FMP - Evaluation

FMP - Evaluation

At the beginning of the Final Major Project, I was unsure of what subject inspired me so I decided to

Final Piece Image 1

look at issues that I have faced and also seen members of my family face. I, myself have dealt with feelings of loneliness, the feeling of being an outcast. We live in a world of 7.5 billion people, yet it is so easy to feel like you're all alone. Why is this? And who is affected most by this debilitating mental struggle? This lead me into looking at my family, I immediately thought of my Grandma. She lives in a 1 bedroom bungalow with her dog Milly. I know from conversations that she often feels alone which has sadly led to her having depression. From this, I decided to focus my project on shining a light on those who have become an afterthought for so many in this 7.5 billion society.

Final Piece Image 2

Final Piece Image 3

Within my final piece, I wanted to show how lonely elderly people feel as though time is constantly on their mind due to it feeling like it's flying away. I did this by portraying an elderly woman, alone, miserable and in the complete darkness of life having time held over her head by an almost god-like symbol. I wrestled with the idea of time flying away and how to show this tastefully, at first I was going to put wings on the clock but decided that was a bit too literal and I thought the wings would clash with the hands. Instead, I went for a more understated approach and painted a flying bird on the clock face. The palette I chose for my piece mainly consisted of darker, more monochromatic colours, I did this because of the darkness in the woman's emotions, there's no light for her anymore in her own head, all she can see is darkness. Also from an artistry point of view monochrome is almost like my style, I believe colour leads you to an emotion, whereas a black and white palette forces you to decide on the feelings and emotions in the piece. I chose to stay withing my comfort zone with this piece, I decided to use acrylic paint on a canvas and also paint a portrait, these are all things I was confident about being able to achieve to a standard I'd be happy with. I did this because the subject matter means so much to me, it's something I'm passionate about and it wouldn't have felt right to blindly stray into something knowing I couldn't give justice to the people that my piece reflects.

Lucy Fahey Illustration

Elderly Loneline Image Research

For my Final Major Project I got my inspiration from multiple sources, I firstly looked at informative research and collated some facts from elderly charities, one of these facts was, "two-fifths of all older people (about 3.9 million) say television is their main source of company." This shocked and saddened me that 3.9 million of the UK population felt as though TV was the only thing they had for comfort, This also inspired me to want to highlight this subject. I then went to image research and found multiple images of elderly people looking lonely, this was the inspiration for doing a portrait on my final piece. Despite all these images, there was very little artwork relating to elderly loneliness, I only found Lucy Fahey who had created illustrations as part of a news article. These helped me pinpoint what I wanted to focus on in my final piece.

Experiment Hands Design.

An issue I've always struggled with in this course is time management and sadly this project is no different. I'm going to do everything in my power to change this in the future as I believe it will make me more productive and less stressed. Also, I believe that as an artist I could have done more experiments with more materials. I think that this is because failed or seemingly inadequate experiments always seem messy and unfinished to me which is something I'd change about myself. It is probably due to me chasing in pursuit of artistic perfection and never quite being able to grasp it. This project has really been a passion project for me, I have been given the opportunity to research, experiment and create under a subject that I'm passionate about and that has brought me great happiness for which I'm eternally grateful.

Megan Chilcott

FMP - My Final Piece

FMP - My Final Piece

FMP - Developed Initial Designs

FMP - Developed Initial Designs

FMP - Project Proposal

UAL Awarding Body - Level 3 Extended Diploma

Project Proposal - FMP Y2.

