MODULE 2 ~ REFLECTION 1500 WORDS

 During the process of doing my project on a miners world I looked at different parts within the miners life’s of things they would of seen, owned or used while there time working in the pits. Such as the selection of books that I have on the ways of working and using mechanics and systems in place in the mine. My project is made up of digital work, photoshop work and photography. I decided to use a collection of objects and memorabilia that has been stored in my family over the years from there times of working in the mines and the pits such as in dinnington colliery of my home town.

 

I have chosen mining as my project as it is key and important to both my family and my home ground. Mining is a large part to my family background and to my place of living too. It is something I highly respect and admire about my life and where my family are originated from and the type of people in it as I knew that there were events that could of made life during that time difficult such as the miners strike, making me more grateful for the life that I have now thankyou to tho further back in my family tree such as my grandad and great grandad who worked in the mines. 

 

I did find this project difficult and more of a struggle than I initially though I would due to it been relative to my past and something that I can experience now in the true place of my work focus. Due to it been in my past and before I was born it was hard to try and collect ideas for painting and art work and to decide on a focus and direction of where my project should go and what it should be showing. Until I reached out to my further family who could provide me with photography they had from when they were working men in the mines and in the pits. This then allowed for my work to become easier to develop due to having a large base and information provided from my family and images that I could then continue to go further and produce work after. 

 

My work started off by looking at the objects that my grandad had stored and kept over the years since leaving his job in the mining industry. I started off by looking at a selection of three miners phones that my grandma generously passed on to me for the opportunity it provided into my projecting allowing me to think about the use of it allowed me to adapt to think of miners safety and and communication. The miners safety related to a tie that my grandma also passed on to me which was awarded to my grandad as a safety tie. This became my main object and importance to my project as it was the closest thing to my heart and my family that represented our background. 

 

I started off by taking a selection of photography of all of the different objects that I had been provided with from my past such as the different phones and the safety tie. I enjoy collecting photography as it allows you to pull focus to the certain areas of objects that you want to see and you can really try and show the details and features of the objects through the photography and lighting techniques you use. 

 

The first practical work I started off by doing some digital painting of my work such as my digital painting of a miners phone focusing mainly on the rotary dial, I liked this as it was my first time really focusing on doing a digital painting and allowed me to develop a higher amount of skill towards the digital art world. I also enjoyed doing digital work as it was easy to keep on top of as it was easily transportable. This also allowed me to be able to zoom into the photo to try and add more of the smaller details on too my work. I then moved n to do a digital painting of the safety tie of my grandads. This although wasn’t as heavy in detail it was still a piece of art close to my heart and my family. 

 

I then proceeded to do a selection of line drawings so that the focus wasn’t all on detail instead it was pulled back to the basics which was what many things were like back in the time of which the miners were living and working in the dangerous conditions they did. From a line drawing the work is purely just a template and a viewer could imagine the imagine in whatever colour or form they would like to see it in giving them more of a mixed view of interpreting the image between each viewer been different. 

 

After this I looked at the silhouette of a miner but with the speech coming from the mouth as been the titles of articles in newspapers from the time of the mining strike such as “coal not dole”. I decided to this to as I thought it would be a way to imitate the past and the main things said in relation to mining. By having it as speech true it imitated communication from miners, and also messages in the media due to mining and the events taking place such as the “coal not dole” came from an article that had been mentioned in the time of the miners strike. 

 

I then looked at doing a quick piece of thermal art that was to show the key fact that communication is a key thing needed in the work place especially in areas such as in the mining industry as with miss communication things could be come dangerous as there is miss gaps and accidents that can happen during been in the mining system and the pits. This linked back to my grandads safety tie as safety was a largely important thing needed in the mining industry. 

 

After this I proceeded to then start looking into artists connection that allowed me to see different art produced my past miners and those who studied miners. And the different styles of which the art was done in.

 

I looked at work from artists, Norman Rockwell, Valerie ganz and Josef Herman. Norman Rockwell work been of a more detailed art and valeria ganz and Josef Herman were of more abstract work of art and of more of a abstract manner in comparison to Norman Rockwell. This allowed me to look at and venture different style of painting and details within my work. To work that was more blended and more relatable to a photograph and to in comparison also look at work that is more abstract to more sharper harsher lines in the art than a softer touch. Although I believe abstract art is creative and admirable I preferred the style of Norman Rockwell doing with more detail and a true representation of a miner and there emotions. 

 

I completed one artist connection which was focused on a miners face and there emotions. This artists connection showed the happiness in a miner which after collecting promised research I found that miners where known as Ben’s more happy than miserable. So this allowed me to collect photos from my family that were of miners back when working in the dinnington colliery. This allowed for me to complete work in relation to the artists work, however our a twos on the work so that the blend was not smooth and skin like but more colour blotch. These were my chosen work and art that I placed into my exhibition as I believed them to be my strongest pieces of art work. My two strongest pieces of work that are shown in my exhibition are done in a monochrome style of a scales of blues. I enjoyed working in a monochrome matter as I believe it makes the image more about the shoes and the light and the darks then it does to a skin tone image. Monochrome work seems to give more of an impact as you focus more of what your looking at then it just been a glimpse of seeing somebody face. 

 

I do believe that my project consists of a small amount of work and I could of improved my producing larger amount. However I was struggling for ideas of how to build up my project and which directions the work should of gone in, until I had access to family miners photography towards the end of the time I had on the project. If I was do be given the opportunity to do the project again I would spend time looking at further options and styles of art instead of restricting myself down to only doing digital work I should experiment more with more hands on practical instead of over a screen, Which would give me a larger range of styles and tones throughout my project and more of a range of mixed media and styles.