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I have been using Pinterest as an archive to collect inspirations for this project, and my work in general. It has been really helpful and has definitely been influential in helping me push through this project. It shows the way my thought process flows into my work.

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I wanted to try to work more with working digitally. I used this as practice, but ended up really loving the results. I went through copyright free image digital archives to find pictures of items that gave me nostalgia. I edited and compiled these images together to form a graphic base that I was proud of, then I played around with different backgrounds and layering text and distortion over top of them as well.

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I am continuing on with the cartoon figures. I was originally mainly inspired by Nara's work for them, but Takashi Murakami's facial features that he draws inspired the faces that I did. I am enjoying adding little details and bright colors. Painting and sculpting these has brought upon the feelings of nostalgia and connecting with the inner child, and I want to continue with this.

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more of Nara's work

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more of Nara's work

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more of Nara's work

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His use of sculpture combined with the drawings and paintings in the background were very visually stimulating. They all felt very connected, because of the style that he uses, and it all was very interesting and thought provoking. It made me want to think further into his use of sculpture and painting and drawing and how to make it all cohesive.

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I went and saw Nara's work at Pace Gallery. I have been interested in his work mainly for this unit, but also just in general. His work has inspired a whole new through process of my work. His use of cartoon style and his use of material. Seeing his work in person has really furthered this for me. His use of cardboard is so much more interesting in person. It adds so much more to the work rather than if he just used canvas. It is more raw, more nostalgic in a way.

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I have been continuing on with my mini figure sculptures. They have been much more difficult than I expected, with the unevenness of the head being to heavy, causing them to be difficult to stay on correct. They have also been difficult to paint without smudging from my fingers. Even with the difficulties, I have really enjoyed working with them. I have started to enjoy working with my hands much more, and enjoying the freeness that comes with it.

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Throughout this research period, I have started to put into practice the subconscious effort to make observations and connections to the world around me to things that bring me nostalgia. These observations include experiences like making hot chocolate, seeing a candied nuts vendor in the park, feeling genuine laughter that I realized I hadn't felt since I was a child, seeing a restaurant that looked like one I loved as a kid, and seeing this Little Gym, of which is the same company that I went to with my siblings as a kid, even if it is all the way across the ocean. These little observations and connections really influenced my way of working and my way of thinking throughout this project, and in general.

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Out of the three exhibitions at the Camden Arts Centre that I visited, Farah's work stuck with me the most. His connection to nostalgia and his memories of going through heartbreak. Every single piece of the exhibition made me inspired. I especially enjoyed how he had his photographs set up in a way like they are posters at a music shop, the viewer has to interact with the pieces by flipping through them in this way. I also loved the fountain in the middle of the room that was filled with soda. The multiple Mariyah Carey posters throughout also felt very nostalgic as well. It made me want to connect pieces of my childhood or adolescence in this way and made me think much deeper about presentation.

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I chose to make a small zine for my love letters. I wanted these letters to be a bit more interactive. I thought that it would be very interesting to have other people learn how to make love letters to themselves as well. I was pretty proud of it as it was my first time making a zine on my own without someone else's help. I was happy with the simplified art inside the zine, but I wish that I had done a different style for the front cover of the zine, as I feel as if it looks somewhat messy and not thought through enough.

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I ended up writing loads of love letters and presenting them by laying them out onto a sheet of bubble wrap. The idea was originally to have them all in a pile inside of a cardboard box with the bubble wrap lining them as well. I couldn't find a cardboard box of the size that I wanted, so I just had it this way. I realized that I was overthinking the materiality of these envelopes. The main idea of this experience is the actual letter inside the envelope, the idea that it is just for me. It is important that these envelopes are opaque, that they all are the same, that they all were just for me. I decided to seal it with a kiss, as it reminded me of old television shows where they would write a letter and kiss it like this. I want to definitely take this work further and continue writing these letters. I want to complete so many letters that it ends up being an enormous pile of envelopes sealed with a kiss that they are overflowing a box and are all over the floor.

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This is a continuation of my planning for the love letters. Before, I kept my letters in sealed envelopes. These envelopes were completely opaque, so no one would even be able to see that there even is a letter inside. This idea made me want to take it further and see how I could push it. I was interested in maybe making these envelopes out of different fabrics and mediums and papers. If maybe the letters even needed to be seen. Do I even want the writings inside to be viewed by other people, or should I keep it just for me? these are all questions to figure out that I was mapping out in this page of planning.

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In my workshop, Scratch, I have chosen to take my idea of written love letters to myself from unit one life logging further. I want to write more love letters to myself and make a collection of them to display at the online studio.

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Yashitomo Nara's work is the main artist that inspired me to want to work with cartoon and playful style figures in my work. To further understand his work and thought processes, I watched many documentaries and videos about him as well as books in the Chelsea Library. His inspirations behind his work is all from things like war, pain, politics, spirit, nature, and music. I first saw Nara's work on someone's t-shirt. I then remember seeing his work on pinterest right after. I became very fascinated with this style and the idea of using deeper ideas, or even just any idea in general, connected with childlike figures or styles. His sculpture work is also very inspiring for me. He uses the same cartoon-like style in these sculptures, and he collaborates with other people to help him plan and construct sculptures that are of quite large scale.

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I was inspired by Hashitomo Nara's sculptures that he makes. He is mainly known for his drawings and paintings, of which really inspire me for this unit as well, bubt the sculpture that he does with cartoon figures is inspiring me for this. I started with clay and let it air dry. I then have painted them all white and they are now ready to have actual colour on them. It was pretty difficult, definitely more than I expected. next time that I work with clay, I need to have some sort of stand to have the clay stand up on so that it is easier to paint and easier to sculpt without messing up the shapes while still malleable.

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This is a quite big drawing that I did with chalk pastels. I was excited to continue working with cartoon faces and figures, so I wanted to work with colour and bigger scale. It was a bit difficult for me, as I don't necessarily have a carton style perfected, so the features took a bit to decide on. I was very happy with the outcome, as with the pastels you can see all of the many layers that I applied that all came together to make this cartoon figure. It definetly made me want to continue on with the cartoon faces.

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Here is a sketch of me practicing with cartoon features. This is something I am interested in including in my work in this unit, so I wanted to give it practice. There are more sketched, but this sketch is one of my favorites. It was really enjoyable to not do realistic faces, but more free flowing, cartoon work.

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In the research workshop that we had with our tutor group, we spoke about our ideas for our research that we were interested in going deeper into. We had to come up with a leading question for our research. The idea that I came up with that I was the question of "How do artists use playful cartoon-like style to represent issues or media." I am really excited to continue to go deeper into this topic throughout the 8 weeks.

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Takashi Murakami is an artist that I previously knew slightly from the well-known character of the rainbow flower. I was in the library looking at the artist Hoshitomo Nara's books and I saw the cover for a book on Murakami's work. I read the book and became very interested in looking further. His connection between his japanese roots, and the media around him that he had nostalgia connected to influenced his work. This is exactly what I wanted to do and work further with. He created little cartoon characters that he reuses throughout most of his work like KaiKai and KiKi, Ovale, and the Smiley Flower. I also really wanted to get into using cartoon-like figures in a playful way to connect with my love of working with nostalgia.

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I was very drawn to the idea of using monologues or just writing about my day, as I worked on that in unit one with life logging. This collection of work by Mem Morrison is a collection of monologues that represented his research with colour therapy, and what each colour can mean and how it can affect people's thoughts and actions. It all came back to a wedding photo of his mother that inspired the name of the whole work "Lilac." This connection to writing out thought processes and the connection that Morrison had to it, was inspiring for me to work further with this idea of writing.