The human figure has been a dominant theme for artists since the beginning of time. Artists have always tended to exaggerate the features that appeal to them in their representations. We are drawn to the human form and it can be shown in many ways. My project, ultimately to create a set of postage stamps for the V&A Museum, began with a drawing visit to the V&A with artist James Tyldesley to visually interrogate the human form in sculpture.
I came to understand that the process of drawing is to be 'actively looking’ - I found it to be a more intense ‘seeing’ than photography and one is constantly establishing connections, relationships and proportions when drawing. These drawings began a further process of pushing an image through technological and conceptual developments. I found it interesting how we moved from 3D (the sculpture), to 2D (the drawing), to print, to digital, to product.
Using software to its full advantage I developed the image further, tidying up the original artwork and manipulating colours and textures.
I experimented with cropping, framal reference and other compositional devices to explore a large, human scale object (sculptures of the human body) reduce to a small scale (the postage stamp). The project made available opportunities to visit the Royal Mail Archive and specialists such as Stanley Gibbons to understand the final product (First Day Covers) further and I found that I got a lot for experimenting with different presentation styles.
