Week 2 Class

This week we completed a project based our chosen subject matters.  I chose to use Fiction as my inspiration, in particular Film Fiction.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, I chose this topic because it allows me to use all of my favourite characters and fictitious worlds as inspiration.

We started the project by creating four collages using Seafood, Meat, Vegetarian and Desert as our themes.

I started the process focusing on the Meat collage, as I love meat.  I put more time and effort into this piece than any other and, truth be told, I do not like it very much.  I was going for something with similar properties to a nice, big, juicy wagyu beef steak.  I wanted it to be quite dense and chucky.  I also specifically chose images with dark colour, particularly deep browns.  This, I thought, would add to the ‘steak’ imagery. While I think that I created the piece to the specifications that I was hoping for, it did not turn out as well as I imagined. 

With desert I was aiming for something bright and colourful, reminiscent of a cake.  I chose to use brightly colour images and cut the images out using wavy, curved lines.  This, I felt, added to the ‘cake’ feel of the collage, as cakes are soft, similar to the lines.  I like how my desert turned out. It definitely captures what I was hoping to achieve so I believe that it was a success.

The vegetarian piece was the piece that I was dreading the most.  This is because I love meat so I generally don’t pay much attention or care much about vegetarian meals (I know that bad). Due to my apathetic attitude towards vego meals I decided to replicate that feeling in my collage.  Instead of cutting nice clean lines, I ripped the images out in an attempt to make the collage seem careless. I also left large spaces in-between the images, as if I didn’t care enough to make the collage whole and complete. Clearly the greens and other earthy colours were used to make the piece look vegetarian and I think that I communicated my view well with this piece.

The Seafood collage was the last collage that I did and the one that I like the most.  I didn’t have much time to make this piece so I rushed the design but though a lucky coincidence the piece turned out really well.  Similar to the desert, I used curved lines to help communicate my theme.  I was trying to show the seafood collage as a slimey, organic creation.  The colours also helped to communicate the nature of the dish.  Blues and greens obviously relate to the sea the splash of colour reminds people of bright garnishes or fish row.  The emanating tentacles coming from the main body creates a form similar to that of an octopus or squid, furthering the oceanic imagery.

Once we had completed the collages we started on ‘Kitchen Prep’ this involved manipulating found materials to create an interesting palate of ‘ingredients’

Finally we had a ‘Canapé Cook off’.  This task involved us creating six canapés using our collages and chosen subject matter as our inspiration.  While I enjoyed this task the most, I feel that my collages were best part of my creations.