Giacomo Uliassi

While I was working on the “Talking Colour” task I enjoyed experimenting with different kinds of media and materials in order to express my ideas related to objects and places surrounding myself. At the very beginning I started being inspired by nature and its astonishing colours during the autumnal season: I wanted to analyze and express the feelings and emotions that natural landscapes can generate in human mind. My first three creations were St. James’s Park Lake view, the squirrel and London skyline by night, followed by a more deep observation about fruit and flowers I could see around me. Later on I started focusing more on the accurate study of colours and how they can be mixed up together to obtain certain visual effects. During the third part of the project I shifted to a more abstract conception which made me try different techniques such as collage and charcoal. What I was most pleased with about the project was perhaps realizing tridimensional works starting from what I did already created in two dimensions with previous drawings and sketches: I made an autumnal tree using sea sticks which I collected during past years, while for its canopy I adopted cotton fabrics which I dyed by myself. Furthermore I painted an abstract pattern on a piece of soapstone using acrylics.

In general I am quite satisfied by the the way I managed to deal with different kinds of media and choose the most suitable for each of my works. To develop my work further I would probably focus on more abstract drawings and sketches. Moreover I believe I gained further knowledge and worthwhile experience while developing this task.

Working on the “Ways of Seeing” and “Talking Pattern” tasks made me really understand how an object, a place, a surface or anything that surrounds us can be seen in many different ways and thus represented following several interpretations. Besides that this project let me apply different ways of seeing things to my drawings, enabling me to create new textures and patterns which I would never ever imagined.

At first I started observing enlarged objects such as amethyst and a coloured stone, creating a pattern that could be referenced to them. Then I seeked objects that could create an interesting and appreciable pattern: I drew nuts with their shells, grouped sea stones, coloured fishes in different versions, leaves, berries, sea shells, kiwis, papayas, bamboo but also more abstract patterns deriving from odd objects’ structure and texture. Afterwards, having created different patterns and backgrounds using mixed media, I tried layering them in order to obtain new effects and results, pretending they were a sort of prototypes for printed textiles.

What I really enjoyed about this two tasks was the research of strange and interesting surfaces’ textures needed to create patterns. I was also delighted in using techniques such as doodling, dripping, sprinkling, overlaying using transparent acetate paper and many others. To develop my work further I would probably use different materials and media for my works’ overlap so that I can get some more amazing effects. I believe this task really helped me in expanding and developing my creativity as a designer.