Title: ‘If Barbie Is Beauty…’
Size: A5
Medium: Pen, Pencil & Highlighters.

Much like the painting below, this quick sketch explores the idea of Barbie being ‘perfect’. However, the difference in this image is exploration into whether, if Barbie was real, would she truly be happy knowing that she is nothing more than a face with no personality?

Essentially the whole concept that, as Havelock Ellis, a British physician and psychologist, proposed; “The absence of flaw in beauty is itself a flaw”.

Title: ‘Barbie Me Please’.
Size: A6
Medium: Oil.

Essentially a self-portrait, I have manipulated my eye colour from brown to blue and placed a blonde wig upon my brown hair. Entitled Barbie, this was created when researching into children’s toys to see if stereotypical gender associated toys still occurred. Which, surprisingly, for the 21st century did.

This painting is exploring the idea that by brain washing young girls into believing that the iconic doll is ‘perfect’, that they themselves may go to extreme lengths to look like her - skin bleaching, hair dying, contact lens and even plastic surgery and weight loss.

Title: ‘Female Form’.
Size: A3
Medium: Acrylic.

This painting is development on the paintings and drawings created further down the page focusing on the female form especially around the idea of the ‘Femme Fatale’.
This painting, however, is focusing more upon tattoo’s and whether or not they can make the body appear more beautiful or can essentially ruin it.

The design I created was to hopefully add to the female form by flowing over the hip to accentuate it and blend in with the shape of the body of the model.
Still incorporating the Day of the Dead within it, I wanted to create a feminine design that flowed on and off the body.

Although the rose in this photo is uncomplete, I have finished it one the actually painting.

Title: ‘Vanitas 2’.
Size: A3
Medium: Charcoal.

Although I used the same skull for this drawing as in the drawing below, the technique has been changed when using charcoal. This time, instead of rubbing out the image, I have simply draw it in.

I was incredibly pleased with this drawing as I feel that it is in proportion and the shadows have been correctly placed. It is strange how this image appears equally as morbid as ‘Vanitas’ but yet contains more white and less black. The skull within this drawing, however, seems to have an expression of sadness unlike the drawing below. This was unintentionally but I think this adds to the image.

Title: ‘Seeing’.
Size: A5
Medium: Pencil.

This is a much more simplistic drawing compared to that of ‘The Gamble’ shown below. The intention of this, however, was to create an identical drawing to that of the photo (below). Unlike ‘The Gamble’ these eyes are not manipulated and are simply just ordinary. At first glance, it appears to be a black and white image but when looking at the iris closely a dull green has been used. My original experimentation in which I made the iris’s the only coloured part of the drawing.

This I believe gives the drawing a bit more meaning to it, not only should we look closer at an image but also that the depth and colour of each individual iris is both beautiful and unique.

Title: ‘Yellow Tower’ T-Shirts.

Medium: Screen-print/Sewing.

The designs behind these t-shirts was to take an object, in this case a building located near to where I live, and place it into new and unusual surroundings. The idea is to take something we see everyday and manipulate it in order for the viewer to see it in a completely different way. Whether for the better or for the worse. I believe that art is a powerful and wonderful medium in having the ability to change the mind and perception of the audience on any topic that you wish to concentrate on.

The building I chose to use is a simple, yellow tower block that I see everyday on my way into town. The idea to use it occurred to me as I had always found this building particularly ‘ugly’ and much of an eye-sore. By having this view, I began to wonder if I could change my own mind and that of others by simply changing its location. This is why I then placed it between to bizarrely shaped trees, and on a couple of the t-shirts, with a brightly, multi-coloured moon. Taking the building and putting it into a dream-like world.

I was pleased with the outcome of these t-shirts as not only was it my first time using screen-printing, but I also feel that it completely changed the simplistic, everyday building into an unrecognisable, new image. Fitting in comfortably with it’s new surroundings and making me re-assess the building as it transformed from something I disliked into something I had an artistic connection with.

These t-shirts also helped me develop my use of textiles as I was not overly confident at sewing before adding in the moons on a couple of the designs

Title: ‘Entrapment’.
Size: A3
Medium: Charcoal/Gouache.

After developing my skills on drawing skulls with charcoal, I began to come up with an idea of combining both the ‘Femme Fatale’ and the skull usually associated with mortality. As stated before, it is claimed that the ‘Femme Fatale’ seduces her lovers into dangerous outcomes - essentially leading them to their deaths.

With this in mind, I wanted to get an image which portrayed the ‘Femme Fatale’ as a powerful and yet morbid women. This is where I developed the first photograph (shown right) in which my model, acting as the ‘Femme Fatale’, looks deeply into the lens at the viewer, whilst posing almost naturally and casually over a skull. Blood drips from her lips to the skull as a connection between the two of them. It is a dangerous reminder that although she is alluring, she is also deadly.

Charcoal is one of my most confident mediums as I find it easiest to use in order to gain depth within a drawing. I find it particular good for creating shadows and highlights, effective in developing a more realist & 3D effect to the image. The blood was later added within the drawing to reflect the black, white and red theme I had previously used within my art before (such as the ‘Lust & Envy’ wood print below). This was done using gouache paint as it has a thick texture to it, much like blood itself.

Title: ‘Mortality’.
Size: A3
Medium: Oil Paint.

This oil painting (shown left) and photograph (shown right) are a combination of my research into the ‘Femme Fatale’ and the Mexican festival, the ‘Day of the Dead’. The painting is my own incorporation of these two elements, influenced by the work of Sylvia Ji.

The motive behind this particular painting was to portray a juxtaposition of ‘feminity’ and ‘dominance’. As she is unclothed, she holds herself as if she is exposed to the viewer and appears vulnerable. However, it is looking upon the facial expression and the way she is looking directly into the camera, that this view is changed. The figure now appears much more dominant and powerful.

Symbolism also occurs within the image in the form of a rose and the skull design upon the models face. Both of these symbols represent mortality, hence the title of the painting. Within this image, however, it is more to do with mortality of beauty. The representation of what is considered ‘beautiful’ will constantly be manipulated. One idea must end for another to begin. This has been shown throughout history in the changing form of fashion and female role models. The ‘Femme Fatale’ has always been present but what she has represented has varied. In earlier eras, she was the form of a woman who was sexually active, a sin of the time. Today, however, she is deemed as an influential character that, on occasion, could be looked up to by both males and females.