Editing my Deer head piece photos and planning my next photoshoot

All in all I took about 175 shots and chose 15 which were up to scratch. I went into Pixlr online to see what they would look like if i edited them. I saturated them so they would look less colored and more icy toned, and chose some of the hats to be the only pop of color.

I'm really happy with the way these turned out, I think they look really cool!

For my next photo shoot i'm going to take Arlene and do her hair and makeup again but make her makeup more like a deer and bring her down to the old Magdeline Laundries bathrooms under the college. I think this will make for a really interesting shoot and make the head pieces seem very out of context which is what I want.

I also plan to bring a few friends out into a forest and put my colored head pieces on them. Dress them all in black and get them to pose for me. I think that this will make for a really interesting photo shoot  It will almost look like a heard of deer in the woods.

Making my Deer moulds into hats!

I've been interested for a while of turning my deer casks into hats, or head piecing as I've been looking alto at Isabella blow and Philip Treacy.

I love Isabella blows work with the lobster and the deer antler type head pieces so I thought it would be interesting if i did my own.


Isabella Blow




Isabella Blow



Isbella Blow



So to do this, i asked my friend Arlene if she would model for me in our preliminary photographs, just so I could get an idea of what they would look like.

We spent the afternoon doing her hair, backcombing it and pining it so the hair pieces would stick and then giving her very dark and sultry makeup.
I chose the head pieces I wanted to use in the bright colors like grey, pink , black and white and directed her how to pose. I then placed the head pieces in her hair and photographed them with a black background.I didn't have a lightbox so I tried to change the lighting by getting a desk lamp and bringing it from behind and in front of the corner we were working on.It seemed to work well for what i was going for.

My Resin Teasups

I really love my resin tea cups, they came out even better than I had hoped for. For some reason putting the, in the porcelin cups made the resin so cleat and shiny. Whatever I put in them just glowed.

More Teacups and Research

While I was getting my tea cups filled with clear resin, I decided to do a bit more research on artists who used found objects and parts of animals and I came across Polly Morgan. Her most famous work ''Endless Pain'' Was a show about the cycle of life and death. She wanted to created spaces within hollowed out bodies. She is well known for her taxidermy pieces and endless pain was no different.

“My new work is about a corruption of nature. It’s not things as they would happen; birds don’t eat mushrooms, pigs don’t suckle trees, octopuses don’t inhabit dead fox carcasses, generally, but I wanted to do a perverse representation of nature. But I don’t think I've pushed it to the realm of fantasy and it’s almost believable.”

Her work is mostly with little flightless birds, almost representing abortion, called 'still birth'. A dead chick with only a helium balloon to keep it floating , not flying. I personally love her work. I think It relates very much to my work as I deal with the bones of dead animals just in different ways. Instead of highlighting the death of the animal I try to change it into something beautiful. But the strange thing is her work is incredibly beautiful!

Teacup

I started looking at the way I was presenting my work, I liked how it was very archival but that wasn't exactly what I was trying to say with my work . So I started to think about the opposite of the way if  was presenting it . I went through many things like old medicine bottles,similar to Damien Hirst in 'Pharmacy' and the objects falling out of them. Then somehow I came to tea cups and china cups and it all seemed to fit into place. I went to a charity shop and got china cups and saucers in a set. I then glued the the saucers to the cups, I put my different pieces of crab and prawns.

I was researching artists like Robert Lazzarini who warped a tea cup and saucer to confuse peoples view of perception. I was also looking  Meret Oppenheim who covered a tea cup in hair and made it very impractical. 

I was trying to find a relation to my work in these artists, seeing how they developed their ideas and how they got to where they were. I wanted to create something that fitted together as a whole but were perfect separate also. I thought the teacup fitted this description.

Damien Hirst 'Pharmacy'

Robert Lazzarini

Meret Oppenheim

Research Week

After my progress review I was quite happy with the way it went and was unsure and a bit hesitant on where to take my idea next. So I decided to research artists that's were doing similar things to me to get some ideas. I was researching Berlinde De Bruyekere and really thought that her wax rendering of the human skin was similar to what i was doing. Also her use of deer's and deer antler is very similar to what i was doing.
she also uses horse skin and hair, though  since the early 1990s many of her major works have featured structures involving blankets. Their use is symbolic both of warmth and shelter, and of the vulnerable circumstances such as wars that make people seek such shelter.
Her well-known sculpture melds organic forms with the figure and the strain or inhibition of the respective components. She is an activist at heart. Almost showing the cruelty to animals in her work. When asked about her rendering of the human body she said '' I use it because it's an extension, like you extend the intestines and it's fleshy and big and hard at the same time. There could be nothing from the human body inside yet it's talking about human feelings. It's not that I really need the body to tell you something about the human condition. I do it very often with horses.''

Here are some examples of her work:

Discovering the Vacuum Moulder

I asked Des if I could use the Vacuum Molder to try it out and then cast into it.
It was really cool, you put an object in the machine and make sure its below the the lid on top.
You then choose a color of perspex and place it over the top and pull the heater over it.
Des then presses a button to melt the plastic just enough so that its bendy. You pull the heater of and push the peddle then press the vacuum button and watch as the plastic gets pulled in around the object, and press eject and the object is released.

I did this first with the deer skull but had to take it out early as the skull is unevenly shaped and close to getting stuck in the plastic forever.

I then put an antler, on its own from another dear skull I had , but it wasn't very effective.

I put in my crab claws and shells but they were close to getting stuck so I had to eject it early, but it still very nice to look at.


This is the front.

I did many of these, well as many as i was allowed , and these were the best ones that i have up.




This week I have been working like a mad man trying to get things done for the upcoming progress reviews.
I was told that I had to write a short paragraph about my concept. I'm finding this increasingly hard to write. I know what my concept is but i'm finding it hard to explain it to others.I know my project is about found empty vessels and negative shape, and turning an empty vessel into an object.
My mind is muddled


I found this great article by the independent about Racheal Whiteread, it talks about her work and why she does what she does.


http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/rachel-whiteread-ive-done-the-same-thing-over-and-over-2068718.html