Painting people and surfaces

I have decided to create my own brief in the pursuit of painting onto as many different surfaces and objects as possible. While I love screen printing, this is where I find the most enjoyment in my practice and bringing colour and vibrancy to things is a good way for me to explore new ways in which i can apply my skills to real life. Pieces of wood, sculptures, masks, guitars, drum skins, skateboards and more. The possibilities are endless with this self driven brief and the objective is to explore and develop this as much as I can to figure out different ways in which I can add colour, shapes and patterns to colourless objects. I would also like to paint onto a range of organic objects such as parts of a tree or even people(body painting). Im trying to think outside the box and want to be out of my sketchbook in this brief. The goal is to have a range of finished designs.

The turtle above is made out of stone so it is interesting to see that my work can even be applied onto a rough texture although the design needs to be much more simple as it is hard to get more intricate line work onto a bumpy and uneven surface. I am gaining much more knowledge from this self motivate brief about different ways in which my work can be applied and developed.

The more objects I paint on the more ideas I am beginning to formulate. Working sometimes with bright vibrant colours and space textures and also minimalising the colour scheme im beginning see different ways in which I can apply aesthetics to different potential products. 

By painting onto guitars and objects instead of being stuck in my sketchbook, it is helping my artwork to become more widely recognised and I believe it is more of what people want to see from my practice.

Paint pens such as Posca and Molotow are the most important tools that enable me to paint on a wide range of surfaces. Without them it would be very difficult to achieve bold, vibrant and consistent colours onto the varied objects and surfaces. These pens are by far my favourite media and they help me to keep my style consistent and psychedelic. 

Tribal zebra mask

This is much different to my usual painting style and I have taken a much more tribal approach. Most carved wooden masks usually dont involve much colour and are often just left with the wooden textures or just painted black and white, I have decided to keep the same form of the zebra stripes with this and keep it simple shapes with a more reduced colour palette.
I could have chosen to do a much more intricate design but I have chosen to keep it simple as I was trying to keep the tribal aesthetic more  authentic.
I started with spray painting this black and dark purple for the under layer so that the paint pens would have a much more vibrant and colourful contrast making it a psychedelic tribal zebra.

Painting People

Painting people is pretty much the second part of this self motivated brief. While I have painted on a wide range of surfaces, I have also set out to paint on different bodies in the form of body art. This is something I have never attempted in the past so I didnt really have to much of a plan with this and was just willing to let it unfold naturally. After I had painted my fist human body and displayed this on social media(Instagram) many more people were willing to let me put my artwork onto their skin.

This is the most unique brief that I have set myself because it has allowed me to push the boundaries with my practice and meet different people through my artwork. It has also been one of the most enjoyable briefs becuse painting onto a human body is very challenging but it is very nice to have human interaction which I think is essential for the development and exploration of my practice. 

I have learned much about painting bodies in my specific style and it seems that like with any different surface, my hand style needs to slightly adapt and for bodies(skin) I had to reduce the level of detail and just focus more on block colour, shapes with a few bits of detail. People move, skin is stretchy or uneven, the body is an irregular shape that has contours and non of this can be predicted as each body is different and unique so it required alot of confidence not only to meet new people but also to be bold with my decision on where to put colour and simply just play around with a willingness to make a few mistakes.

These mistakes are sometimes what make it more unique.

Bringing a fictional character onto painted people I think is a good idea especially when it comes to displaying it on social media because people instantly make a connection with the knowable character which can immediately make my body paintings more noticed. Also using my own features such as mushrooms has helped make these body paintings more authentic to my consistent and developing psychedelic style. 

This is one of my favourite designs of painted people because I have left much more skin tone which works very well with the bright and bold colours. This is a more reduced and simple design but again I am discovering that the simple designs prove to be more effective. 

This design is the most complex of all the painted people that took the longest to paint but in fact this one proved to be the most unsuccessful. I tried to fill in to much information with too much colour but the end result ended up being abit to messy. I put the most effort into this but it turns out that it was simply too much. I have definately leaned from this experience and I am beginning  to realise more and more that by reducing the complexity can often be much more successful. I will be taking this idea further into my practice especially with body art.

Reflective review

Overall I would say that this has been the most interesting brief that I have developed during this module. It has been both fun and challenging. Firstly, I have really enjoyed this brief because it has allowed me to really allowed me to think outside my usual ways of working and by applying my work onto different surfaces I am beginning to get a better sense of what my artwork is and where it could exist in a more professional context. This brief was especially enjoyable as I have been able to meet new people and convert my skills onto a human body which before this module I never even considered so it gave me the confidence and motivation to explore different aspects of my practice. Because it is not as easy to paint onto different surfaces and textures this brief has pushed me into reducing specific elements of my designs down to a more minimal approach which is something that I usually dont like doing and really struggle with but now in retrospect I see that it is helping me refine. So in this module I have actually discovered a lot about my work, how to improve it and has helped my confidence both in both painting and socially.
This project has been also very challenging and what I didn't like about it was it made me stuck in using the same media over and over again (paint pens). While this is easily my favourite and strongest use of materials, I do get bored of using the same colours and pens after a while and this can make some of my tasks tedious and it can be hard for me to develop new ways in which I can change and expand on my existing knowledge. If I could change any part of how I have approached this module it would be to have a sketchbook along side the different paintings. While it is fun and experimental to just go with my instinct and paint what ever feels natural at the time, I think I could have come up with a few more interesting designs and compositions especially on the painted people. I thought that it wasn't necessary to sketch and rough ideas down but thinking back to it I know it would of helped me to achieve more well informed and refined outcomes.
I will surly be carrying on this form of my practice further into the professional world as I get a lot of enjoyment out of painting onto a wide range of objects and surfaces, I will however be much more aware that I can spend some time sketching and fleshing out ideas before I start painting, I will also be considering using a more diverse range of tools to get different aesthetics instead of just using paint pens. This will hopefully increase the overall quality and professionalism of my practice.