Scandinavian Houses Print

I have the chance to exhibit some work at an exhibition in town and I am setting myself the challenge to link this to my final major project to get the ball rolling with my productivity! The title of the exhibition is ‘Framework’ so I have decided to focus on Scandinavian architecture as this is very structured and shape based. I had already done a few drawings from a book about Scandinavian houses and interiors which inspired this. 

After sketching out my house shapes and deciding on layout I got to work with ink. 

I hoped that my drawings would appear a little looser but my use of a dip pen and a brush with ink was far neater than I expected. When this was scaled down it lost all evidence of being hand drawn. My aim was to capture the difference between the geometrical structure and shape of the houses but also the handmade aesthetic, and the latter wasn’t coming through.

I went over some of the lines again slightly looser to soften it and add more variation in line weight. This made it a little better but I realised I needed to add some tone to make this whole image appear less flat and lifeless. I tested this out on Photoshop by adding grey and some basic texture. I then created my own textures with ink and water and then dug up some monoprints I had made in the past and applied them to windows and wood panels, etc. 

I framed the final outcome in a grey frame with a white mount to match the greyscale theme of the image itself. I feel like the overall image is successful for the purpose it was made for and it does fit the exhibition name ‘Framework’. However, its success in relation to the aims of my final major project is not so positive. I feel like I am only just scratching the surface of Scandinavian living and as a result the aesthetic of the image is quite generic and there isn't much (if any) depth to its meaning or what it represents. To me it’s very ‘IKEA’. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing considering… I don’t know! 

It has become clear to me that I need to set my aims straight. My plans have moved on since the initial statement of intent I wrote so the next logical step for me is to revisit this and make the necessary changes. Then I will be in a position where I can progress with the project with clear aims and intentions.