Final Major project: Self Immolation.

For this project, it was self-initiated which meant I had free roam on what I wanted to do for this project. I decided to name my concept Self Immolation which inevitably means harming oneself whether it be mentally or psychically. The reason I named my project Self Immolation is because of how I am basing my project on Ballerinas. I wanted to show the harm the ballerina industry can do to a person psychically and mentally and how it’s so set in its traditions that this particular ballerina is trying to find herself and fight the social norms in society. This idea had just popped up in my brain, so I decided to jot down my ideas for it but also make sure I kept a broad mind and see the other endless possibilities that link to my self-initiated project.

Form of Authentication

Proposal and Planning

Sewing in University

I went to the open day for the University of Huddersfield as I’m going to take up fashion there. We did a bit of sewing that I wanted to insert for primary research because my industry practice is fashion so I wanted to include this in.

These were the different threads we could choose from however some were too big to be inserted into the needle so I opted for the yellow one and my sister did the neon one. Mine was simple as it was already small so I inserted it fine however, the neon thread was too thick and fluffy so my sister had to tear it into 2 pieces so it would become smaller and only then it went into the needle fine. Beneath was the full pattern that was laid out for us however due to a small amount of time, we didn’t get to do much but I learned a lot, and in the end, I at least took part in the activity.

Week 1: Research Week

Mindmap

Here I began jotting down my ideas that linked in with my industry practice (like fashion) as I will be taking that course in university. I decided to add different ideas to it especially things I typically liked in art such as culture as I did it for my last theme, ballet, 3D artwork, and many more points. I wanted to expand my ideas vastly so I had a lot of options to choose from.

Mood Board

I created a mood board with different images that link into my mindmap to see what appeals to me and what ideas I could come up with just by looking at a few images which can help me visualize what I want to do for my project. So far I’m set on wanting to do my project about ballerinas.

Sketching

I’ve already explained a lot in my sketches and seeing what ideas I liked. I focused on 3 ideas from my mindmap as they intrigued me the most. Ballet, Sculptures, and Fashion. I decided to add voice recordings to this one as I have written a lot. I asked my teacher to also check the paragraph in my first sketch, and she crossed out words that didn’t make sense and made sure to help with my grammar. I also added the references I used next to my drawings to showcase them side by side showing the differences and similarities between them.

Here is the voice recording for sketch 1: Sketch 1.m4a

Voice recording for the second sketch: Sketch 2.m4a

Voice recording for third sketch: Sketch 3.m4a

Voice recording for my fourth sketch: Sketch 4.m4a

Voice recording for the fifth sketch: Sketch 5.m4a

This was underneath the 5 mini sketches as I didn’t have a title written out for them so I added a title underneath the sketches to be more subtle.

Sketch 2

I decided to search for sculptures to sketch as I quite love making 3D pieces and thought that I should sketch some ideas for this as I wanted to do something 3D.

Sketch 3

I decided to search for fashion drawings as I will be taking fashion at University for my future profession so I wanted to incorporate fashion into my final piece as it will need to somehow be included and will initially be linked into my specialist industry practice.

Here are the reference drawings I used for my drawings.

Artist Research: Joe Jurkiewicz

I couldn’t find much information on him however I decided to analyze his work more and see what art medium he typically uses, how he creates his art pieces, and what inspires him.

I at first tried contacting him to get more information on him however he never messaged back.

Here is the reference I used for making the giant drawing, trying to replicate it to the best of my abilities. Joe describes the main items he uses in most of his artworks. For this artwork he made, he says he uses:

• 9×12 on Bristol paper
• Watercolours
• Ink
• Ballpoint pen

Links I used to find information about Joe Jurkiewicz:

About (no date) joejurkiewicz. Available at: https://joejurkiewicz.com/pages/bio (Accessed: 22 May 2024).

Joe Jurkiewicz (no date) ArtsKCGo.com. Available at: https://www.artskcgo.com/artist/joe-jurkiewicz/ (Accessed: 22 May 2024).

