This semester began with a group tutorial on Monday. We did an automatic writing exercise, which I found quite challenging as typically my go-to is drawing, however I did manage to get some good words down to help progress my initial project ideas. Afterwards we filled in the sheet seen below, outlining some of the themes, techniques, ideas and artists we hope to investigate and be inspired by this semester. I chose to think about the history and development of tattooing as an art practice and then noted down some tattoo artists I admire, along with just another artist who’s work I think it beautiful.
In Tuesdays workshop we paired up and partook in some timed blind drawing. Kat and I drew each other and I think, all things considered, they turned out okay… pretty scary though. Afterwards, we wrote down what we think our personal skills are in regards to creative ideation, research and practice. I wrote things like my use of mind-maps in planning, my interest and practice of taxidermy and also my use of resources like Pinterest to aid my research. Each of us then used orange string to connect our names to what skills that other people in the class have that we aspire to develop to help in our own projects this semester. This made me think about other ways that I can help myself over the next few weeks to develop an original and impressive project concept that I can carry through the next ten weeks.
Research
The theme for this semester is ‘Site Specific Project: Sound’. I want to investigate the art of Tattooing, as that is the career I want to progress into and so I want to use my work within university to build my understanding and critique of the practice, its history and its development into its current form as an industry in the mainstream. I have been reading through multiple books related to tattooing that I bought to start off my research to gain an understanding of the art forms origins but also the most commonly tattooed icons and the meaning (or meanings) associated with them.
After reading the book ‘Tattoo Meanings and Tattoo Design Symbolism’ by Grahame David Garlick, I decided the simplest starting point for me would be to just begin drawing up some of the most popular tattoo designs. I chose some that interested me, either because I know someone who actually has one of them tattooed or because the meaning behind the icon stood out to me. The designs are unfinished at the moment but I will be completing each one and adding more to expand my portfolio.
