Tour De France Report

Tour de France report

 

For our first project as second years this year, we have been looking at Le Tour De France. I went to watch the tour in Sheffield as the riders came through Yorkshire so I got my primary research from that. I took some photos and videos of the scenery and I even visited the Civic gallery as their theme was the history of Le Tour De France. I took some photos from there and for my secondary research I used information and pictures from the internet, mainly from the official Yorkshire website and the BBC.

Nothing particularly inspired me at the Civic, however I thought it was quite interesting how they displayed bikes from the early 20^th century and all the information they had about them. In my opinion I thought the Civic Gallery was a little boring but that’s just because I am not a big fan of The Tour De France.

I looked at a number of different Artists but the main 3 that stood out to me the most were;
Moy Mackay, she is a needle felting Artist who looks at landscaped and Nature. She inspired my final piece as I took forward her style and the way she perceives the country side in her work. I think her work is beautiful and unique. The second Artist is Alister Colley, who was the official Artist for Le Tour De France. His work is different from any I have seen before. He works in a cartoon style but distorts his work and makes it look like its bending. I recreated one of his pieces of the British Countryside and even used his cartoon like style in my work. The third and final Artist is a man called Rob Corradetti, he created a company called Killer Acid and he specialises in screen printing which has been a big part in this project for me.  I find his work inspiring with all the bright colours he uses and how crazy and different it is.

In this project I have, screen printed, needle felted, knitted, experimented with gouache and brusho inks and done some felt making. My favourite was needle felting, I have never used this technique before but I really enjoyed it, I found it quite therapeutic. However my least favourite was definitely knitting, I found it really difficult to master and I didn’t find it enjoyable.

I experimented with felt making and made some little felt balls, and blended two different coloured felts to make the finishing piece of felt thicker and multi-coloured. I then experimented further with it and needle felted on top of it.

My chosen Artist- Moy Mackay inspired my final piece with the landscape. Because I am looking at Le Tour De France and Yorkshire, I thought it fit in well with the project as Yorkshire is mainly countryside which Moy looks at and also because I enjoyed needle felting I thought I would use her work to inspire my final piece.

I think I could have managed my time a little better as I have had to work at a really fast pace to make sure I get all my work done to the deadline and I have also been taking my work home and finishing it. I think I managed my time well when producing my mood boards and Artist research sheets as I managed to get them done in the first 2 weeks. I still have some work I need to improve but I am confident my work will be ready to hand in on the first Monday back.

I was really proud of my painting I did, inspired by Alister Colley’s work because it turned out just how I had pictured in my head and I put a lot of time and effort into it. However, what did not go so well was my knitting. I found it really difficult to grasp the technique and also my prints did not go as well as I had hoped. I didn’t make some of the lines thick enough on my design so they didn’t show up as well as I would have liked. If I was to change anything I would make all my mood boards/development sheets neater and with a lighter background because the paint was too dark and I feel like I could perfect them more.

Throughout this project I think I have used my blog effectively as I have updated it with felting and work I’ve done for Le Tour De France but there is still more work to be uploaded. I did not use my sketchbook as effectively as I could have. I used it to keep looking back at work and taking ideas from it but I need to add more work to it still.

Overall I am satisfied with this project. I have enjoyed experimenting with new techniques and looking at multiple things e.g. (countryside, bikes, people, nationalities, history of Le Tour De France) rather than just looking at one thing.