This is the second reference I have used. He lists what he had used for this artwork of his. The items he used were:

• 12×8 on watercolour paper
• Watercolours
• Ink
• Ballpoint pen

Here are 2 Drawings I like of Joe’s as it stands out to me. What I like about the first drawing he made was how the inking in the background created cell-like textures. I researched a lot of his art and saw that he likes to use water and place it where he wants the ink to go then uses droplets of ink that only follow the pattern of the water and doesn’t go outside of it. Due to the drops of ink not being consistent, it creates these types of patterns that, in the end, create textural patterns that look like splashes. I also like how he focuses on the hair in most of his drawings. The movement through the hair can link to the movement of ballerinas which I will further talk about. He creates voluminous hair and different shapes and textures within it, drawing attention to the hair. He typically uses watercolour for the girl itself and has the ink surrounding her. What I like about Joe is how he uses his artwork as a form of expression which is very much subtle to the viewers’ eyes but still shows the different emotions conveyed in each piece.

This is another artwork that I like of his. What draws me to this art piece is the contrast between the foreground and the background and how voluminous the girl’s hair is. As I previously stated, Joe focuses on hair a lot. I like how messy and puffy it is and how he’s added details inside of the hair. He did a few scribbles with I think a brown or gold pen and used maybe a white gel pen for the other details. I also like how the background has the textural effect you can get from watercolours creating an obvious barrier between each layer. I noticed that with most or even all of his drawings, he typically has the girl closing her eyes which indicates to me that the person is deep in thought or is showing some sort of inner peace whereas everything around her is a chaotic mess. I like how the girl is initially dealing with inner turmoil but it’s shown with her appearance by how messy and complicated her feelings may be.

In the end, I don’t think I’ll be using Joe Jurkiewicz as my main artist as he doesn’t really resonate with what I want to do for my final piece however, researching him opened up a whole new idea about emotions and how I can use his backstory behind every artwork of his and further develop his idea for my own artwork.

Artist Research: Tanya Gomelskaya

Tanya Gomelskaya combines painting and sculptures into one and I came across her on Instagram when trying to find an artist who might do sculptures as it’s something I’m thinking of doing for my final piece.

I tried messaging her but never got an answer back unfortunately but she had enough information about her on different websites and had her art process on her Instagram page.

Here are the 2 references I used for the first 2 drawings using yellow card to see how it would look underneath it and how it would affect the artwork.

I didn’t have enough space to talk about the bottom 2 oil pastel drawings I did. For these 2 drawings, I wanted to do the same as the mouth and eye but a darker-skinned version. I wanted to further experiment with undertones so I used a pink card underneath to see how it would affect the drawing. I decided to do the black pupil first and then the white around it so I had the main part done however, it turned out more grey due to the black for the pupil blending in with the white so next time I’ll make sure to use the white oil pastel for any areas first. I used a light brown for the skin colour and a darker brown for the shadows near the eyelid. I then used black for the eyelashes and for the eyebrows. In my opinion, the pink card just made the skin look pinkish. Next time I could maybe use a black card to make the skin colour more darker or use yellow card as well to see if it would make it more vibrant than muted in a pinkish colour. For the lips, I used a dark brown and pink and tried to create texture with the lip creases however it didn’t turn out subtly like I wanted it to but instead more prominent. The pink also blended in especially with the pink card being underneath it. I didn’t get the shadows and light parts right either by not showing where the light reflects the lips and where the shadows are. I tried adding pink to the inner bottom lip however it looks like the tongue is sticking out a little instead with the parting of the lips. What I like about this art piece is how the eye has a little bit of emotion hinting behind the drawing and how the eye is different to the other one above. What I didn’t like was how the lip turned out. Having the pink card underneath didn’t help the complexion of the skin and didn’t help how the lips looked like. I also didn’t like how the creases in the lip showed up more prominent than subtle and in my opinion, the pink ruined the lips too while I tried to conceal the creasing more. Next time I could maybe try different colours of card to see how it would look or even just use normal white card so it doesn’t ruin the complexion as much.

Here is what Tanya said about her artwork, how she views it, and how she thinks about it.

Links I used to research and gather evidence for information on Tanya Gomelskaya:

Tanya Gomelskaya (no date) STONE SPARROW NYC. Available at: https://stonesparrownyc.com/tanya-gomelskaya (Accessed: 22 May 2024).

About (no date) Tanya. Available at: https://www.tanya.gallery/about-1 (Accessed: 22 May 2024).

Three-dimensional surrealist artworks by Tanya Gomelskaya: Inspiration Grid (no date) Daily design inspiration for creatives | Inspiration Grid. Available at: https://theinspirationgrid.com/three-dimensional-surrealist-artworks-by-tanya-gomelskaya/ (Accessed: 22 May 2024).

Here is the reference I used for the Oil painting.

