Exercise 5.2 

Making connections 


I returned to my sketchbook pages to find material that I could recycle, collage, collect for this exercise. 

My tutor in feedback suggested I sketch people as much as I could moving forward. So I return to the existing sketchbook pages I have of people moving on a street. As rapid sketches, I am pleased with how they look, however looking at them again they do appear isolated. Perhaps through collage I could make efforts to place the figures somewhere interesting. 





I decided to start by photocopying the sketchbook pages so I have a number of sheets to work with. I then put the figures to one side and returned to my sketchbooks to find further material. 

This was a teabag experiment of Big Ben. At the time I decided it was unsuccessful. However I am drawn to the colour and scale of this drawing.  The marks are loose yet distinguishable. The teabag did fill a space very quickly. 


I loved the magic of my tour around my local town, collecting information on the street with a tube of Payne's Grey watercolour. Again, returning to the pages now, the elements I drew are all very separate, and again isolated so perhaps I could populate the area with people? 


In contrast, colour watercolour reportage sketches taken on location. 





Connections: 

Scamper references used to create the following 3 collages: Combine,  adapt, modify. 

1. Here I cut up and collaged together elements of the pages to create the appearance of a street. I placed the tree in the background, a stone wall and a postbox together to create a believable scene. 

I increased the scale of the brick wall and the post box to fit believably into the street. 

I then cut up my figures and thought about where to place them within the scene. 

I modified the colour of two of the figures. Originally grey, I changed them on the copier to pink to add interest, to create a new appearance. They worked well in this colour, they look completely different. So I then added a strip of pink to the brick work of the building to compliment the figures walking by. 

The colour of the figures in the foreground remain unchanged. 

I thought about how to place them so that they genuinely appear to be going about their business. 


2. Here I photocopied the figures I collected multiple times. I cut all of the figures individually and clustered them together on the page. I wanted to give the appearance of a crowd of people in London. I thought about the placement of the figures as I wanted them to appear as if they would within the hustle and bustle of a real street, all heading the same way. I wanted to give the impression of movement. As the drawings themselves were quick sketches with a black line the gestural drawings do appear loose and busy. 

I copied a number of the figures in colour and a number modified to back and white. This was an experiment essentially, however I also wanted to the figures to appear different to the viewer, even though I was using the same figures to create the crowd. 


3.  In contrast to the colour collages above. This collage is black and white. I took the isolated Time shop on the corner and again created a street scene. This time I photocopied all of the figure in black and white for continuity and placed them within the scene. Again, I tried to create realistic and believable placement, with the intention of creating movement with the gestural drawings. 


Murat Akyol 

Turkish Art Director and Visual Designer. Akyol uses photography to interpret this dreams on the page. 

His work is inventive and so unique. His work appears just like collage in parts, elements pieced together to produce emotive pieces that connect with the viewer. 

They have a similar emotion as the painted work Illustrator Alice Wellinger. Both Akyol and Wellinger use the human figure and an expanse of thought to communicate the complexity and enormity of human emotions. 

Akyol has given me further inspiration of how to work with collage. I love the idea of emotions and imagination bursting though a ripped piece of paper, with a new scene behind that paper. 

Like Wellinger, Akyol paints thoughts spilling out of the mind, if I progress with working with people of assignment five, this is also something I would like to give some thought too. 




Reflections: 

A  really inventive way of taking pieces of collected reportage drawings and creating something entirely new. A way of bringing isolated sketches together to form imaginative connections. 

It inspires me to remember that even if a sketch appears unsuccessful or boring on its own within the sketchbook, new ideas and an innovative approach can make better use of the sketch, exactly what has occurred with the teabag mark making of Big Ben and in fact now I look at sketch 2 in this series as one of my most successful sketches!

Working with people is important to my progress. I am really happy with the crowd that I was able to create by photocopying the existing figures I had within my sketchbooks. 

Photocopying the figures in black and white as well as colour did make the people look different on the page, even though the same figure had been multiplied. This was a resourceful way of creating more out of very little. 

I considered the placement of each figure to give the impression of a busy space, of movement and of the hustle of the daytime. I feel that the collage to reflect this most strongly is collage 2. The hustle of people with Big Ben in the background just feels so exciting. 

To progress the collages further there is opportunity to add to the landscape, block of colour, additional street landmarks. 

The scamper references directed me forward with clear instruction to combine, adapt and modify. 

Reference: 

Murat, A Saatchi Art https://www.saatchiart.com/xmuratakyol


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