Candidate Name	Megan Chilcott
Candidate Number
Course	Level 3 Extended Diploma in Art and Design
Project Title	The Fear of Loneliness
Section 1: Review (Approx 150 words)
Since joining college I have learnt that a process of experiments is an important thing. Nothing has to be perfect the first try, art is about trial and error and sharing your accomplishments as well as your mistakes. This is an important lesson to me because I used to believe that everything from sketches to book work had to be perfection, now I keep everything in order to show my artistic progress. I have also used a variety of materials and techniques while at Plymouth College of Art, from pottery to wood work to my personal favourite, life drawing. I was slightly apprehensive at the thought of life drawing, my strengths are more in portraiture, but through using different materials such as chalk, charcoal and paint and learning the method of measuring models bodies with a pencil; it became of my favourite lessons in art. An area I can improve in art would probably be my time management. I struggle with deadlines; I’m not great at committing to them. I could improve this by organising my work schedule slightly better and teach myself that procrastinating will never help.
Section 2: Project Concept (approx 250 words)
For my Final Major Project I’m going to explore ‘The Fear of Loneliness’. I’ve recently become very interested in elderly loneliness and isolation; it’s an increasing epidemic that gets ignored in our country and I aim to bring awareness to the subject. To explore elderly loneliness I will be doing research into charities and organisations that aim to help people in these situations, one of these being Age UK. I will also be looking into artists who’ve created artwork and explored loneliness, aging or fear. This will give me further information about what I should look at myself when developing art regarding a similar topic. The context of which my question is exploring is society. I want to know what we are doing as humans to help our fellow man when they are in dire need of our help and support for their mental well-being, happiness and stability. My aim is to shine a light in the eyes of society to know what they are doing and can be doing to help these forgotten men and women. The artists I’ve looked into are Vincent Van Gogh and Pablo Picasso; I decided to look more into their lives than their work. Van Gogh for example has been well documented as a troubled man with issues regarding his mental health. I found this quote by author M.E. Tralbaut about his death, “He deliberately ended his life in the knowledge that his powers were exhausted.” This speaks to me as many elderly people end their lives due to loneliness and social isolation. Whereas Picasso who by my research was an extremely insightful man said this about negativity and positivity, “Every action has an implicit share of negativity. There is no escaping it. Every positive value has its price in negative terms and you never see anything very great which is not, at the same time, horrible in some respect. The genius of Einstein leads to Hiroshima.” This made me think about life and how it’s (usually) extremely positive in the beginning (childhood) and can at times lead to turmoil, sadness and loneliness at the end. For my Final Major Project I am to use a wide range of 2D materials, exploring with colour which I’ve never been great at with pencils, pens, a variety of paints and some typography. I also want to try collage which is something I’ve never attempted before as well as experimenting with 3D materials such as fabrics, sewing, and plastics and perhaps model making.
Section 3: Evaluation (approx 100 words)
To evaluate my work throughout the project I will be making foot notes on pages to ask myself questions which will be helpful to me when creating new work. I will be asking myself questions such as “How does this relate to The Fear of Loneliness?”, “Is this useful?”, “Could you research this further?” and “How could you develop this for it to be included in the Final Major Project final piece?” Questions like these and constant evaluations will help me keep focused in terms of what I’m researching and exploring, this will in turn make my work more refined.
Proposed Research Sources and Bibliography (Harvard Format)

FMP - The Fear of Loneliness - Research, Sketches and Thoughts

Bookwork

FMP - The Fear of Loneliness - Research, Sketches and Thoughts

FMP - Isolation Experiments and Sketches

FMP - Isolation Experiments and Sketches

FMP - Image Interpretation

FMP - Image Interpretation

For my image interpretation I chose to do Banksy's Girl and Balloon art piece. I chose to use Banksy because he tackles social issues within his art and for my final major project I am also trying to tackle a social issue. I chose to do Girl and Balloon because I think its one of his my known works and I knew I could change it up and make it my own.

This is my final image interpretation, it depicts an elderly man trying to catch a clock as its flying away from him, simillar to the saying "time flies". I think this is poignant and links to my work as it shows how the elderly feels like they're being forgotten by time as well as society. 

Overall I found it quite difficult to produce this piece the way I wanted it as it's very difficult to recreate with different materials but I think the message it still there and I hope that it's strong.