This project has been quite the adventure, meaning I got lots of practice to sharpen my skills of organization, as well as creative thinking so I could solve the problems that came my way.
Throughout the project, I made sure to prioritize organisation so I would have enough time to make my final product the best it could be. I did this by making my design not too complicated so that when I created it I wouldn’t run out of time. I also took into consideration if I had the abilities to create my design, or at least enough time to learn the new abilities. All of this led me to a simple yet interesting shape that I would be able to complete in the time given, but also would be fun to create. I believe this plan worked well because I never had an issue with meeting the targets for each week.
When creating the said design I took a lot of influence from a tribal aesthetic and cave paintings as well as the carved designs I saw during the art excursion. I also was inspired by the rock formations at the museum, so I tried to replicate this throughout my amulet to enforce the tribal aesthetic. I applied this tribal aesthetic by smudging different coloured paints onto my amulet to give the impression of sediment layers in rock formations. I also achieved this by keeping my colour pallet in red and orange hues and as well as keeping the colours in earthy tones to give the impression of the paints that cavemen would create with ground rocks.
During this project, I had to adapt quickly and come up with creative solutions, because I ran into many issues when creating my amulet. The first issue I ran into was when I was painting red accents onto my design. The red ended up being too similar to the colour pallet of the rest of the piece, causing it to fade into the background. To fix this, I decided to try to change the red to black and it ended up looking effective and creating a well-needed contrast of colours in the piece. I also decided to add a red curve into the middle of the back section, similar to the curved lines in the other section of the amulet. After doing multiple coats to make the red pop, I found it worked well because it was visually pleasing and fitted with the rest of the design. After finishing my design, I decided to add a glossy finish on top using Modpodge. After drying the first layer I noticed that the Modpodge and some yellow paint on the amulet had interacted causing the yellow paint to mix with the Modpodge and spread over the piece. At this point, there was no going back so I had to find a way to incorporate it into the piece. I did this by adding two more layers of Modpodge to see if it would affect the finished product. In the end, I found that it created a metallic/ bronze finish to the piece, actually fitting into the targeted aesthetic of the amulet.
Even though my end result was drastically different from my initial design, I found that it worked well and achieved the targeted aesthetic I aiming for.
*I would have included photos of the process but I don’t have any*