Week 5

I started this week off with putting all the traits, shared characteristics and reoccurring appearances within my family into a mind map. which consisted of small shaped eyes, muscular body shape, petite size, attached earlobes, epilepsy and brown eyes. Autism is also a part of my family as my cousin was diagnosed with severe autism from a very young age, this was genetic mutation, in our genes which I researched in depth, to fully understand what it is and how it affects someone. I related to a story which was posted by Geogina Chadderton called ‘Family TRAITS growing up with a brother on the autism spectrum’ published on THE NIB. Which opened my eyes on how to try and understand autism and how its like to live with the condition. I created a print in response to my research based on my discoveries about autism and expressed how I felt about the subject, the print I made had many layers with a lot going on, which was made from a previous sketch that I drew when looking into the DNA formula and the microscope images and textures.

I also created a print with layering information I have gathered on this journey, including a timeline my grandad put together for me of all the men in my family, all the way up to 1819, it also had parts of my surname crest (Salthill) and DNA on a screen. I enlarged and decreased the sizing of these prints and put them on a stand, to bring my 2D designs to life and see how it would look on the body. I then traced the unique shape of the print which I had developed, and sewed onto calico to bring the shape to fabric. Another response I made which I liked was a picture of my younger self with a DNA screen over it and which photoshop I edited it to have jus the texture of the picture onto of my image.

Moving on, I repeated the collaging technique I used earlier in the project, with my siblings and mother, to see what my immediate family share. I discovered my mother has dominant genes, due to although me and my brothers have different fathers, I am always being told we look very alike, sharing the same eye shape, hair colour and type. which means my mum holds dominant genes. I then created an illustration with a print I made up of the collages I have made. I then wanted to develop this further by drawing parts of the collaged faces onto tracing paper and overlapped them to combine them, just like my mum and fathers genes were combined to create me. Moving forward I will be developing my favourite parts to the research, and responses I have done so far. I plan to print samples and test of fabric, to start getting an idea of the fabric I will be using to print.