Pocket Monet

Holiday Project.

I was asked to complete this project over the Christmas Holiday.
I chose a name at random from my tutor. This name would be the person I had to research and base my project on.
The brief was to create a 3D final outcome. This was the only criteria.
The name I was given was David Rizzio.

David Rizzio, born in 1533 was an Italian courtier and musician, born close to Turin, who rose to become the private secretary of Mary, Queen of Scots. Mary's husband, Lord Darnley is said to have been jealous of their friendship, because of rumours that he had made Mary pregnant, and ploted to murder him.
The Queen was seven months pregnant (with James VI) at the time. 

Having burst into the Queen's private dining room, the rebels, led by Patrick Ruthven, 3rd Lord Ruthven, demanded Rizzio be handed over. After a violent struggle, Rizzio was stabbed and slashed 57 times, before being thrown down the main staircase and stripped of his jewels and fine clothes. 

Rumours were thrown around as to why this happened to Rizzio - most claim Darnley was jealous.

I began my research by looking at the murder. I found the way in which he was murdered very dramatic and exciting. From researching written records of the murder I fond it resembled a soap opera. The drama and the setting was surreal, this is how I find soap operas to be. 

I had never heard of David Rizzio before. This made me wonder about other parts of history that have disappeared over time. I found that some historic stories and fact have just disappeared before our eyes or will soon be forgotten.

I was fascinated with the murder scene and researched the murder further. I looked at modern murder scenes and how the scene would have been like today. The first modern process I thought of immediately was finger printing. I found that the finger printing process and the quote "history disappears before us" worked well together. I am very pleased with the pieces I created.

Researching in to modern crime scenes I recreated the painting 'The Murder of David Rizzio' by Sir William Allan. I added to the painting with modern police equipment.

I looked further into the processing of criminals. Continuing the theme of mixing old images with new processes I experimented with the process of a police line up.

I liked my first recreation of Sir William Allan' painting so continued my research and experimentation into creating further recreations.

I tried to portray the emotions and feeling that would have been felt by the people in the room when Rizzio was murdered. The confusion and the anger. I tried to portray these feelings visually in the piece below. I am very happy with this piece and believe it shows the scene well in a new and creative way. I hope to develop this idea further.

I continued experimenting with ways of visually documenting the events of the evening. David Rizzio was stabbed and slashed 57 times. I experimented with how to portray each wound and the severity of those wounds visually.

Through researching historic websites I found links to old Scottish proverbs that I thought linked well to the images that I was creating.

After evaluating the outcomes of my experimentations I concluded that I was to use my visual portrayal of the murder scene as my final piece. Still knowing that my final outcome had to be 3D I began thinking of how I could emphasize the scene in a 3D form. I decided to create a pop up book. It was my first idea but I do believe it was the perfect way to emphasize the scene. I liked that the scene came to you as you opened the book. The pop out motion also made the dagger far more prominent in the piece by being the tallest and most central piece of the pop out.

Eventhough I had managed to make the dagger more prominent the scene as a whole was missing something. It looked drab, it wasn't different enough. I experimented with printing on different types of paper. The most obvious paper was the most successful. The red paper that obviously linked with murder and death worked very well and gave my final piece a great feel.

I am very pleased with this final outcome and am extremely happy that this project signaled a change in my research methods and the way I documented my thoughts within a sketchbook. 

My sketchbooks have improved a great deal after this project.