This is my second project for AS level. I chose to base this ptoject upon Alice au Pays de Merveilles (or Alice in Wonderland). I was inspired by this as I have recently been reading Alice au Pays de Merveilles in french, and was also inspired by the lyrics of the song "Rabbit Heart," by Florence and the Machine. Whilst bieng one of my favourite childhood films, Alice in Wonderland is such a magical tale with something dreamlike about it, and this is what I had hoped to create withmy piece. The abve image (drawn by Sir John Tenniel) was my inspiration for the compostition of my piece, as I wanted to recreate the use of the curtain as the entrance to wonderland,and into an unrealistic, magical world.
These images were the first few I drew, and collated to from my ideas for the project. I liked the child like, illustrative nature of the Alice in wonderland theme and John Tenniels drawings. However I hoped to make it more modern with a use of brighter colours to give a more dream-like feel.
The above images are of pictures I have taken of my neighbours rose bush, and a drawing in oil pastel of the above images. I wanted to experiment with oil pastel as I like the colours the produce on the paper, however it was at this point which I decide to do my main piece on plastic to recreate the Alice through the looking glass effect, and therefore the oil pastel would not work on the plastic surface.
These pictures also show experimentation with colour but also with mixed media, in that I have used the cards and the envelopes, in order to create the 'through the looking glass' effect.
I was inspired by the photography of Tim Walker, who does a lot of fairytale themed photography. I liked the way his pictures seem happy with the use of bright colours, lighting and also the positions he puts the models in. I hoped to recreate this with some of my pitures while also copying some of the positions that Tenniel drew Alice positioned in. If I were to do these picutrs again I would use brighter and better placed lighting to give a more 'Walker' like effect.
I also liked the way Paula Rego made a fairytale seem warped, with her use of dark colours and changing the sterotypical shape of the 'cute' rabbit. The picture above is my extension of Regos picutre.
The other above picture is my compostion of wonderland to draw on my main piece. I made this compostion using all of my other prep work to create my ideal shape and position of the seperate drawings.
div>The above series of pictures show the progression of my final piece. I decided to make a frame around it from two sheets of MDF, in which I cut a hole in the centre using a Jigsaw. Then pieced together, putting another piece of mdf between the two to create a slot for my piece of perspex to slide in and out of. I then re attatched my finished curtain, but again, to me, it appeared to be 'unfinished' as such. So I decided to copy the idea of the doors down the rabbit hole, and to put doors on the other side of the frame to the curtain. I used the surplus MDF that I had left from the frame, put hinges on them and painted them in brown, green and red. On the inside of the doors I put a simple line drawing of my own photographs of Alice and The Mad Hatter, as I think that it contrasts from the complicated and colourful perspex, like wonderland contrasts from the real world. I made the door handles by moulding some fimo into the shapes of a mushroom and an eat me cake, to make the mixed media of the piece even more varied and so the veiwer can interact more with the piece. The doors also made it so the piece was freestanding and therefore easier to display.
In conclusion, this has been my favourite project, both to study/research and to create as it allowed me to experiment with alot of different medias as well as be a little bit more wacky than usual to reflectt the madness of wonderland.
