Before we moved onto our final option of Edges and Overlaps, we were set a week long project by our tutors. The project an audio cassette tape in an envelope with the following instructions:

• I must be the focus of your outcome/s
• I must be used in my entirety
• I can be into multiple things or used more than once
• I can be combined with others on the course
• I can be used in conjunction with other materials
• I want to be reinvented

As a music lover who still has cassette tapes in the loft and part of my music collection, I was a little mortified at the expectation of possibly pulling it apart and breaking the tape. Then I really got into the idea of creating a portrait, I mean why not?

I’m really lucky that one of my friend’s has done the same course as me, so a quick message inviting myself for coffee, and we started going through cassette tape art images and ideas. I honestly didn’t realise it was as popular as it is. We also found collages by British artist Veebee Art and I was pretty inspired.

I really wanted to make this my own style, and decided to leave elements of the process as part of the final piece. For the collage I used photocopies of the cassette sleeve as well as the original, and typed up parts of lyrics from the album songs. I took one of the album photos and enlarged it, flipped it, then traced it. I chose a wooden board as my canvas, it’s heavy, but I really like the effect of the grain through the tracing paper. Sticking the tape and following the outline was a little challenging, but I kept the likeness and even though it’s a little abstract I am really pleased with the outcome.

My first portrait, using an unusual media, and of a famous person….. no pressure!

A short fun project that I think was successful. I’ll let you decide.