Leslie David Inspired Work.

Leslie David, an art designer, illustrator and graphic designer based in Paris. Her speciality is brand image,  graphic design for culture and fashion brands. She produced a series of works using SLR photographs and paint while she has been in Paris called 'souvenirs de Paris', where postcards had paint on top of them in a thick, splurgy blend of solid colours. The purpose of their creation was 9 postcard designs for Colette, a French shopping website. Below is an example, it shows the paint almost raining down onto the picture. Colour is most important because of the tones created to blend, the texture is very strong and we can see the bumps on the picture and can imagine how it would feel to touch the original. I think the idea of it is to bring the still photograph to life, it combines 2 contrasting mediums and it works unusually well, it is like nothing I have ever seen before, the idea is completely original and although the mediums don't sit well together they create an attractive composition that is different in terms of the expected.

The colours here are similar on the spectrum, blues and greens kept together. The idea of it coming down from the sky isn't as random as some other designs. For example she has another portfolio on her website (lesliedavid.com) of work using the same medium, but designed for the fashion magasine "Please!' for their birthday issue, she was chosen to art direct the issue. Having seen her previous works on the SLR prints and this time the difference was the photographs were digital and had a full colour spectrum rather than black and white.

The composition here looks as if she has tried to create a feathered texture and present some sort of head gear, the paint looks pressed, as if glass is on top of it which I suspect she didn't the colours sit well together because of the top colour, the lighter tones of blue and white blended in lighten it up, making it the first part we are drawn to, its sits on top like a 3D effect, we can see it standing out and bumpy lines on it, I think the coloured photographs work better because the paint looks more natural because it relates to the colour of the actual photograph, unlike the Paris collection I think it sits better together that that did because of these similarities in colour. Although their is a black and white print too.

Their are 2 of these black and white photographs and both of them use the same colours for the colour blending, I think they are the brightest colours she could choose and they stand out much more than the photograph itself so the choice to put the paint at the side of the photograph works well because it helps her face to sit forward more, the blotted dot pattern it creates looks like it has been used because of the small arranged diamonds on her tiara and facial wear. 

First of all I created a simple blend of colours on a palette by squeezing a large blob of each of them next to each other. Using a palette knife with one simple stroke through the paint I lifted it onto the knife and swiped it across the printed photograph and dragged it across. For my first attempt I didn't think so much on the direction but covered the face because that was similar to what David did, also making sure that the paint spread properly. The colours I chose were on different ends of the spectrum because I thought it would be good to have light and dark incoorperated so that it represented something slightly similar to David's.

This time I tried to mix the colours better and drag them off the picture to present her as being faceless and also relating to the graveyard setting, her being defaced out of the composition to represent out of it altogether. I like the blending and the small lumps that create texture on this. I chose a later blue so that the dark colour wasn't too overpowering but it was too rich and I preferred the darker blue before.

This time I pressed glass onto my paint so that it lifted to create an effect similar to David's in terms of texture. I created a circle this time rather than dragging it off the page so that it was a set shape rather than dragged off.

This time I bought in my own ideas by thinking of creating a look of explosion around her powerful composition of being sat in the centre fiercely. The reds present anger and fire to relate to this along with oranges and yellows, the other colours relate to the nature in the background and sit back much more calmly than the fiery colours. The direction going outwards represents the explosion spreading, her being left uncovered shows the power of the to cause it and rise above it. I really like the idea but think the colours look too childish and randomly blotted even though they have been placed there for a reason.

Covered the gravestone with colours that are more blended together because they are closer together and less spread out, I moved the knife along in a zig-zag motion to create a wobbly effect showing the sadness of death by the shaky effect on people. The colours show a wide spectrum of emotion rather than only sad feelings, it stands out and is almost unrecognisable as a grave apart from the part at the top which is visible to show this.

Creating a flower effect around her face, I tried similar tones this time, towards the end I thought it represented more of a sun visually, so did the colours, happiness and heat. I didn't like this too much because it was quite messy and out of place, also I would like the colours to differ more to each other and not take up most the composition but instead be a small element similar to what David did with the shapes being spotted together and not too overbearing.

I tried to completely cover her figure here, the direction I chose for each stroke followed the directions of her. These colours were my favourite because they were attractive and contrasted the sadness of the graveyard, this is one of my favourites along with the circular shape that was over her face previously. I liked the lack of identity and this worked well for the circle one but for this one hid any sign of garment to show for fashion so it was out of my depth in terms of presenting the clothes ect.

I liked this activity because I liked David's work so I was excited to participate, also it was simple yet could create really effective visual outcomes. I think that I could have tried to spot the paint around more with more advanced colours to improve my outcomes. I chose to do this and aimed for it to look more like David's because I preferred this visually to any of the work I had done. Also pressing the glass onto my outcomes helped create a texture which I liked so I decided to do this again too.