Own Practice: Green, White, Silver, Black, Yellow and Red Vinyl Tape Board (2ft x 4ft MDF).
For this piece I revisited and used the same 2ft x 4ft dimensions I used for my Yellow and Blue Board. However this time I approached the piece with an idea in mind before starting. It was to use the feedback I received in my crit in regards to the visual connection between my 4ft x 4ft piece and the dazzle ships in WWI. I began researching and finding images of these ship designs to use as visual reference and I found them to be very influential towards my thought process in terms of a composition for the piece.
My aim and idea was to create a representational piece based on these ships but to do so in an abstract way. The idea was to communicate no clear subject matter but to instead allow the viewer to try and make the connection themselves. The aspect of design that I knew I had to include if I was going to achieve the look was to use extreme and violent angled stripes and multiple points of perspective.
I started the process by marking out a composition that I thought would subtly convey the structure of a ship rather than actually outlining the profile of one. This segregation of the MDF surface made me focus on which direction the tape would run within each part and once this was in mind I just needed some colour choices. The choice of using six different colours of tape was a new approach and an increase to my usual process but it was a way of challenging myself into finding a solution to make it work.
The solution I came up with was to firstly outline the areas using the black, and then proceed to use the green, white and silver to fill in the main areas of the design paying attention to switching the direction of the lines. This in turn allowed me to then use the yellow and red for the smaller triangular areas and therefore create the impression that these in fact were the background.
In conclusion I feel the overall piece has achieved and visually communicates the idea I was trying to express. By photographing the piece from each of its angles of rotation I was eager to see what it looked like from various viewpoints. In my opinion each orientation offers up a striking new composition to look at and this was an aspect that I specifically wanted to achieve. This was because my design had to convey elements from the designs of WW1 ships which were solely painted as a strategy to confuse the opposing Naval Fleet when searching for them on the surface of the sea. Therefore they were expected to be viewed from an ever changing perspective.
Source of research and new artists of interest to look into:-