Carmen McNally's Art

Making up a screen I took the greyscale and put the dots over the image whilst in PhotoShop to keep as much texture and tone as possible. However, I did lose most of the different tones that I was hoping would keep. I wanted to get creative with the way you read 'from the ground up' by starting my sentence from the bottom. I should of asked others to read it first and researched how I could draw the reader into reading from the bottom first and then up. I have asked several people to read it and most of them eventually read it from the bottom in the end but I think this is because it doesn't make sense when reading from the top. Because I have already laser cut my leaf collage which took me forever to do. I'm not going to redo this process again. However, I did want to play around with the lettering of the logo to see how I could have improved it. I thought it would be a good idea to show the graduation of font size drawing the reader to the bottom first. Lastly, I used

  Leaf collage printing I like the contrast between the black background and the green. However, I have lost the variety of texture and tones from the leaves as a whole. It looks really flat now. I think it works better in black and white but I still have lost the textures and tones. These prints weren't very successful. I couldn't do much more as the leaves started to deteriorate. I wasn't happy with how the prints turned out so I'm going to make up an emulsion screen.

  Further experimenting with laser collage leaves and printing    I collaged my leaves onto newsprint using an adhesive spray. I'm really happy with how it turned out, however, I'm not looking forward to cutting around the detail of the leaves next. This part was extremely time-consuming, considering that I'm unsure of the outcome. I laser cut the leaf collage with the logo. I decided to split the words up as they wouldn't fit into the shape of the leaf collage. Instead of reading the words from the top down, I want it to be read from the bottom up. I like this idea as like the logo, it is from the bottom up. I had to laser cut the collage quite a few times to cut right through. I ended up having to cut a lot of the letters out by hand in the end.   I spent so much time creating this collage and I made a quick decision to flip the text around when I realised the text wouldn't fit. I should have researched this part before being hasty with the laser cutting. I had a

Side Profile: Screen Printing Today we created a stencil for screen printing.

Testing laser-cutting leaves and collage printing Using the stencil font I had the leaves lasered. I wanted to have the writing directly in the middle of the leaf but it ended up sitting just above the midrib line on the leaf. I found it really hard to remove the letters because the midrib line is so thick compared to the thin lamina part of the leaf. After inking the leaves, the font on t he top leaf  completely disintegrated. I wanted to see how it would work by filling more of the space of the leaf with the logo. I also experimented with just trying out the logo's initials.   I really like how the black detail turned out in the leaves of the second print and the green background of the first print. Unfortunately, the initials of the logo cant be read on the top leaf. I really like the detail of the second print, it looks like a comic picture. I wish that the black background wasn't a solid finish though. You can see where I struggled with removing some of the letters. 'H

  Dry Point Shin Cole Today I researched forests and Crown Shyness. I wanted to create a similar effect with my drypoint print, looking up to the sky through the treetops from a worm-eye view. When etching my plate, I started working around the edges of the plate and made everything meet into the centre trying to create that worm's eye view effect. I made a few strokes heavier to create more depth for the ink to sit into. I also used the hatching technique to create texture in the tree trunk. I know it turned out. I wish I could spend a little more time with etching my image onto the plate as the proportions were a little bit off. For the Shin Cole process I want to use the colours of the sun to represent the sun coming through the treetops. Dry point is quite a long process and you needed our patience but I think it's worthwhile in the end as the effects you get can be beautiful with you take your time with it.     

Fromthegroundup I went to Wollaton Park to pick up some leaves and get some ideas for what I want to create. I really like the idea of using the branches and twigs to create the letters 'FROMTHEGROUNDUP' logo.  Some ideas I jotted down in my sketchbook. I would like to create a logo using natural materials as I believe it represents their working ethos It's not the right time of year to be finding a nice selection of leaves. I picked the best ones I could find. I wanted to create a mirrored effect from the tree and it's roots. I have used the branches to write the logo. 

Portrait Project Evaluation Overall, I am proud of the final pieces I created for the Gallery and the Portrait Project. I believe I've shown a variety of different processes and uses of media throughout this project. I believe I have demonstrated problem solving, questioning and reflection throughout. I find that I always start off slow in the beginning as I struggle to think of one thing at a time and get overwhelmed with transferring my thoughts to paper. I’m glad we were given a longer period for this project to allow ideas to organically flow and develop, rather than getting stressed with how long we have left. However, I wish I had set a better time management plan towards the last third of the project to be a little more organised. Once deciding that I wanted to go down the photography route things started to flow a lot more smoother for me. I have done photography before but never portrait which was a lot trickier than I thought it would be. YouTube helped me incredibly

Final video of Torn Emotions for Portrait   I decided to change the music for my short video using Artist Cleo Sol- Myself. I feel that the lyrics work with this piece giving the viewer hope if you are going through a troubling time. I was unfortunate on this day of recording to not have a beautiful sunny day so I created my own light in the background to recreate a sunny day as I wanted to get that sun ray effect on the video. I attached an A3 piece of acetate to the back of my piece and then I further stitched on top to connect my images all together. This was to correct where I removed the stitching on acetate I didn't like.