On my travels (Llanharan and Llantrisant)

On the weekend I visited Llantrisant and Llanharan to take some photos and gather inspiration from my local area. I found the local churches which I really loved and some landmarks from that area.

3D Postcards

I have started looking into 3D for my postcards. I really liked working with clay and working in relief, so I decided to try the same ideas with paper. I have been looking at decoupage. I started drawing, cutting and layering images on to the postcards.

Here I took a photograph of a magpie perched on top of my washing line at home. I wanted to emphasise the height and balance this bird has to I decided to paint a white acrylic background onto the postcard, then painted and carefully cut out the magpie. Using silicone sealant I created a layer of the glue and lightly floated the cut out on top. I then left the sealant to dry for a night. I think this process has worked very well. 

I started working with photographs and newspaper. I also scratched into the surface of the photograph which created white marks, so I decided to trace around the prominent features of what I saw. 

Here is a drawing of the statue from Llantrisant's 'Bull Ring'. For this I used a fine liner and water to spread the ink. I really like this outcome I like how the drawing looks like it has depth and texture.

Next I tried 3D with some photographs I took from Cardiff. I layered the images and made them look like they had depth and was apart of the whole photograph.

I really enjoyed working with 3D and I will carry on experimenting with adding layers and creating depth. 

One of my favourite photographs

I took this photograph in a church near Ystradowen and I simply love this photograph. I love the roughness of the image like the mixture of texture from the rough bark to the stone walls to the smooth headstones. The image just fits its split into three from in the background centre and in the fore ground. and they all come together really nicely. Personally I think it looks like an evolution from nature to the man made grave stones with the rough wall in between. It's simply beautiful. Bellow I have attempted a version of the image using different papers to show the use of different materials and watercolours to pick the colour in the trees and grass. 

Old abandoned houses in my village.

I found these old abandoned houses near where I live and they are beautiful. I love the crumbling features and the boarded up  windows give it an eerie feel to it. I used water colours for my postcard to capture the blocks of colours in the bricks. For the boarded up window I used oil pastels. I first coloured the window with grey then used black to cover the grey and using a wire I scratched into the surface to reveal the grey and to make the window seem like the paint was pealing off. I think it worked very well.

Trip to Cardiff Museum

Me and Kirsty decided to take a trip to Cardiff museum on Easter half term. We went around the museum and afterwards I bought some postcards of the Cardiff area. I decided to take some photos around Cardiff area for some postcards ideas I really loved the Cardiff skyline because of all the shapes look very busy. I also looked closely at the architecture on the buildings around Cardiff like in the image bellow I focused in on an archway.

I took a postcard of Castle Coch and used inspiration to create a mixed media piece using paints, pens and newspaper. I also cut out a skyline from my train ticket on that day.

Clay Relief Postcards

Yesterday I took advantage of the ceramic studio and began to create a clay postcard. I used one of my photographs as my inspiration. The photograph was of a church near Cowbridge. I rolled out a clay panel and took some extra clay and I began to build up from the panel and I added some texture using some of the clay tools. I wanted the most prominent thing to be the brick wall so using some clay squares I elevated the brick wall section higher. I have no left the clay to dry out ready for the kiln. I will make some samples for glazes and oxides next to test out what I could use for my final samples. This is one of three for my FMP I hope to make a triptych. 

Postcards in the making

I began to start making some postcards from my area using mixed media, materials and processes. Some are incomplete but its good to show my progression to what will be the final things. I used photographs and began adding different materials such as newspaper, card and fabrics on top. 

Here I just used pencils to create the arch way on a building in Cardiff. I like that contrast of simplistic images and quite busy postcards.