BTS: Ideas and Research (Part Two)

So in part one I gave a little background on why I'm creating a behind the scenes series (feel free to go back and give it a read if you missed it). I talked about how I kicked off research into my Honey Art Show exhibition for 'Girl Gang' off the back of one word. Visual research already well underway I settled on a 1970's street gang style design; Big back patch surrounded by text. However I wanted to throw in a touch of a biker jacket vibe and try to cover as much of it as possible in smaller patches as well. So, where to begin?

As the core of the show was a celebration of womxn, I sat down to work out what 'womanhood' meant to me. I knew I wanted to represent as many aspects as possible.  I figured I'd start with 'mother', 'sister' and 'daughter'. The idea of mother/daughter relationships and even sisterhood reaches beyond biological relations. My first thought for 'Mother' was a stereotypical 'mom' tattoo followed immediately by RuPaul. Mostly because of the song... I liked the idea of representing the relationship in an unconventional way. Plus I'm a nerd and love referential humour and puns. Knowing RuPaul mainly for Drag Race I wanted to incorporate a nod to that as well. So my three elements were traditional tattoo/RuPaul/Drag Race.

Another idea that came pretty quickly was the 'Daughter' patch. I wanted a famous or recognisable daughter. There were plenty to choose from but I decided to go with Liza. If you didn't already know, Liza Minnelli is the daughter of Judy Garland. Garland is perhaps most famous for her role as Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. I liked that this felt indirectly connected to the (drag) Mother patch. I decided on a visual pun, with a portrait of Liza surrounded by a garland of flowers and rainbow text in tribute to Dorothy's most iconic song.  Mother and Daughter are often inextricably linked, with many daughters later becoming mothers.  It felt important to pay homage to both roles. The sister patch was a struggle and came much later on in the work.

After the first ideas had sprouted so organically, I needed help getting the ball rolling on the rest. I started researching record setting women. Discovering exceptional and groundbreaking women would be a sure fire way to find inspo. Google quickly gave me a list of names to start investigating individually.

One that quickly caught my attention was Lydulmila 'Lady Death' Pavlichenko. A Soviet sniper from world war two with 309 kills under her belt. Her battle prowess aside, what struck me most was her bravery and rebellious streak. When injury caused her to retire from the front, she became an instructor and later toured the US to help the Roosevelt's drum up support for the war effort. Her frustration with the inane questions from the press and the American reluctance to join the war became apparent as time drew on: "I am 25 years old and I have killed 309 fascist occupants by now. Don’t you think, gentlemen, that you have been hiding behind my back for too long?". Fucking. Badass. Nevermind the fact that she was such an indomitable force that the Nazi's hailed her personally over loudspeakers on the battlefield  trying to bribe her with chocolate. I knew immediately I wanted to reference her 309 kills and her Nazi bestowed nickname of 'lady death'. Rather than a portrait, I settled quickly on the idea of aping religious iconography, combined with a rifle scope. I even checked what the scope would look like on the gun she used. It's a detail most wouldn't care about but it gives you an idea of the lengths I go to!

Fired up from this initial kick ass discovery I began researching other noteable woman in World War Two. While these wouldn't inspire every patch I created, it did lead me to the idea for the central back patch and the last one I'm going to tell you about (otherwise we'll be here all week!). This last one gave me my gang name... The Night Witches.

The 588th Night Bomber Regiment or 48th ‘Taman’ Guards Night Bomber Aviation Unit were an all female unit of pilots. The Germans dubbed them the Night Witches because the ‘whoosh’ of their planes gliding by was like a witch passing on a broomstick. I immediately thought that sounded cool as fuck and decided to research them further. It was easy enough to find articles on their exploits and even interviews with surviving members. I then found a documentary and was spellbound. Flying planes knocked together from plywood and canvas after just a few months training, these women would head out to enemy terrain. Once the enemy encampment was in sight they would climb high before cutting their engines to swoop silently down and drop their payload.  My favourite quotes from the documentary perfectly encompasses the bravery and uniqueness of this unit “Parachutes were too heavy, so we left them out, instead of parachutes we took extra bombs”And “Girls are girls, they took kittens with them in the aircraft”.... I knew then that the rear image should be a cat. I wanted to based the design on traditional tattoo interpretations of big cats. Its something I'd dabbled in before and really enjoyed. I wanted to pay tribute to the witch element by adding the third eye and added flames in reference their explosive exploits.

These might seem like giant leaps. Even though I've mentioned all the elements I wanted to include, how the fuck did I know how to draw them right? Quite simply, I didn't. That's where the next step comes in, translating your ideas - the research - into usable elements. However, I'm gonna save that for a future post!

I hope this has given you a good idea of how I put stuff together. For further insight, head over to my Instagram or stick around for future posts,

Cheers

Tiffany xo