Project proposal: BA Final year:

An exploration of the natural world:

For this project I wish to explore the beauty and intricacies of the natural world around me. I have always been fascinated by nature and the way in which it is beautiful and powerful but often overlooked by most. Within my own art practice I find myself gravitating towards natural themes and colours, often using a combination of greens, blues and earthy tones to create bodies of work. As well as using photography as a way to document my hikes, and journey through the world around me. For my final piece last year I created three digital collages representing my journey from sickness to health, and the work I had to put in to make that happen. They displayed positive affirmations overlapped with scenic views photographed on hikes that I was healthy enough to do again. For this project I would like explore the power of the natural world and my place within it. I would like to touch on themes of spirituality, mystery, folklore and magic and the impact that these things have had on our views of the natural world. I wish to explore how our ancestors treated and lived within nature compared to how it's treated today. 

For my primary research I have already conducted photography documentation of the Attenborough Nature Reserve. I plan to go to skylarks nature reserve on the 20th of October, I will be going down to Devon on the 23rd which will provide me with many countryside and coastal hikes to document, I plan to do the Castleton Speedwell mine boat tour on the 3rd of November and I will be using a previous caving trip down 'Gaping Gill' in the Yorkshire Dales within my primary research. during these trips I will be sure to take photos, videos, collects items, record sounds, create line drawings, take chalk rubbings of different textures and make a note of my thoughts and observations. 

For some initial artists to explore I would like to look at some National Geographic photographers such as Carsten Peter who has a vast portfolio of cave, glacier, tornado and volcano photography. Erika Larsen who's works focuses on human interaction with the natural world and Paul Nicklen who has an extensive body of photography from all over the world, focusing on landscapes and animals. I will look at some painters such as Wilhelmina Barnes Graham, an abstract painter with many coastal paintings, Joseph Wright of Derby and dora Cannington. Performance and sculptural artists such as Richard Long and Andy Goldsworthy. I would like to look at these artists because they all seem to show a focus on the natural world, they explore light, space, duration and form and manage to capture the beauty and power of the world around them. I will be sure to keep an updated blog post containing the bibliography for all of my research.

In terms of skills, materials and areas that I would like to explore. This would be mainly photography, cyanotypes, printing, oil painting and collage. I would like to expand on the skill set that I already have and push them further, such as creating cyanotypes on different materials like fabrics, wood and tile. I would like to improve my editing and photoshop skills when developing my photography and delve back into Lino printing, and experiment the various materials I could effectively print onto. I would really like to push myself during this project in improving my skills with more traditional processes such as drawing and painting, I will strive to learn more about colour theory and experiment colours and techniques. 

I have already begun my project with photography, I have taken multiple photos documenting my walk around the Attenborough nature reserve and have already created my first oil painting using one of the images as a reference. I will continue to visit nature reserves and create line drawings of my observations, as well as creating and exploring more oil painting. I wish to create collages using my images as a reference and possible print on top of them. I will make use of the print room to explore Lino printing and screen printing, and the dark room to explore film photography and cyanotypes. I would love to combine my Lino prints with my other work such as printing on top of cyanotypes and oil paintings. 

For a timeline I will use the first half term for research and small, basic experiments and use this time to figure out the colour scheme and aesthetic of my project. Utilising Mondays for trips and visits. after the half term break I will begin to experiment in more depth with different processes and materials, and I will use January to finish my body of work and complete my final evaluation of the entire project. To gather feedback I will hold peer review sessions with my course mates and also have one on one tutorials to collect options and thoughts on my project and development, I will compare them with my own thoughts and feelings and use this to reflect on my project as a whole. 

AI will not be playing a role in my project, I want my project to focus on the power of nature and how we can learn to respect the work around us again as a society and I believe that using Ai would be hypocritical and unethical due to the environmental imp that it is currently having. 

So far I have been creating about one or two sketchbook pages every other day, as I find experimenting outside of my sketchbook more convenient with it almost entirely being visual. I plan to increase this to two pages a day and increasing the written element to make it more balances between visual and written, and I will be uploading them onto my blog weekly.