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)