28.04.21

I think today was a really successful day as I received some good feedback/ideas from my peers. The main piece of advice that really struck a cord with me was focusing on symbolism. Trying to create symbolism within my piece is something that I really want to do and thanks to Hana I realised that that is probably the most important part of my piece. In order to incorporate symbolism into my piece I think I need to carry on with my research and combine it with the research I already have. As I have been creating my own patterns at home using random flowers and shapes, I can now experiment by planning out the patterns and actually incorporating symbols and flowers and shapes that are meaningful. Within these patterns I could combine the old and the new which would represent the history of Russia. I could then embroider this pattern or dye it but I think that will come at a later stage as I first need to create a pattern to work with. Today I also came up with an idea that I particularly like which is a pearl veil inspired by the Russian traditional headpiece the Kokoshnik and I feel like the criss-cross pattern feels like a net and therefore quite imprisoning which would symbolise the lack of freedom within Russia today due to the government and respondent Putin. Initial Sketch of Idea:

Instead of just using ordinary pearls, I was thinking abut how I could incorporate more symbolism into the piece and then I thought that I could create my own pearls and put faces and symbols on them. As the piece is symbolic of being caught/imprisoned Putin seemed to be very fitting as he is the one who does the imprisoning within Russia. I have never sculpted a face before however I think it turned out rather well for a first attempt. I am really quite happy with the amount of detail I was able to achieve especially in the eyes the eyebrows and the wrinkles. Everyone I showed him to said they saw the resemblance and was recognisable which is positive. I would have wanted to create Putins face even smaller so it would be a pearl size but I already found it quite challenging to sculpt such a small face already that I think it is quite impossible to make him any smaller unless I find a way to shrink him?

Reflection

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