I decided to analyze some of her artwork to get a more clear idea on what she does and what her thought process is about it. For this particular piece, it seems the girl is struggling and is going through negative emotions like maybe depression, anxiety, or even anger. Tanya has painted the canvas with oil paints and made the arms and hand with clay which I’m presuming is air-dry clay as it dries quicker and is easier to work with. As I scrolled through her artwork, I saw in one video of hers that she uses wire and wraps it around each other to create the base so that she can apply the air-dry clay on top of it. After she sculpts the hands, she sands it to create a smoother texture and oil paints over it making it realistic as possible. As you can see in the right image, she adds a lot of wire to a finger to stabilize it and make sure she can wrap air-dry clay around it and built onto it. She also likes to add details to the canvas too. The outside canvas reminds me of barrels especially the texture and the ropes. It also reminds me of the texture of pirate boats in a way. Tanya also adds scratch marks to emphasize she’s clinging on in desperation and is trying not to let her dark thoughts consume her. What I like about Tanya’s art is how she tries to make it realistic as possible and how each and every artwork she makes is different than the rest. I also like how she even involves the canvas in her work so every part of it is interactive and special in its own way.

Just like how I previously stated where she likes involving her canvas, these are 2 examples of where she involved her canvas in her work. The left image shows how she incorporated the canvas into the artwork by making it into hands. You can see the details she’s added to the hands from the canvas. When I look at it as a viewer, my thought of it is how the canvas is pushing her back into the painting as if she’s trying to become free but she’s shackled down and can’t escape. The girl’s hand also indicates that by how she’s grabbing onto the canvas’ hand trying to pull it away from her face. What I like about this is how creative it is and how it invokes realism but also surrealism, showing 2 sides of what goes in Tanyas’ mind and how she brings it to life. In the right-hand image, she creates a surrealistic face and makes it droop past the canvas, melting off. This time she simply made an oil painting with the drippy effect being made from air-dry clay. Tanya added to this artwork by involving herself in the background. I like she also involves herself in her in her own work. In a video she has made she shows how she creates the hand by looking at her own hand and replicating it to the best of her abilities. She uses herself as her muse and creates the body parts. I like how creative she is with her art and how she simply immerses herself in each art piece she creates.

For these 2 art pieces, she uses fabric and embeds them into her artwork. I chose to focus on these 2 paintings because I’m doing ballet and with it comes fashion, so these 2 paintings I decided i wanted to analyse them. With the left-hand image, I am unsure if the hand is fully 3D or if she made it flat as it gives off that illusion. In my opinion, I feel like the fabric is out of place. I can’t tell what she’s laying on but I feel like she should have covered the whole frame with the fabric sticking out except for that 1 middle area. This painting shows emotions of tiredness which delves deep into Tanya’s mind. The right-hand image gives of the impression of sadness. The way she clings onto the fabric and looks nervous might indicate that she’s feeling insecure of herself especially the way the fabric hides her body figure and how even though she’s closing her eyes, it looks like she is looking down at herself. If you look closer you can see how she cleverly paints the fabric and then cuts it off by adding the actual fabric on top which is hard to notice unless you look closely. To create this illusion she also makes the arm 3D so it’s harder to tell. I quite like how she has a somber expression which shows how Tanya is making her emotions come to life even if it is negative but she’s telling a story to her viewers. This makes each viewer interpret it to how their own negativity shows and how it might resonate with them.

For this artwork of Tanyas, I focused more on how she drew the outfit. Even though you can only see a glimpse of it, it reminds me of a ballerina outfit. The pink, the design, and the little fur parts too. The pink colour typically reminds me of traditional ballerina clothing colour. The little swirls also remind me of a design that could be on a ballerina outfit.

For these 2 art pieces, I just wanted to see what else Tanya has to offer with her artwork. The first image of Tanya’s work shows how maybe the girl is finally trying to escape the portrait just like the canvas artwork of hers that was holding her back but this time she finally reaches out and breaks the glass that held her in the picture frame. I like the tiny details of the glass and liked how the viewers can interpret it in many ways like is she escaping from being trapped or is something chasing her? It puts many questions into your mind but I like how the glass looks can be viewed in many ways. I don’t exactly know what she’s made it out of but it might be resin or something completely different but she doesn’t state what she uses. For the black substance, it looks like blood but in a black version. Has she made it like that because she doesn’t want to paint blood or is it because of another reason? In my vision, it looks like it’s black gloop, and how she’s drowning in her picture frame and climbing out so she can finally breathe and escape from the black gloop from holding her down by trying to consume her whole. In the left-hand image, she made a video of her destroying her art then placing the pieces back into the frame and covering it in resin. She doesn’t explain why she does this process to most of her artwork but it might be because she’s shattering her image of herself and her outer shell is cracking and slowly revealing itself to everyone showing she can’t keep up with hiding anymore. This links to identity in a way. I like how identity is a big part in all of the things I have talked about so far. I might focus on it more for my final project as it links in well and it’s an ongoing theme that appears a lot.

