My FMP

I have been interested in folk art for the past few years and explored it for the personal passions brief last year when I looked at Mexican Folk art. So I knew that for my final project I wanted to explore folk art further. I wanted my work to have a direction and theme, so I thought about basing it around a story, at first I found it difficult to find a story as there are so many to choose from all over the world. I was given some advice to choose maybe a British Folk story as European stories are so popular have have been used a lot in design over the past few years. I was given a British story book and narrowed the hundreds of stories down to a few about nature and animals because I knew thats what I wanted to focus on. I finally decided on a story called the 'Grocer and the Parrot'. The story involves a parrot that is kept in a cage in a grocers, the parrot doesn't speak, squark or say anything, until the parrot sees the Grocer meddling with the products in the shop. The grocer then strangles the bird and then throws him away, because she is loosing him custom, however it turns out the bird isn't dead, then flies away.

To start my work I did some research on green parrots, as this was the bird described in the story. As the story doesn't specify what type of bird, just that it is a green parrot, I felt that I would have a large range of different types of birds to draw from. I did some research online and also went to different museums and galleries to look at birds in person, to see the colours, textures, and patterns. I took some photographs and did some quick initial drawings. I also went to the Natural History Museum in London too and did the same there, so I had a selection and range of birds to draw from.
Once I had my research I then decided to create of range of drawings using different materials and techniques to create different lines, and marks. I liked the outcome and thought that I had really challenged myself and went out of my comfort zone when drawing and didn't use my usual black fine liner. I think that this range of drawing styles has really developed my drawing style and will make my work more interesting.

Because the colour of the bird is mentioned in the tale and is also a memorable part of the story, I thought it was important to included the colour of the parrot in my work. So I photocopied some of my favourite drawings and painted them using watercolours, just to jet an initial idea of colour ways, and to see how they would look in colour instead of the original black and white.