Bears, More Bears and Collage

To start off my project I did some printmaking of leaves in both relief prints and jelly prints which created varying textural effects. Texture and pattern are characteristics I am particularly interested in developing further in my work so I was pleased with the outcome of the prints. To start experimenting with animal and nature imagery and testing ideas quickly, I moved on to collage. I found this a very effective way to quickly get ideas down and to look at ways of creating different interesting relationships with imagery and textures. Some examples of my collage are pictured below. I worked mainly with bears as a starting point and I tried some human faces too.

With human faces I decided that young faces especially of women were not as effective as elderly faces as they appeared more stereotypical of what you would expect, especially combined with flowers and natural imagery.

The bears I found worked well as they are both seen as cute and dangerous, themes I thought I could work with for instance the doiley patterned bear which exaggerates it to be cute and amusing, overlooking its dangerous and threatening characteristics.

I then moved on to some tonal drawing. I thought the black and white mixed with other colourful imagery worked well so I continued it in to my drawing from my collage work. With the bear, I originally planned to create a headdress of leaves but It didn't look right and just became crowded with messy indistinct shapes so I settled for a different composition I am happier with. I plan to continue with drawing work and develop collage with more prints and possibly 3D elements. I also want to work with more choices of animals and think about the context and reasons why I might choose a particular one.