Elise Bason Final Major

The main influence for this project is my own Scoliosis surgery so I decided that bones (specifically the spine and ribcage) would be the main focus of my piece. I also drew inspiration from the works of Leonardo Da Vinci as I am very inspired by the intricacy of his anatomical studies and that his subjects are similar to that of which I would like to incorporate within my final major illustration and sculpture. Due to the quarantine, I am unable to conduct any trips or visits because of closures at this time. However I am influenced by previous trips and visits such as the Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition and the Natural History Museum in which I was able to study fossilised bones from life. The sculptural works of George Segal have inspired me in particular as they are presented within an environment, in which I would like to further research within this project.   The title of my project is “Orthopaedic Cage”. I will work towards producing a large scale spine and ribcage scu...

Due to being unable to present my final major piece in the studio as I had first planned, I have suspended the piece in front of a wooden surface. I felt that the worn textures of the wooden boards alongside the brown tones compliment the tones of the spine sculpture whilst contrasting the illustration piece. Although this environment was not in my original plan, I feel that this environment is very successful as it is more interesting for the viewer compared to the large white toned negative space that I had previously chosen and creates an aged mood similar to that of the fossilised bones that I have studied. I feel that my final major piece highlights the personal links to my spinal surgery through the use of bone forms throughout the piece as well as drawing inspiration from the works of Leonardo Da Vinci's anatomy studies, "Anatomy Studies-Ribcage" in particular. Alongside this, the sculptural elements of the piece drew inspiration form the life size scale sculptural...

Here is the finished ribcage illustration for one part of my final major piece. I feel that this piece is quite successful as the bold contrast creates a sense of depth and dimension within the piece and is similar in form to the ribcages that I have studied from life. The use of a variety of techniques such as the dry brush technique alongside cross-hatching and stippling create an interesting and unique texture that engages the viewer's eye. I feel that using ink as opposed to fine liner or paint was a successful choice as the variety of different tones and marks that can be incorporated created natural feeling textures and an overall aged sense to the piece as a whole. The A3 scale of the piece was also successful as when paired with the spine sculpture, it does not overpower it nor does the sculpture draw the viewer's attention away from the illustration which creates a balance between the two as one singular piece. However, I do feel that the symmetry of the piece is...

To begin this piece I have created a sketch using pencil followed by a layer of fine liner. I have chosen to use a subtle fine liner outline as opposed to the previous experiments as I felt that thick bold lines would draw the viewer's eye away from the smaller bones of the ribcage and merge together to form large areas of tone which I did not want at this stage. I debated between incorporating  a 3/4 view of a ribcage at first but I then decided upon a front facing view as the spine sculpture would be presented from the front also and I feel that this would create a more interesting piece for the viewer.  I did find the front view form to be quite difficult as the ribcages I had studied from life were almost always symmetrical so I had to keep measuring the sizes of the ribs to ensure that the piece would be symmetrical. I feel that the piece is somewhat successful at this stage as there is still small adjustments that need to added/changed to aid in the form of the...

Here I have experimented with applying a wash of watercolour tone on a variety of different density ink marks. I feel that this technique was very successful as the watercolour was able to only give tone to the areas without ink even with the darkest ink mark I could manage to create which created an interesting effect. For this experiment I have sketched the form of a standard bone using fine liner and then applied ink marks to the areas of shadow with a wash of a brown watercolour tone to give the effect of an old fossilised bone. I feel that this experiment was very successful as I was able to incorporate a variety of brown tones using the watercolour which I feel added layers of dimension to the piece. The use of ink and watercolour also creates a contrast between the materials and highlights the areas of texture created by the marks of ink. However I do not feel I will use this technique within my final piece illustration as the tones of the sculpture and illustration would be...

Here I have experimented with a variety of materials such as acrylic, emulsion and watercolour in preparation for painting the spine sculpture as well as the possible use of tone within my final major illustration piece. I feel that the emulsion experiments were the most successful as the coverage of this paint was quite thick which would limit the amount of coats of paint that I would need to apply to the spine sculpture which would significantly reduce the time I would need to spend on this part of my final major which would allow me to focus my time on areas such as creating the texture of the spine sculpture as well as the illustration piece. I also experimented with glitter paint, although I did not expect much from this material I decided to experiment with it anyway as the brown/bronze tones of the paint were quite interesting. However, as I had expected this paint was not successful in any way as the paint was lacking in coverage and a solid tone, I also did not feel that the p...

My spinal surgery is the main influence for my final major project which inspired my use of  bones as the feature for my final major as well as studying the works of Leonardo Da Vinci. I had originally planned to incorporate more links to the x-ray aspect of my spine surgery but I became more inspired by the bones themselves and decided to explore them rather than the x-ray. I focused mainly on the spine and ribcage within this project as these were the bones that held the most relevance to my personal links and I also personally feel that these bones are the most interesting in terms of form and structure in which I quite enjoyed studying. Besides the links to my surgery, I feel that my personal preference towards monochrome scale art pieces such as the works of Leonardo Da Vinci's anatomy studies can also be applied to my final major project as I will incorporate this within my final major piece. I had planned to incorporate the metal rods and pins that were surgically implanted...

As I had created these time plans before the lockdown, I had based these plans around the fact that I would be able to work in the studio but I feel I have more or less stuck to this original plan anyway as I was quite vague and lenient with myself in case there was some kind of problem during the project in which this proved to be useful. I did however find it difficult to adjust to the lack of sketchbook work as opposed to the blog work in which I am not used to working in. I found that when taking photos to upload to the blog the images of pencil drawings especially would be quite difficult to see, so to solve this problem I had used a photo editor to adjust the contrast of the photos. However, I decided against using those photos as they lost some of the details and looked as if they had been manipulated which I did not want on the blog so I uploaded the originals. A slight change I did make within the time plan was to start the construction of the sculptural elements earl...

I have decided to remove the ribcage sculptural element of my final major as I feel I may have been overly ambitious with creating both a spine and ribcage sculpture alongside an illustration piece for my final major piece. I do not feel that the quality of this piece is successful enough and I feel this may have been caused by insufficient experimentation on the structure of the ribcage and the overall armature within. As I have incorporated a lot of ribs within this sculpture, it was quite difficult to keep the form and scale of each rib symmetrical to balance the piece and once I had tested the ribcage alongside the spine sculpture as a temporary hold, I discovered that the piece as a whole was too busy and would distract the viewer's eye from the focal point of the illustration element of the final major. After applying a layer of mod roc to the ribcage, I felt that the structure had become too bulky and the original shape of the ribs were somewhat lost. Alongside this I felt t...