The illustrated self: Final image

In the end I decided to go for the super reductive version of the face being supported by a book with the gramophone moving round it. This was meant to include the elements of content/research and music in a way that would reflect there relevance to my practice. For example I have found that time after time research forms the foundation of my responses in studio practice and therefore felt that having a book support the rest of the face would be away to clearly communicate research and content being the foundation for my creative practice.

In a similar manner I decided to have the gramophone curving round as I feel music is something that encompasses all aspects of my life as well as just my work process so therefore felt this would best show this.

I drew painted the final image out and scanned it in so that I could add various textures on top of it digitally. This was because, aesthetically shape and texture is something I have come back to time and time again is the key aesthetic component of my practice that links my work. However more than this I wanted to try and communicate how process/media experimentation drives my practice in a way that wasn't as simple as just drawing different tools and media around the main element of the image. Therefore I created various different textures in a variety of different mediasuch as paint, block printing ink and brusho to that I then scanned in and applied on top of the image using photoshop so as to include the aspect of process/experimentation within my work.

Overall I feel the final image does successfully communicate my intent, however I think the use of really obvious motifs such as the book and gramophone, although clear is perhaps too clumsy. Furthermore although I think it reflects the reductive approach I am trying to execute within my practice it isn't perhaps as successful in showing this as other work I have produced such as that for Persons of note in the Visual Communications module. This is because I think it feels far too static and the individual elements neither react with each other or the negative space around them in a manner that is dynamic which has resulted in a final piece that feels more empty than reductive.