Throughout the project, I have experimented with the symbolism of the Sun and the god Helios/Sol, mainly digital and occasionally analogue primary research. I mentioned also researching the symbolism of fire in my project proposal (the Sun and fire are commonly linked together in culture). However, I ended up doing far more research on the Sun than on fire itself. Outside of digital experiments, I have taken photos of the Sun but not of my cooker or heater like I suggested. I have multiple photos of the sun, but I have only fully used one photo, so a lot of those photos were for nothing.
Whilst I still have the PDF of The Ancient City (which I love), I did not even read most of it in the middle and end of the project, only at the start. Therefore, the lack of follow through is a big error, which is a shame because The Ancient City is very interesting, as is the history of Sun worship.
I think my secondary research was satisfactory, but I did not go as deep as I wanted to. I have shown research of the sun on national flags, for example, the flags of Japan, Argentina and Uruguay. I briefly wrote about the Greek god Helios in one PowerPoint slide. I also compared the Statue of Liberty to the Colossus of Rhodes. However, I also did not do much research on Egyptian or Babylonian mythology due to a lack of time. For example, the Egyptian god of the sun was named Ra.
I have tried to draw the winged sun disk in my sketchbook, but due to a lack of time, I could not add these photos to my PowerPoint. It was difficult to draw winged sun disks.
What went well was my digital pieces. I have produced many versions of my solar pattern. On the other hand, visual evidence is a mixed bag. Whilst I have lots of visual evidence regarding Vainglory and its stages, the same cannot be said for one of my solar patterns: Sunburst. I do not remember how I created that piece. Luckily, for the other four solar patterns, I have explained how I created them.
I have improved my artist research from the last project. My digital pieces are transcripts of Andy Warhol’s methodology: multiple prints with the same layout. I have five solar patterns, which are all different colours, as well as Vainglory and its three predecessors. I also created a new version called Molten Copper or Burnt Up. That said, I wish I gave more time to research another artist.
I think my analogue experiments went well but I should have used them more for future pieces. The textile print workshop went very well. I think it was the most successful analogue piece. I was also proud of my oil pastel sketch of sunrise, based on Andy Warhol’s prints of Sunset, and showed evidence of what I did. I showed visual evidence for my lino printmaking experiment, including scans of my prints. The only experiment that did not go so well was the watercolour experiment, which was also based on sunrise. I learned not to press so hard with the brush next time because the piece was somewhat blotchy.
I think I could improve by trying to experiment more with these analogue pieces digitally. I missed an opportunity to use these pieces more.
I also missed an opportunity to experiment with the Darkroom. It has been a while since I used the darkroom for any projects.
What went well with my PowerPoint was that I had successfully created a reference list, a list of links to different websites. I included links of where I got the images of certain pieces; the exceptions are the Sunset prints by Andy Warhol. The presentation is also diverse, featuring different layouts and designs. I spent a lot of time making the slides colourful.
What also went well was me creating my own GIFs, improving my Adobe Photoshop skills. For example, using basic shapes, I was able to create a GIF of the Sun blinking.
However, I did not include this into my PowerPoint because I was stalling throughout the project, so I did not have enough time to include my steps for creating basic animations.
I created a second PowerPoint presentation, showing different versions of my final pieces. It is deliberately simple.
I think I see myself still focused on digital art, mainly Adobe Photoshop or patterns. However, I am now more open to physical/analogue forms of art, including lino printmaking or painting.