Amy Lowe Honours Project

I have completed illustrations for sunflower, hyacinth and lotus. Firstly sunflower: The meanings of the sunflower are:  "Ambition; Constancy; Devotion; False appearance; False riches; Flexibility; Good luck; Haughtiness; Healing; Homage; Inspiration; Lofty thoughts; Loyalty; Nourishment; Opportunity; Power; Pride; Pure; Pure and lofty thoughts; Spiritual attainment; Strength; Unhappy love; Vitality; Warmth; Wealth." Dietz, S. Theresa. The Complete Language of Flowers (Complete Illustrated Encyclopedia) (p. 104). Wellfleet Press. Kindle Edition.  I found evidence to suggest that sunflowers can be used to clean up uranium in soil. Apparently, fields have been planted at Chernobyl and Fukushima to try and reduce the long-term impact of a nuclear meltdown on the environment. Also, sunflowers were the symbol of the Sunflower Student Movement in Taiwan since sunflowers implied positivity and hope for the future. My initial idea was to do an anti-nuclear protester and that  evolved

 I have finished two further illustrations: hibiscus and violet. The hibiscus illustration wa primarily insipred my Kali, a goddess in Hinduism. From what I read about her, she is portrayed as a being of chaos. However, in othe instances she is a divine mother who blesses people with one hand and deals punishment with the other. I found the contrast to be interesting so I made my character fairly masculine in a very feminine environment. Initial sketches My first idea was to have her in a gym First drawing of the composition I went with The phone charms were repurposed for her earings in the final Final draft Finished piece She is among nature since it felt wrong to keep her inside. She is having a picnic with dried hibiscus and hibiscus tea. On the embroidery there is the golden sun bird which is the insipiration for the emblem of Chengdu which is city in China. It is nicknamed the hibiscus city. This originated with Lord Mengchang, an aristocrat in Ancient China, ordered hibiscus tre

I finished the aster illsutration last thursday.       The flower meaning that influenced my illustration the most was Love of variety. It personally reminded me of asexuality. Just to understand their sexuality, asexual people break down their experiences of love into categories. It’s important to do this because even though we don’t feel sexually attracted to others that doesn’t mean we are robots who can’t love at all.      Alongside the flower meanings, I found three stories that used the aster: two from Greek mythology and one Cherokee legend. The story that most inspired the direction I took was the myth of Astraea.      Astraea is the virgin goddess of innocence, justice, purity, and precision. In Greek mythology, there is a myth that once the gods lived amongst the people during the golden age. Over time, technology progressed during the bronze and iron ages. This resulted in the development of weapons and war and the gods fleeing to the heavens. Astraea was one of the last to

       Before I get into my recent work, I'll just acknowledge some stuff I did before Christmas that I didn't get round to posting about. I made adaptations of two works; The Seasons by Alphonse Mucha and Jimson Weed / White Flower no.1 by Georgia O'Keefe respectively: The Seasons Alphonse Mucha (1896) Jimson Weed / White Flower no.1 Georgia O'Keefe 1936     The idea was to study the pieces and to adapt them for my project concept to try and develop my ideas further. For The Seasons, I researched into flowers that grew in each season that also matched with the personalities I associated with them. I used crocus meaning cheerfulness for spring, snapdragon meaning presumption for summer, chysanthemum meaning condolences for autumn and snowdrop meaning hope for winter.       For White Flower no.1, I was already given a flower: datura meaning deception. O'Keeffe's work has been analysed as beeing representative of female sexuality; the floral organs being likened t

I've done a few more of the group figure drawings. Firstly, heather and clover: They both have meanings associated with luck so I continued with the gambler idea that I used before. Also, heather has a double meaning of luck and protection. So for the latter part, I gave her some muscle and chunky but friendly facial features. Secondly, zinnia and jasmine: Both have meanings to do with friendship. Specifically, jasmine means amicability and cheerfulness and zinnia means everlasting friendship. I chose to leave this one largely unfinished because I think I need to move on from these kinds of drawings. I need to work out a way for this project to push me more. I'm go back to reading and research for a bit to see if I can get any ideas. Refernces Heather pose reference Clover pose reference Jasmine pose reference Zinnia pose reference