Vintage Project Evaluation

Vintage Project Evaluation

I chose to research the decade of the 1930s because I find it glamorous and stylish. I particularly loved the Art Deco theme and women’s fashion. I wanted to look at the aspect of fashion and much influence it had over designs in other areas such as films and confectionary.

I did a variety of research on all aspects of the 1930s from the Great Depression, the Abdication, daily life of people and films. I focused on fashion which in term linked into films and I researched the best movies of the 1930s and movie posters. I focused on the films and the Oscars and was inspired to do an envelope theme on each movie. I selected a movie for each year and then did an Oscar themed envelope for each one. I did a poster on Wolf man in acrylics’ and then I did a variety of pictures and research on The Bride of Frankenstein. I found this quite tragic and the lead actress Elsa Lanchester quite beautiful and glamorous.

I think the main cultural influences in my era was Fashion and Films. It can be seen on how many women were influenced by the Hollywood Icon Greta Garbo and how her fashion sense was reflected in everyday style. Movies also played a big part in this era and gave a sense of glamour and drama in a decade that the Great depression occurred in.

I looked at the following artists in my research: Tamara de Lempicka, Edward Hopper, Victor Brauner, Man Ray, Grant Wood and Georgia O’Keefe. They are a broad reflection of the art movements in the 1930s which included the American Gothic of Grant Wood to the Surrealism of Victor Brauner. They reflected escapism from the Great Depression such as Grant Wood painted people working hard which symbolised you could escape poverty if you tried whilst Tamara de Lempicka was the opposite end of the Spectrum. She painted rich people, luxury cars and scenes and represented the decadence of the era.

I have used a variety of media in my sketch book including collage, acrylics, pastel pencils, water colours, pastels, inktense and pencil sketches. To add extra depth I printed out and used a variety of paper including tracing paper, pastel paper and marble effect paper which added an extra detail to my finished work. I am particularly pleased with a Tamara de Lempicka picture I completed using colour soft pencils by Derwent on rough watercolour paper. I was really pleased as I believe I managed to capture the essence and echo of her decadent style. I believe my different use of media was utilised effectively and I achieved the purpose I wanted. For example, for Man Ray I drew a women’s face on normal paper using graphite then photocopied onto tracing paper. I then laid the photocopy over the original drawing and it looked like an old lithograph.

I believe I have considered the creative presentation of annotations to add impact to my finished work. For example for the Bride of Frankenstein I wrote my annotations in the form of a story.

I do not think I managed my time as well as I could have but this has been more due to the fact I have enjoyed researching and completing work for each area of this. Next time I will try and limit the amount of research I do for each section.

I am really pleased with my sketchbook and project overall. I believe it was because we were allowed to choose our own decade and there was no specific brief for us to follow so we could do what we wanted including our choice of media. I don’t think I would do anything different and I believe this has been one of favourite projects during this course.

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