Stress...

An idea came to me one evening to try and visually represent the feeling of stress. Everybody has a million and one things going on in their lives at any one point, and while it is easy to see clearly when focusing on one thing at a time, everything gets a bit jumbled up and 'messy' when there are more and more issues to focus on simultaneously.
So I took 4 standard images, each representing a different aspect of everyday urban life; Family, Work, Money/Bills and Travel.
Each of the images are singularly clear and easily identifiable but when layered on top of each other they become something else.

 These images were created pretty simply by photocopying the acetates layered on top of each other in different ways. The images have transformed into a harsh, aggressive, confusing disarray.

 Here the images are mounted in foam board.

Casting...

My next step was to try and make an actual stained glass image. I figured (rightly or wrongly?) that it would be pretty difficult to work with real glass so I decided to work with resin instead.
I first drew out the image onto wood and had the individual segments cut out. I fixed them to a board and made a silicone cast of the pieces.

 Once the cast was ready I tested a few of the segments using wax.

It worked pretty well so the next step is to use resin. I made a plan of which segments required what concentration of pigment.

Next I filled the segments sequentially, adding more pigment as I went along to intensify the colour. Unfortunately the reverse of the mold wasn't even so a lot of the resin poured out and what remained in the mold was spread pretty thin so I didn't hold much hope for a successful resin cast.
After removing what segments I could I pieced them together.

 Some pieces cracked, some went missing and some I broke myself but you can get the idea? I really like the effect and there's a lot that could be done with it. I could suspend the pieces from each other and let it rotate like a mobile?

Collage...

A large scale coloured paper collage.

Scale....

I realised that the simple line drawings I was doing were in some ways more interesting than the more complicated and intricate pieces but I wanted to get more physical with the process. So I took it to the wall...

A simple piece of work made using just black and white paint and triangles of card. I enjoyed doing this much more than the smaller, more controlled pieces and was pretty happy with the result.
But then to add some colour?

 Here I attempted to add some colour along with an added bit of interest by collaging on top of a similar painting to the one above. It worked out pretty well I think.

Print....

At the moment I've returned to my initial images of the everyday urban environment. I noticed that a lot of my images were of construction sites and men at work. There's a lot of colour involved in these scenes so maybe that's why?
I worked on a woodblock print from an image I had taken of 2 men unloading a van.

 I then printed onto acetate, thinking that I may be able to overlay it on some sort of colour base? I made an attempt to collage underneath but the effect wasn't so great, I may aswell have just coloured it in with markers... I'll try something else maybe.

Change it up....

So I've pretty much decided to leave the seven deadly sins idea behind. I may come back to it again but for now it just isn't going in the direction I want it to.
But before I do, just one last image....

An image of my lusty figure created by building up 4 seperate layers of blue acetate. It worked pretty well as a 'stained glass' representation.

Eeeek....

I may abandon the seven deadly sins concept altogether?