Level 6 Planning

I view my practice throughout this module as a continuation and a constant development on previous work and will use my website to demonstrate this. I will continue to use this website and once I have a larger body of work over a longer period I will consider displaying the pages in chronological order to explicitly show the progression of my practice.

I will develop on each page and include any new work I make. The most important plan I have for my website is to add to the 'exhibitions' page, accounting every exhibition I am, or are about to be, involved with. This will add professionalism and give viewers a chance to see my work in person.

View my website at:

http://paigecottam.moonfruit.com/

Organising my work into pages

On deciding how to display the various aspects of my practice on my website, I found that the simple formats such as Callum Innes' were clearer and easier to navigate. Due to the fact that I have researched Innes' work during my studio practice and found similarities between our methods, I also chose to have a page entitled 'works on paper' to generally overview the range of prints and collages I thought relevant:

In terms of the 'works on paper' page, I chose to add a wide range of small prints, left un-captioned. Though this may seem unprofessional or lazy, this was a deliberate choice to encourage the viewer not to see them as refined or completed works of art, but to appreciate the simple aesthetic of the technique, and how these have in turn influenced my paintings.

Though I haven't yet been involved in any exhibitions, I chose to add a page entitled 'exhibitions' to demonstrate that I intend to add to it later on. Though viewers might find it strange that I have left an empty page on my official website, I believe it is more appropriate to demonstrate the intent than to not have an exhibitions page at all:

The page entitled 'photographs' was created to give the viewer an impression of the kinds of scenes and structures that influence the compositions of my painting and paper based work. The purpose of the page is not really to analyse the photographs for their artistic, aesthetic qualities, but to give the viewer a wider understanding of the various processes involved in my practice and how ideas are created:

I kept the 'about' page brief, describing where I currently study and a concise paragraph about my practice and the methods I use. I added my email address to be contacted on and no other personal details. I added a photograph of a work in progress in my studio, giving not only a sense of the scale I work on, but also an idea of how i work in a studio:

Image as background

Setting an image of the artists work as the background for the entire website:

Select 'Design', 'Wallpaper and Icon' ensuring 'Show background' is not selected. Press 'Choose Image' then choose any image from the file.

The image taking up the entire page is effective on the homepage because it is a simple way of introducing the viewer to my work.

However, it can't be done without effecting every page on the website; the background and the images of my work clash, and the background is distracting.

Viewing my website from a phone

Home page viewed from computer.

Home page initially viewed from iPhone. 

Pressing 'View standard version' at the bottom of the initial page allows the website to be viewed as it would on a computer screen (this also means that moonfruit web builder is compatible with both windows and apple products):

The viewer can then navigate from page to page as they would on a computer:

Each icon can be selected and viewed in an enlarged format:

Creating my website

I looked into various websites as a free platform for creating my own website, including WordPress, Cargo and WIX. These were either extremely complicated to use, required permission from the domain before I could build my website (Cargo) or, as with WIX, apparently were not compatible with Apple products, therefore anyone using an Apple product to search for my website would struggle to find it. 
I found that moonfruite, despite the unprofessional sounding domain name, was the most appropriate and easy to use website builder that I could find.

Adding Pages

- Select 'pages' from the top tool bar, then select 'add new page'

- Select appropriate page type e.g. 'gallery- large' for uploading multiple large scale photographs 

- Name the page e.g. Paintings, Works on Paper etc.

- Add the new page to the list; the order that the pages appear on your website can be altered by dragging them.


Adding single photographs

- Select 'Insert' from the top tool bar, then select 'image' from the side menu
- Click 'upload' and select an image from your own files on your computer and click 'use this'
- Resize and rearrange image as appropriate.

Adding Image Gallery Tool

- Select 'Insert' from top tool bar then select 'Widget library'
- Go to 'Image tools' and select 'Image gallery', then press 'Use this'
- Double click in the grey boxes to add photographs from file
- Edit the column size in 'Editor window' to alter how many photos appear across and vertically

Adding Text

- Select 'Insert' from top tool bar

- Select 'Body text' for normal text box anywhere on screen or 'Title text' for headings

- Edit written text in the 'Editor' window e.g. font and size

Changing page length

- Select 'Pages' from the top tool bar

- Type the desired page length into the box and press 'Apply'

- Note: only the page length, and not the page width, can be altered

Editing background colour

- Select 'Design' in the top tool bar, then select 'Background colour' in the side bar

- Ensure 'Show background' is checked to preview the colours as they are selected

- Click on desired colour; this will apply to every page not just the one you are on at the time

* Selecting items on the 'Page Master' tab allows you to edit he layout of each individual page

* Click 'view my site' to preview changes after saving them

Relevant work

To give a coherent and thorough impression of my painting practice, should my website should include not only completed works, but reflect any experimentation in other media that may lend itself to my practice as a whole? I began using coloured tissue paper to arrange compositions prior to painting to get an idea of how to layer colours and use the transparency of a material to create a relationship between colours, and to suggest depth and space.

Artist website research

www.calluminnes.com

- Initial opening page:  immediately shown images of artists work and studio
- Gives categories of various aspects of the artists practice in the form of an easily navigated drop-down list.
- Minimal clear layout with artwork date and navigator arrows below the photographs.
- No large paragraphs of introductory writing on the home page (or anywhere), instead there is an automatic slide show of alternating images that doesn't require the viewers 
participation to move.

- I sketched the basic format of each homepage to give a clear view of the key components that make up the websites.

whitecube.com

- Similar to calluminnes.com with the automatic alternating images as an introductory presentation.
- 'Search' option enabling viewer to locate specifics.
- Contents list at the top of the page; again minimal layout.
- Details alongside image allowing a fast, concise consumption of information.
- Concise list of names the viewer may wish to look at specifically.
- Minimal white background throughout the whole website.
- Consistent layout of various pages throughout.

jamesturrell.com

- 'Artwork; Cartographic Timeline; By Date; By Type' - gives the viewer the option of how they would like to view the work, narrowing/selecting particular aspects they wish to view the work against.
- Think about how to categorise work within my website; will it be random? By date? By size? By type? In a series?
- Homepage: the photographs again alternate automatically, this time filling the whole screen, not as minimal but more engaging and consuming.