Phrase 1
I went to the Strand Bookstore and took these pictures in the rare book room at the third floor. I was interested in the old, aged texture of these books.
Phrase 2
I went to the Strand Bookstore again. This time, I spent most of my time at the basement. I liked the arrangement of the books, it looks both messy and in order.
Looking through the bookshelf is interesting. The pattern of the woodshelf is so fansinating.
I especially liked the pattern of the ground of the basement, the electronic wires on the wall, tubes on the ceiling, and the records in the corner.
Phrase 3
I made skeyches of the elements of the Strand Bookstore.
Bookshelf
Tubes
Ground
Phrase 4
In this Phrase, I tried to use different ways to show different looks of the Strand Bookstore. The first one used oil pastels, the second one used watercolor, and the third one was digital collage.
Phrase 5
I bought the printing paper and tried different art medias on it to see the effects. I also printed out a little sample to see which art media covered the printing best. I preferred watercolor and oil pastels.
Phrase 6
At the phrase, I printed out the full size image of the digital work as a sample and broung it to the class to receive feedbacks. During the way of moving it around, the pastels spreaded and made the piece a little bit messy. So I decided not to use pastels in the final work.
Phrase 7
After receiving feedbacks in class, I did several changes to my work, both digitally and physically.
In the original collage, writer Dickens was seperated from other writers and was the main focus of the whole piece, and all the wirters were in their dark clothes. In the new collage on the right, I put Dickens into the writers’ group and used one of my drawings of the bookstore to replace their clothes. Also, I abandoned those meaningless outline.
old
new
In the old one, the tube element was the picture that I took at Strand. But in the new collage, I used my own painting of tubes. It looked better and had more handmade sense.
old
new
The sky used to be blank and now it has my watercolor darwing there.
old
new
old
In the old collage, the road was just the original look of Strand Street in London. But in the new collage, I used several books to consist that road area.
new
old
new
I also changed my idea about how to show Nancy, the present owner of Strand.
I added my drawing at the background bookshelf.
Phrase 8
I bronght the new, printed collage in class and used oil pastels to strengthen some of my drawings.
final work
