Red painting

I created this piece from one of my edited images and although it is just a copy i believe that the meaning remains the same. i wanted to use it as a final piece because I think that the meaning of the images is very strongly related to my subject.

Pastel perfecting.

I decided to work with Pastel some more after researching Chuck Hodi and attempt to create another piece inspired by his work as i think my forst attempt failed. The two large businessmen characters i created in the style of Hodi's characters and are a representation of society trying to control the puppet. The puppet of course being a literal representation of youths with body modifications. I created this piece totally from imagination without using any of my primary images because i think that working from imagination is a better way to work for me because my pieces always turn out better when working completely from imagination. I like this piece because i think it has a lot of meaning behind it and because it is more creative than any of my other pieces. I think it could possibly be improved by using acrylic or coloured pencils but it would be hard to say if it would be a definate improvement.

Jenny Saville and Chuck Hodi.

After i researched both artists i thought that both styles of work might mix well in one piece of work. For this piece i used a pallete knife and acrylic paint to build up a lot of layers to one piece. I used Chuck Hodi's work to inspire the shape of the face, the style of Jenny Saville for the way of applying the paint and partly my own style to finish the picture. I Dont like this piece because of the hairline. As i didnt use a picture to get the shape of the face correct and did it all from my own knowledge of the human face the forehead was origionally far too small so i was forced to add a long fringe which falls infront of the face. I do like the effect that was creates by using the pallet knife however this piece dosent really fit in with the rest of my work as it was an experimental piece and has no message in relation to body modification behind it.

Jenny Saville

I also decided to research Jenny Saville because i think that her work mirrors the 'blurred' style i was aiming for in my work. I like her work because of the thick brush strokes that make up the images rather than a proper blended painting. I think that it looks better with the dark images she was working with and the way you cant quite tell if the people in the images are bruised and injured or if it is just the work which leaves it largely open to interpretation. I created the image to the right to try and recreate the style of Jenny Saville's. I like this piece very much because i think i have got the technique right to copy the style of Saville's. The only problem i have with this piece is that my brush strokes are a kot smaller and closer together than saville's but i think i prefer the effect created by mine.

Chuck Hodi

I decided to research a less well known artist called Chuck Hodi for my work because all of his work is done with pastel and ink which i find easy to work with and also because i find his style could be used in my work effectively. I think that as his style makes the characters in his work look distorted and ugly it would be good to use in my work as a personification of societies views. I tried to recreate some of his work from the image below however i Dont think that this was very effective as i think that i would need to practice using that style of drawing a lot more to make it look right. I think that the pastel lines i used were too thick to be compared to Hodi's and that maybe pencil crayons would be more effective to recreate his work on a smaller scale. I also think that the copy i produced looks too messy and everything was done in the wrong order. I used the ink first and layered the pastel on top which i should have done the other way around and for the ink i used the blunt end of a paintbrush when it probably would have been better with a fineliner pen.

A collection of my favourite images so far.

Edited images

I chose a small selecton of my primary reseaech images to edit. At this point i was mostly just experimenting with photo editing however i found a lot of effects i am really happy with to use in my work. I espeically like the 3D effect and the scratchy effect with the red overlay. I did these images on my mobile phone and was not expecting to have such a good outcome. I like the scratchy effect because i find that it makes the images look eerie and scary which i find could be used to represent the way people act intimidated by people with body modifications as though we are 'monsters' from a horror movie in extreme cases. I also like the 3D effect because i think it shows the way society sees people with body modifications as 'blurred' and not quite right. I think that the way you need 3D glasses to see the image properly is parallel to the way that society needs a proper state of mind to see us properly. As much as this may not make sense to other people it comes from personal experience and may be easier for people who have been subject to similar experiences to empathise with.

