MUTANT - references 6

This week we were briefed in the lecture about the project. We were shown examples which made me re-think my concept. So far I've thought of developing a half human half floral mutant. I haven't really explored other combinations. I looked at some images of half human half animal or "Manimals".

MUTANT - idea blog 2

Continuing on from my idea of creating a mutant with big hair made completely out of flowers, I found a photospread in the April edition of Vogue Australia magazine to be inspiring.

I like the mix of high fashion with the florals.

I did a quick sketch of what I could do for my mutant's hair using Australian native flowers.

I've drawn it so that the flowers appear to grow from her forehead/skin. It almost looks like a majestic crown, which reminds me of a floral goddess or the crowns of the ancient Egyptian rulers.

I was thinking of having the model wear green contact lenses as well to create an eerie look.

MUTANT - references 5

A contemporary example of a mutant is Charles the Orangutan for ING. There's something a little creepy about him - probably mostly because he resembles a human yet is not quite there.

MUTANT - idea blog 1

I recently came up with an idea for my project. I would like to feature flowers in my mutant. I am a floristry student studying the Pearsons Commercial Design Certificate at the Pearsons School of Floristry on Oxford Street, Darlinghurst. I am in my final semester (it is a one year course) and I feel that I could use my floristry skills to create something interesting. One of my friends said that many people would probably use flowers, but I feel that I can bring something different to the project as I have wiring, handtied and floral foam skills, and I am familiar with the variety of flowers at the Flower Market in Flemington. These are images of some of my work from the past three semesters:

I was inspired to use flowers in my mutant project because last week I found a drawing that I did in 2007.

The drawing was inspired by a well-known illustrator. Unfortunately I am unable to remember her name, but in her drawings she always featured young women with koi fish and the ocean in their hair. The woman's hair in my image is inspired by the line work and spirals in Vincent van Gogh's painting, Starry Night, and the album artwork from The Vines' second album, Winning Days.

Because of this drawing that I did, I thought of perhaps creating a mutant that is an earth goddess with hair made of flowers and foliage, thus rendering it an organic being. Botticelli's infamous painting, Primavera, reminds me of such goddesses.

Ever since Sophia Coppola's film, Marie Antoinette, was released in 2006, I have always been interested in very big hair in images. The thought of creating hair entirely out of flowers and leaves, just like in my drawing, would be an exciting challenge.

In addition to floral hair, I have also always been captured by floral clothing and imagining an entire human body covered and made of flowers. I found some images from Jil Sander's Spring 2011 collection that featured florals. The second image, in particular, is inspiring because I can imagine constructing an entire mutant out of flowers.

MUTANT - references 4

I researched some photoshopped images where animals were fused together to create realistic creatures.

I also found these two images that employ mutated human features:

Mutant - references 3

I was thinking of examples of mutants in popular culture to help inspire me for my project. I thought of the underground mutants from the television show, Futurama. Each of these underground characters each show some sort of body abnormality.

As well, I googled some images of mutated fruit. In my search, I found that I was grossed out by many of the images because they seemed so monster-like. I would like to aim to create a mutant with some sort of interesting textual quality. I think that if I can get under the viewer's skin and make them have goosebumps just from looking at the skin or fur of my mutant, then I will have achieved creating something that is realistic yet unseen.

I then thought of some interesting-looking prehistoric creatures like dinosaurs. Even though they were once real, not having seen them myself in reality makes me believe that they are creatures of the imagination. These are two that I found interesting:

MUTANT - references 2

André Martins de Barros is a modern-day artist who delivers similar work to that of Giuseppe Arcimboldo (see previous post).  Though his works are painted and not entirely organic, I nevertheless still see them as inspiration for my project because he builds a being out of items related to that character's personality.