African collage moodboard A2

The brief that I chose to do for my current A2 project is to create an outfit for Rihanna to wear at a music festival to celebrate music from all around the world coming together. With this in mind, I decided that one of the cultures I would base my outfit on would be African culture as it has a heavy influence on today's fashion. I researched into colours, symbols and themes to inspire me and created this mood-board.

Indian Moodboard for A2

Here is a moodboard based around Indian Culture. India is another part of the world that has made its mark on today's fashion and so I wanted to find out a bit more about the culture, specifically patterns, colours and symbols that would inspire my designs.

Initial design Ideas, A2 coursework

These are two initial design ideas based around the theme Indian, African and Western culture. I've organised my designs around the page along with samples of construction and decoration techniques.

Spring/ Summer 2012 Designs

I created four designs for the Spring/ Summer season of 2012. I had to research into popular current trends aswell as styles that were predicted to be popular in 2012 from trend forecasting websites. I then collected images and presented them onto a moodboard to summarise key trends for the Spring and Summer, this gave me inspiration for my designs.

Final design idea for first AS project

This is my final design for a dress to fit the theme of 19th century festivals. The research I conducted through an inspiration moodboard aswell as an existing products moodboard gave me the inspiration for this dress. I particularly liked elements of bohemian styled festival wear such as jewel tones and chunky beading and applied this to my garment in a more quirky way.

AS second project initial designs

My brief for this AS level project was to produce a bag based around the theme of the 1960's and take inspiration from Mary Quant who was most popular during that era. I produced several moodboards on this theme and took certain elements (such as pop art, paisley, jazz posters) and applied them to my designs.

Barbie 'livin the dream' AS Art coursework

For this piece I used acrylic paint on a large canvas. The idea behind this composition was about portraying the realistic, slightly morbid side of 'barbie''s life. I was interested in the way barbies are represented through the media and how this could have a negative effect on how young girls expect themselves and the world to be when they grow up. Typically Barbie is an extremely skinny woman with a perfect body, features and make- believe life style but I've twisted this perfect persona and presented barbie in a situation where Ken is a drunk and she is crying in the foreground, pressed up against the packaging of her box, wanting to get out. I wanted to address real issues with this idea and raise awareness of them, showing the opposite to unrealistic stereotypes.

Pencil Drawing of a friend, A2 Art coursework

To practice my drawing skills I did a pencil copy of a photo I took of my friend. I'd been looking at some work by Marion Bologensi which included faces showing a specific emotion and so I wanted to take some photos of my own, concentrating on showing different emotions through the facial features.

A2 Art coursework

I did a watercolour study of a face by Marion Bologensi. Originally Bologensi's version is in pastel shades and has quite a content look, but I did this one in just grey tones to completely change the meaning, creating a more solemn, dismal appearance in the face. It really reminds me of the civil rights movement, perhaps because of the powerful, determined look in the eyes yet the sorrow and the tears falling down the face.

'Peace, love and destruction' GCSE coursework

A mixed media composition submitted for my GCSE coursework. I started off my coursework by looking at 50's and 60's art. Pop art pieces by Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol appealed to me because of the catroon-like style and the use of bold colours. I was also drawn to images from the hippy era, and especially the phrase of 'love not war' which I think is an important message to spread. I tried to represent this idea of love and good-will overcoming war and destruction in this final piece. It features a hippy girl in the foreground, painted in a pop art style, with images of war and negativity in the background. She is shown to be spreading the love, with flowers and birds rising around her.

Cultural Diversity AS Art piece

I produced this mono-print piece as part of my AS level final piece. My chosen theme was cultural identity, and this theme really appealed to me as I thought I could draw on my own cultural identity- being mixed race, part African and part British.

I really wanted to explore how these seperate cultures are represented and what defines them so I focused on traditional patterns, clothing, symbols, facial features and hairstyles. I was inspired by the simplistic style of African American artist Mary Burroughs' work, as it looks very traditionally African. I applied a similar style to my own work. The piece features myself in the middle, next to two friends either side who are both white british. I wanted to bring both cultures together to show their contrasts but also to show how they combine in harmony and convey the message that everybody is equal, no matter their race.

Life Drawing

I went to three life drawing classes that were held once a week and produced this final A1 sized composition using chalk pastels. I really wanted to emphasise the light and shade by using complimentary colours. I found the sessions really useful and really learnt how to draw the proportions of the human figure, I've applied these skills to my Textiles work.