animal such as their anatomy, behaviour, habitat and diet etc, I visited a large pet store and started producing lots of direct observational sketches. This is what helped me most in understanding their movement and behaviours. I also reviewed the texts in which rats are mentioned in Shakespeare's works, and I decided to centre my ideas around a scene in 'Tempest' where Prospero describes a boat that he fled to Italy on. This scene evolves around the superstition that rats leaving a ship in port indicates that the vessel will encounter misfortune at sea such as sinking.

With this idea in mind, I experimented with collage and 3D techniques which i could possibly use to illustrate the ship superstition, including wire sculptures wrapped in twine and wallpaper collages as shown above.

Eventually I settled for using paper mache to create the basic structure of the rat, and then I glued card triangles over this to create the fur. For my final piece I produced 2 rats; the card triangles on one were covered in ripped magazine, and the other was using a watercolour + salt technique to look like rust. Both of these symbolise neglect. 

I did some final research in rat euphemisms, where i came across the term 'rat king'. This is where rats live in an extremely cramped space, so eventually their tails become knotted together. I decided to join the tails of my two sculptures, but I did so by researching the types of knots used in sailing and made the tails out of rope to connote the boat superstition. I made the remaining features out of clay, and set the sculptures on a piece of driftwood which I found at the beach. My intention with this was to convey a narrative of the plank being a stray part of a recently sunken ship, and the rats had to escape together due to being connected at the tail. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this project and I look forward to seeing my work displayed in the Shakespeare's animals exhibition at Portsmouth Guildhall! Feel free to check out these links for some of my other art and photography work!

www.facebook.com/amberatlantis

www.youtube.com/AmberAtlantis

www.amberatlantis.blogspot.co.uk

Lucy Page - Tiger

For the Shakespeare project I decided to research tigers as I find them really interesting and mysterious. The quotes from Shakespeare's work that inspired me were first 'The tiger was generally considered the personification of remorseless cruelty' and second 'Even the rudest and the most heraldic of a tiger must have had stripes not spots'. During my research I looked at how tigers hunt and especially how they pounce. I discovered that tigers are extremely powerful animals, the largest of the cat family and very distinctive due to their stripes. Because of this they are the perfect killing machine and I decided to run with this description for inspiration for my final outcome.

I was attempting to capture the powerful roar of a tiger with this drawing

I created a lino print from the first image and printed it successfully 

Stripes are one of the most identifying characteristics of a tiger, so I experimented with just painting the stripes 

I started looking at how tigers are killing machines, to show this I used cogs to create a half tiger half machine outcome

Final outcome: 

For my final piece I chose to use my drawing of a tiger crouching ready to pounce with cogs added to its upper leg muscles to show the pent up power in the muscles.

After the fire had gone out, I made a small phoenix and painted it in the traditional colours a phoenix would feature. I placed it behind the burnt wire as a symbol of the phoenix starting a new life. the reason why the phoenix can live forever as it was not tempted by Eve to eat fruit from the tree God forbid, therefore it was granted to live forever.

For my animal, I had chosen the phoenix because I wanted to choose a mythical animal to give myself more space to imagine what I could create.

At first I had tried to cover my phoenix wire model with hairspray and then set it on fire. However it didn't work at all due to the weather conditions, even though there was hardly any wind it was still difficult to set alight despite spraying a lot of hairspray onto the wire. But then I wrapped the wire with tissue and then set it alight with BBQ fluid.

After painting on BBQ fluid onto the wire phoenix model it set alight almost instantly and burned extremely well. I wanted to set my work on fire as this is the moment when the phoenix would be reborn, setting itself on fire from its old age. The phoenix was said to have lived for one thousand years before it would set itself alight.