Síofra Bonne

I found the life drawing workshop super useful for practice and simplifying forms. We did multiple sets of 10 30second gesture drawings then did blind drawing and two 5 minute drawings. We also used our non dominant hands and did another 5 minute piece with that hand then a final 10 minute piece to finish it up.

Project Statement

At first I bounced back and forth between a few different themes. I focused on grief and moving on for a brief moment before eventually landing on optical illusions then hallucinations. I wanted to explore how vision is not always accurate and how objects are often warped and even moving when theyre not supposed to. I was looking at how I feel as if i’m always in a dream and everything I see has a life of its own according to my eyes.

Annihilatia

I’ve been following this artist for a while and their art is always appealing to me. They use many different mediums and there’s something different I like about each one. In these pieces i chose there’s an almost ghostly unreal feeling to them like they’re representing a mindset more than an image. I want my work to feel similar in the sense that it’s not tied down to pure traditional still life. These pieces also have a sense of “is this real?” like what I’m showing with my project.

Yohei Yama

I discovered this artist by chance and he immediately caught my eye. His use of lines to create a feeling of movement fits in well with my theme and the vibrant yet tasteful colours are something I want to achieve.

I used paintings from my sketchbook to create a big painting with acrylic paint of my own face but in a fish eye lens.

I was planning on making it trippy with lots of vibrant colours and sequins to go with my theme of optical illusions but in the end I decided on just adding little mirrors to the eyes to create an unnerving feeling from seeing yourself in the portrait.

I also wanted to only use one colour to make it look more surreal.

Elke Sada

During the ceramics workshop I was introduced to the artist Elke Sada. She was immediately inspiring to me with her blend between painting and everyday objects like bowls and vases.

I look to music for inspiration in most of my work and I found that this song, ‘Sleepwalking’ by Bring Me The Horizon’ really helped me find my footing with this project. The lyrics are very visual and, although most likely not about optical illusions or hallucinations, describe hallucinations and the feeling of sleepwalking through life which i think is what I want to invoke with my project in a more casual way.

“Your eyes are swallowing me

Mirrors start to whisper, shadows start to sing

My skin's smothering me

Help me find a way to breathe

Time stood still the way it did before

I had bought modeling clay and wanted to create something with it. It was much harder to shape and keep smooth than with regular clay. I took an idea from my sketchbook for this piece. I wanted to create a representation of what it looks like to see everything moving and breathing so I pushed some parts of the pot wall in and some out to create the wobbly look. I also used the push pot technique that I learned in my first ceramics workshop to create this bowl.

ceramic surface treatment

During this workshop i learned different techniques for applying 2D designs onto clay tile surfaces. The visual I wanted to achieve was inspired by optical illusions and visual hallucinations.

I learned how to do paper resist to apply coloured slip/glaze onto the clay. I had to wait a bit for the slip to dry slightly so it could be applied but it couldn’t be too dry. I used different applicators to achieve different lines and shapes.