We had to bring in a selection of photographs and manipulate them in some way to recreate another image. We could rip, tear, cut or fold. We were tackling the meaning of Realism and what it means.

I selected a variety of photographs as listed by the brief, bottles of vermouth, a Man Ray mask photograph, scenes from 'A Space Odyssey', a selfie picture of my family and more.

I started with photographs of bottles of Vermouth that were crisp images against a white backdrop.  I folded the paper so that you could still read the labels, but the bottles became shorter. 

I really liked how by folding the paper it would add another dimension to the bottles and added character.  I'm not sure if this is because it made it different from the norm, or as it actually did look more interesting due to it's unevenness. When painting the bottles I used water colours, as I wanted to keep the image light and relaxed. I even experimented with painting with the drink itself, by using Campari and Aperol both of which worked surprisingly well. Both these drinks are a pale pink colour, and looked quite similar to a water colour paint when applied.

I liked that my paintings were in total contrast to the initial image, the photograph of the bottles was very crisp and stark, where as my paintings where far from crisp and felt light also somewhat clumsy, but I liked this.

I particularly liked this photograph of Bronislava Nijinska by Man Ray, using a paint pen I drew it onto a piece of wood I had found.

On dissecting the image while drawing it, I realised that the white make-up when isolated was actually another face, or a monster face. I am not sure if this was intentional or not by Man Ray

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This cut out white face, has a slight similarity to a sinister Homer Simpson.

I thought this face would make a great stencil, but had forgotten that stencils are not that straight forward, however, with determination I got there.

While working on the abstract project I have been working with Photoshop and Illustrator, both mediums I have worked with before, but this time with a new approach.  Using photographs that I have taken and images found on the Internet, I have drawn over selected pieces of the photographs and filled with colour.  I have really enjoyed doing this, as the photographs have enabled me to add perspective, which is something I struggle with when it comes to drawing free hand.  However, the final pieces are not photographic copies, but the photographs have given me direction, which is helpful. I have two final pieces, one is from the Stanley Kubrick’s’ film A Space Odyssey, and the other is a selfie that my dad took of my family.

I started with 'A Space Odyssey' image of a close-up of one of the astronauts face, he is wearing his astronauts’ helmet and there is a lot of reflection on his visa from the lights on the spacecraft.  Using this image with Photoshop I replicated just the reflection of light and made the rest of the background black. I also added in a few lines that marked the helmet, as I thought this added to the final image.

I liked the outcome as the majority of the image is black, yet there are strips of light that form soft curves (due to the curve in the visa of the helmet) and these sit comfortably on the page.  It has a slightly eerie feel, and unless you know the film 'A Space Odyssey' particularly well, I don't think you would be able to link the two.

The photograph is my dads family selfie taken with his iPhone using a concave mirror at an airport in Gothenburg, Sweden.

For this image, I used Illustrator and with the lasso tool selected around each of my family including some details such as my dads iPhone and my mums bag.  Using the eyedropper to select the colours I filled in the selected shape.  I continued to select other people that were around us, but not wanting to select all the people, as I wanted the image to form a curve to enhance the perspective that the concave mirror had created.

Removing the photograph from the image, I was left with blocks of colour that were on the verge of abstract.  I liked the effect because by using the eyedropper the colours that were produced, are probably more varied than if I had painted it. 

While doing my research I have discovered that a lot of artist use aluminium to paint on, Ellsworth Kelly, Gerhard Richter, Gary Hume, Michele Abeles for example.  I think I should try and paint my family selfie on a piece of aluminium, but not paint the surface, keep this as aluminium, so that it gives the impression of the concave mirror that the initial photograph was on.

For this piece of work, I got inspiration from Adrian Ghenie’s collage of Van Goughs’ face.  His collages have so much impact and seem to replicate how he paints. Blocks of colours, layers and textures, and abstract but figurative enough to see that it is a face.

This gave me the idea to add collage faces to the paper bag, I know collages with facial features is not a new thing, but found Adrian Ghenie’s to be so powerful, that I wanted to do my own interpretation and stick it onto paper bags. I liked the idea of using paper bags, as I have used these in a couple of other projects and a paper bag when worn by someone, becomes a mask and this adds even more to the final outcome.

Instead of using faces from magazines I went through all the portraits I had taken and printed a selection with the faces blown up to A4 and A3. 

I did two versions.  One was where I cut out the features in blocks, and layered these onto each other.  I also added in a few isolated black blocks, at the bottom of the face, otherwise there would have been too much flesh colour and I don't think this would have worked so well.  I think this also showed more clearly that the cutouts where straight edged.

For the second version I cut out the shapes around the features with curved edges, and again stuck them down in layers. This looked much softer but slightly more bizarre.  

I liked the Man Ray, Andre Breton portrait so much that I wanted to recreate it.  I liked how quite a serious looking portrait was made to look so random. Andre Breton smartly dressed was sitting in a chair with goggles and a rectangle piece of card around his head.

I took photographs of my brother with different shaped card around his head, a square, a circle and a triangle, and each shape was a different tone- grey, black and white.  My final photographs were to be in black and white and by using the black, grey and white card the shapes would be tonally different from each-other.