Final Evaluation

Preparatory Work Evaluation

The idea of using old fashioned/vintage games for my FPM spiralled from a Scotland road trip that took place in February, the weekend before unit 7 began. This is when I came across a wall graffiti’d with several games of notes and crosses catching my attention in Glasgow along with the board games provided to everyone in the hostel we stayed at in Edinburgh including Jenga. From there I had decided that I wanted to look at other old fashioned games such as playing cards, Dominos, Cats cradle etc because I thought some of them had qualities which possessed architectural structures like Jenga does and that is such a broad theme which is perfect for FMP.

I have continuously worked towards my proposal; providing practical, theoretical and intellectual evidence throughout. Working on 2D-3D design processes problem solving through out and using a wide range of materials such as card, copper rod and plaster. My research has developed through looking at the cultural aspects of Japanese architecture and modern architecture in several visited cities. Reflecting upon feedback from several tutorials and my presentation during the group critique gave me the ambition I needed to push my project to it’s maximum potential and helped in my growth of confidence. I believe that collectively having the support and critical feedback that I had for this project from my tutor and peers gave me the drive to produce my instinctive outcome of, “a selection of design sheets and 3D models”.

I believe that the research stage of any project is vital. The first weeks of FMP were spent gathering insiration from books, websites and visits to galleries such as the Walker and Tate in Liverpool giving the physical insight to real artists’ work. My initial research ranges from three books called, “Form Function and Design”,  “Japanese Detail” and “architecture Today”. I researched all of these books in depth and became indulged in them for their own individual reasons and believe they all helped my progression in this project. During the 4 months of this project I have been lucky enough to have travelled to 3 different countries; Germany, Belgium and Norway. This was the perfect way to grasp the differences that all of the cities possessed specifically looking at their architecture. Travelling to these different countries had their own amazing experiences but from researching a great amount of Japanese architecture that is where I wanted to be, fortunately and unfortunately the closest primary photographs I could receive from Japan was from a girl who I know is there for study, I personally asked this girl if she could send me certain photos of Japanese architecture including the pagoda styles roofs which I was very grateful to receive and be able to use in my design sheets. The building that encouraged my project the most was the Museum Aan de Stroom (MAS) I came across in Antwerp, Belgium which led me to my wire forms. Another important discovery during this project was the architect Frank Gehry, I instantly connected with his documentaries and related to him even though he is and older man and I am a youth, his work and what he was saying felt so relevant to me as an aspiring architect. Words spoken by him that I will never forget are,

“If you know what you’re going to do in advance, you won’t do it.”

And

“Your creativity starts with whether you’re curious or not.”

Other than his model and design work I educated myself on the way he sketches, layering drawings using tracing paper to improve drawings. I was influenced by this technique which informed my practice within drawing to then add to my design sheets.

My main development throughout this project has been upscaling and the question of weather it will succeed. I was informed during my group critique that the most difficult part of any sculpture is upscaling I made this a task for myself which Is what inspired me to purchase large cards to upscale my popular card designs and I also targeted myself to draw on a larger scale. I have definitely come across problems whilst doing this but these problems only led me to progress my work further and analyse what went wrong and how I can move on from it. Along with the problems I came across during my development I also succeeded in many different techniques and processes, the success on my work came from practice. considering I was folding cards throughout the length of the project it wouldn’t be a shock to discover that this is the material I was most comfortable using even when scaling up twice. I have also gained a stable amount of practice using plaster during the year which gave me great confidence in the material to develop quick outcomes. Unfortunately I found the success of experimenting with plaster very late in the project and even though I was satisfied with the outcomes of the domino pieces I was unable to expand on that and experiment further with the material.

Final Piece Evaluation 

From my presentation during the group critique after the Easter holidays I knew that my final outcome was going to include playing cards because of the amount of praise and acknowledgement they received and the enormity of enjoyment I possessed whilst  creating the small designs. I feel like that then became quite a large focus on my progression along with the challenge of upscaling. I didn’t come across any threatening or discouraging problems during my outcome process but I did find some things stressful and unnecessary, one being the spray painting. I feel like I went through too much trouble throughout the spray painting stage of my outcomes, out of 11 cans at £4 each I spent almost £45 on sprays for only two can’s to have been worth their money and as a teen who saves money for personally important things like University and travelling it is distressing to have wasted so much money. I do understand that I had to go through this process of finding the perfect spray it was just unfortunate how long it took me to find it. My final outcomes include four similar but also very different  designs created using the technique that runs through my blog on several occasions but using 3 different sized playing cards, (regular, A4 and A3) where some are selectively sprayed white as discussed and some showing the back pattern. This provides you with the attention to the detail in the card but also attention to the curves and forms the cards show. Within my final pieces I also combined two types of copper rod, the thicker wire used with the larger cards and the thinner to portray smaller versions with in. This to me portrays as the building structure and shape that helps to accentuate the idea of the card models becoming architectural.  I think this collectively adds depth and proportion to what I was trying to convey within modern architectural forms and structures whilst still hinting at aspects of the Japanese traditional architecture.

I know that when looking at my Final designs there are a lot of questions to follow, I wouldn’t understand what is going on or why they look how they do If I hadn’t created them myself which is why I liked to include design sheets. Design sheets provide background information and reasons to a finished design, they are a creative explanation which I enjoy producing. looking at the design sheets it is simple to receive the answers to many questions like, why playing cards? As you can see that my theme is games looking at the several games provided, you can see where my card inspiration came from, you can see where the wire design came from and the curvature of the cards from he Japanese architecture and symbols. I think they are an extremely clever design idea and I am glad I have come to appreciate them as much as I have.

When it came to exhibiting my outcomes I had several ideas and sketches but with my work its isn’t easy to predict how it will actually look until you do it, the only way to really do it is in the moment where you can see what looks presentable and what doesn’t. Compared to a simple painting or photograph that only needs positioning and mounting there are endless possibilities for my work to be exhibited which I believe to be a great thing because that is part of the art, depending on how you position your work it can make of break it. for me it took almost a full day of repositioning, moving and testing different positions learning what works and what doesn’t but in the end I did it with the grateful help of my tutors, I came to the point where I was extremely happy with the outcome. That being my square sculptural pieces coming down the corner of the board looking like it is tumbling down, I think it looks incredible. Although I won’t be exhibiting my two design sheets as collectively we agree that the 3D work speaks for its self and I don’t want to add more than is needed to my exhibition.

I am very impressed to say that I have followed my project proposal plan all the way through without having to look at it until now. I have done everything that I said I would. From looking at 2D to 3D design processes to talking about Japanese architecture and looking at culture to the obvious achievements which are problem solving, using a wide range of materials, reflecting on feedback and even keeping up to date with my blog which is something I usually slack at and do later on in the project knowing the consequences I feel like I have ticked all of the boxes in my proposal which I am very proud of, even having the outcome goal of a, “selection of design sheets and 3D designs” which I have proven to have produce.

Overall I am more than happy with how everything looks and has worked out for this project and I think that is down to letting the project and research carry me instead of deciding what I want as a final piece before I have done all of my research, that technique  may work for some people but it definitely doesn’t work for me. The only thing I would think about changing during this project is to experiment with plaster sooner than I had because I do think I could have done something great with the material after taking a previous interest to it in other units and I really began to enjoy the domino’s appearance in the plaster and cutting them up which is quite unfortunate but other than that I wouldn’t change anything because I think the growth of my project has been visible and I have progressed through good and bad.