The mouth

<p>I created this piece to experimet with my own style. Firstly i draw the piece in fineliner pen and then used watered down acrylic paint for the colour. I really like the way the fineliner ran into the acrylic and the way that using paler colours make it easier to build the colour up so that it dosent blend. I decided to change the meaning of my work for this piece in particular because i wanted to show a contrast from prejudice against piercing to showing what i think is good and appealing about piercing. I based my work around an image i found online, i really like this image but it was almost impossible to find the artist of the image as i found it from a blogging website. I also changed the image and incorporated my own piercings to the picture to add a personal touch (images of origional picture and my piercings)</p>

Featureless Faces.

These two pieces of work are probably some of my favourite pieces. I created them from the primary image below and my intention was to make them completely featureless. At first i intended to highlight them with the words 'no face, no soul, just piercings and tattoos' which sums up the work quite well. I wanted to show how i think society refuses to look past tattoos and piercings at the actual person underneath amd created the images as a way of showing how i think society sees people like me. For the coloured piece i used acrylic paint and paonted with my hands as an alternative to a paintbrush because i wanted the work to look imperfect again as a way of showing how society views people with body modifications. I also used unnatural colours as a way of showing how we are 'not normal'. I am very proud of this piece because of the ways that the colours work together and just the way it looks in general i think is very effective.
The second piece is done with ink and water. It is the same principle as the one opposite it however i decided to experiment with different materials to create the same effect. Overall i prefer the coloured one because i think it has more depth to it.

Identities hidden by Stereotypes

I created this piece by spraying fixitive on my hands and printing it onto tracting paper and using ink to decorate over the top and around the hands afterwards. I like the effect the fixitive prints make as it makes the hands look ghostly and as the hands are the representation of the identities i think this works well. I have drawn over the hands in ink to contrast the darkness of the shapes over the white and grey of the hands and the background to make the tattoos on the hands look more prominent so that the attention is drawn to them rather than the hands as is the case in real life. I used the words 'identities hidden by stereotypes' just to highlight the issue i am trying to get across with this piece of work. I like this piece because i think that the idea of the hands being ghostly and representing identities is true to life and means a lot and since it was my first experimentation with fixative on tracing paper i think it was very successful however i was not expecting the ink on the hands to dry so blue and i now know i should have used a darker ink to improve it. I also think it could be improved with better tattoo designs on the hands.

Our Free Time

OI created these pieces of work to highlight common stereotypes that are used about people with body modifications. The first piece of work i did to show how people with Body Modifications are sometimes mistreated in public. I have created this purely from personal experience. I used the technique of scratching in to photographic paper again as a border to the image. I used this image which was origionally intended for my research because i think that the way it looks like the mouth is screaming highlights the whole piece of work and symbolises the way i feel when people act this way towards me. I like this piece because of how personal it is and i think the printed background works well with the scratched photographic paper. I think it could be improved with using a picture of my own piercings in a way but may not look as authentic and it might look a little fake.
I created the other two pieces to show stereotypes regarding what people think modified people do in their spare time. There is a huge misconception that people with piercings and tattoos are part of cults or practice witchcraft, although i think this is an outdated view i still think it is important to show it in my work because it is a very large stigma attached to people like me and is, in the case of me and my friends, far from true. This is why i created the ouija board. For the piece on the right i used an ink pad to create a background as i think it creates a very grungy effect and for the ouija board background i used ink and bleach to create a dirty wood effect. I do not like the piece on the left because i think it is missing another piece of imagery. I think there is too much background showing and although it could be easily fixed i Dont think that anything else would be fitting to put there. I like the ouija board piece because it was my first attempt at experimenting with ink and bleach and i think it worked very well. I think for it to be improved i should have either made it on only one page or found a way to make ot morw spread out and fill up more of the page. For the ouija board i also created my own lino tile for the design in the middle. I got my inspiration from a design on a ouija board in my local piercing studio which i was not allowed to photograph amd created my own based on it.

Useful links:
I used this article to look at common misconceptions of people with body modifications and to get another persons view on it.
http://m.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/01/myths-about-tattoos?cat=commentisfree&type=article