For this artwork of Tanya’s, I like how she made 2 picture frames for the corner of the room and had the hands/arms crossing over to the other canvas. This shows how she experiments with many ideas and each idea is different than before showing how she’s not afraid to go out of her comfort zone. There isn’t much I want to say about this art piece except how innovative her ideas are however there’s a clear theme of the girl looking down or looking defeated.

For this particular art piece, it seems Tanya has literally invested herself in this as the locks on the girls are Tanya’s hair. She cut her hair and stuck it onto the painting which to me is shocking. I don’t initially know what this art piece means to her but this shows that this artwork has significant meaning to her. I like how her ideas even involve a part of herself more than her mind but psychically involves a part of her.

Here is the last image I’m analysing. I like how she has put actual string around the girl’s arm showing she is trapped. I noticed the slight shift of colour from her hand that’s painted on the canvas and the sculpture of her hand. It’s as if, because the string is choking her arm, it’s taken the blood from her hand making it slowly turn purple. I like the little detail she adds here it really shows how she feels trapped in her mind or she is strangling herself for her mistakes or for something much deeper.

Ballet Talk

Here is where I finalize my idea of wanting to do my project about Ballet.

Links where I got my information from: Rudolf Nureyev summary (no date) Encyclopædia Britannica. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/summary/Rudolf-Nureyev-Russian-dancer (Accessed: 20 May 2024).

Steezy blog (no date) STEEZY Blog. Available at: https://www.steezy.co/blog (Accessed: 20 May 2024).

Ballerina Moodboard

I finally decided to go with my ballerina concept and searched for loads of images to influence my ideas. I tried gaining ideas from different images however no initial idea has crept in yet. I think I want to focus on the posing of ballerinas as the main thing about ballet is movement with their bodies. I’ll further research and develop my ideas.

Ballerina Sketching

Here I have found different images on Pinterest and just drew 6 different drawings to try and gain ideas for what I want to do for my final piece. I tried doing different poses and used various mediums for all of them. For the sketch in the top left corner, I simply used a pencil to sketch it out. Next to that drawing, I used a black pencil. For the drawing underneath I used chalk just like the reference image did. I smudged it with a Q tip to create the movement effect as if a camera is taking a picture of them and their movement is slightly blurred. Underneath that drawing in the bottom right corner, I used a pencil and the Q tip (which the chalk took off the paper from the previous drawing) using it to create shadows on the figure. In the middle drawing, I used the pen to mix and match with the different art mediums. It turned out well in my opinion however due to using the hairspray for the chalk and forgetting it would smudge the pen, it smudged it a little and in the end, a little part of the side of the dress got smudged in the process. The final drawing I did was in the left bottom corner. For that drawing, I used black watercolour for the tutu and used the same Q tip smudging the chalk all over her body. I then outlined the drawing in pen however here I also forgot that hairspray would make it smudge and in the end, the ink bled it but In my defense, it gave a cool effect. After I did that specific drawing, I added gold accents like the reference did. I decided to add those chalk spheres to add colour and to contrast with the drawing giving the background a cool effect. In my opinion, I liked all the drawings however I didn’t like the left bottom drawing I did. I thought the proportions of her face and body looked weird however I like how I combined 3 art mediums together and liked how that turned out. Next time I’ll make sure to remember not to use hairspray later and use it only when its not near the pen lines.

Week 1 Overview

For week 1 I like how much research I have done and how I focused on Tanya Gomelskaya which I will use as one of my main artists if I figure out what I’m doing for my final piece. The reason I’m using Tanya Gomelskaya for my main artist is because of her innovative ideas and how I want to create a 3D piece that creates emotions and can be interpreted in many ways from the viewer’s eye point. Next week I might do more drawings or research about ballerinas. I would like to gather primary research but I don’t know who I would contact about ballet and if I should book a play to go see to experience ballet in action myself. I’ll further develop my ideas next week and maybe do a workshop.