Blanket/cover-
using the portraits, I would make multiple of them and attach them together to form some sort of blanket or comforter cover. To do this, I would be using the calico fabric and black acrylic paint for the portraits.
I would need to decide however, if my blanket will show portraits or patterns on the other side of it, and whether the blanket will be stuffed with other cotton materials or use an actual coverlet and make a quilt cover. And i will also need to consider the scale of the portraits and the time it takes to put into making them. So I still need to decide and consider a lot of things in this idea.
To help me think more thourghly on the ideas presentation and layout, I decided to make a mini blanket demonstration to help me generate decition making and further ideas for development.
On the mini blanket, you will see that I experimented with the different kinds of stitch I could attach my portraits together with to form this possible blanket. I used the sewing machine for the hidden stitch and the straight stitch, wear as I hand sewn with the cross stitch, which was very time consuming and inaccurate when it came to keeping the stitch line moderately straight.
Though, what I did like about this process was again that I used a smaller scale which is still able to show the amounts of detail and skill that looks interesting and still impacting. I also decided that adding people of colour was really interesting and nice to see added in there because fear is something that effects all despite the colour of our skin and cultures, and it’s refreshing for myself to use POC in my own work because fine art being a more white dominated subject I rarely see portraits of people of different skin tones other than white. And despite me having included POC, the portraits work well and don’t overpower the idea as a collective.
You will also notice that the portraits I’ve been doing have hardly any distinctive features and some are hard to identify as to what their gender could possibly be. I like the idea of keeping it that way and keeping my work inclusive and relative to all people, I don’t think the portraits need to be specifically gendered.
Courtney Blair Art 