Charlotte Walker Art Foundation Degree

 

 

When I thought about my project theme and the idea of potions and spells, I remembered the highly poisonous death cap mushroom and decided to use it for imagery. Since the calico has a canvas-like quality, I tried painting the shapes with acrylic before stitching around them. I exaggerated the warm and cold colours but tried to keep them looking subtle like the mandrakes that I thought were more successful. I think the final thing looks quite endearing but the deadly poisonous element is not implied, so to improve I would have to think of ways to make it look less friendly. I don't particularly like the finish of the acrylic paint on the fabric so for my next pieces I will continue to use watercolour. (image from  https://www.livescience.com ) Looking back at where my project started, I decided to do something from my toad photographs and made this little embroidered sample. Instead of stitching straight on to the fabric like I have been doing, I made the frog shape separately, pai

  When Chris Lewis Jones gave a presentation at college, he showed us a huge range of different projects he has done throughout his career. He has an honest approach and refers to himself as a ‘flaneur’, meaning a person who wanders, observing the world in a leisurely way. I think this is a positive attitude to making art because sometimes inspiration is harder to find if you are seeking it very actively - so Jones’s approach feels like a more natural way to gain ideas and collect thoughts. He showed us various frottage work of his which I find really interesting because it is like an easy and effective printing method, where you can make an imprint of a surface in moments and capture it forever. The markings are quite raw and have a primal quality too which I really like. At the end of the talk we made some of our own graphite rubbings of surfaces around the room, and Jones pointed out that we can layer them and make patterns which I hadn’t thought of when I did this method in the pas

Over the course of this project I have accumulated a list of artists that I want to look at for ideas, so I decided to gather some of my favourite images from each artist and put them together in image boards that I can go to for inspiration. It also makes it easier for me to choose which artists I want to research in more depth.  

Research from Wikipedia - Because mandrakes contain deliriant hallucinogenic tropane alkaloids and the shape of their roots often resembles human figures, they have been associated with a variety of superstitious practices throughout history. They have long been used in magic rituals, today also in contemporary pagan traditions such as Wicca and Odinism . In one superstition, people who pull up this root will be condemned to hell, and the mandrake root would scream and cry as it was pulled from the ground, killing anyone who heard it. Therefore, in the past, people have tied the roots to the bodies of animals and then used these animals to pull the roots from the soil. According to the legend, when the root is dug up, it screams and kills all who hear it. The root is hallucinogenic and narcotic . In sufficient quantities, it induces a state of unconsciousness and was used as an anaesthetic for surgery in ancient times. In the past, juice from the finely grated root