During Component 2, we were given a variety of topics to choose from and I decided upon the topic ‘Built up Areas’. This involved a focus on buildings and architecture and in particular their strong structures and big bold lines which these exquisite man-made creations are comprised of.

I first started looking at the work of Ruth Allen. I highly appreciate and like Allen’s work as she uses a continuous line to create the rough etchings of these beautiful city buildings. I also admire the simplicity of her work and how it is not overloaded with detail, and concentrates on the main feature of the buildings such as windows, frames and ledges. I attempted to imitate her technique of using a continuous line on a sewing machine which I really enjoyed and was pleased with the final outcome as the texture was stronger rather than being on plain bit of paper.

My attention then shifted to an artist named Brice Marden who is a minimalist artist. I really liked his abstract work and it stood out for me because its a simple idea but so effective. I interpreted Mardens’ work as being one that would allow the viewer to try and distinguish the shapes used and concepts that may have inspired it. Additionally, the extremely light and dark areas that are constructed through the use of thick and thin lines which is an effective way of grabbing the viewers attention. I thought he was a great artist to incorporate within my work because it can relate to my project’s subject of buildings, and portrays how the strong lines can be displayed in different ways to make great art.

For my final piece, I incorporated a range of different techniques and styles I had learnt throughout the process to present a piece based on the subject of buildings. I decided to use photos I took of skyscraper buildings in London, because they had these very strong, distinct lines and grids on them that make a good representation of buildings from my point of view within this project. I then choose to cut these images into sections and then layer them and use sewing over the top to make varied sizes of lines. I repeated this to create almost a big scaled puzzle. I am happy with how my final piece came out but if I was to repeat this again I would use a broader variety of sized lines using the sewing machine to make more stronger dark areas.