OUIL401 - Visual Response Artist Research

Frances Cannon

Frances Cannon

I found Frances Cannon's work on a late night scroll through Instagram and instantly fell in love with her fluid and honest drawings. Focusing mainly on feminism and body image, Cannon's work radiates self-love, positivity and body confidence, executed in a simple yet effective style.




- Really love the quality of line, and the scribbly, fluidity of her drawings

- Love the type that accompanies the majority of her images, it's got a really personal feel to it which makes these images that little bit more relatable

- Relatable subject matter, I'm sure a lot of people struggle with body confidence and her work pushes to make people realise there own self worth and the beauty they hold

- Super nice drawings, super nice type, super nice gal!

OUIL401 - Visual Response Survey Answers

My survey was pretty successful, I got around 40 responses from a mixture of males and females, although the vast majority of responses were females. I looked through the responses and picked out recurring things that were being said. One thing i picked up on majorly was the fact that people were bringing up very similar things that they liked/disliked about their bodies, for example a lot of girls disliked their stomachs and thighs and a lot of girls liked their eyes. I wanted to visualise this just to see how all these body parts would look group up on paper.

I hate my.... thighs, stomach, nose, boobs, feet, hips, bum, skin

I love my.... eyes, freckles, hands, hair, body shape, legs, wrists

 From how i see it, girls seem to be unhappy with larger parts of their body, and happier with smaller, maybe less noticeable features? Such as freckles, wrists, eyes. There was a large number of girls that weren't happy with their stomach and thighs and from the research I did for my essay I think this is mainly down to how a lot of women in the adverts that these girls see are really slim with toned thighs and really flat stomachs.

I had a look through the answers that I got for what people though a perfect body was and the majority were descriptions of the usual kind of woman you see in an advert. Size 8/10, slim, tall, toned, flawless skin. It was really refreshing to see on the other hand that some people out there recognise the fact that a perfect body isn't necessarily down to how a body looks, but that it's whether the body is happy and healthy. I'm wanting to make some body-positive images, promoting the idea that a perfect body is a happy, healthy body.
I think this could be a lot more effective than going down the route of looking at body dissatisfaction and instead make some work that starts to get people seeing that they should begin to love their body and themselves for who they are.

"I think the perfect body comes from self confidence. If you're confident in yourself and what you look like, it doesn't matter if you're fat, skinny, tall or short."

" A happy, healthy body is a perfect body."

" A healthy one."

"A healthy happy one."

"One that keeps me living, that i can walk, run, cycle and dance in. One that feels soft and not sharp."

" One that works"

"Having self love."

OUIL401 - Visual Response Body Studies

While I was building up responses from my survey I set about to draw some female figures. To my understanding, the female figure is overly sexualised in near any form of advertising as my essay research suggests. I wanted to have a go at drawing nude women that weren't necessarily sexualised and that didn't fit to the norm of bodies that we usually see plastered on billboards and in magazines. 

It was so refreshing to be drawing actual women. Personally, if i ever draw a female figure I tend to make them slim, and tall, with perfectly round breasts and bums because that's what I perceive to be a desirable body shape. It was nice to be able to draw women with curves and bumps and fat rolls and all that other stuff, it actually made me feel a little better about myself because I was drawing these bigger ladies and they didn't look bad at all, they just looked like ordinary people. 

I was listening to some TED Talks in the background while sketching these out and found one that really resonated with me. It talks about how if we see more images of larger bodies rather than photoshopped 'perfect' bodies we in turn become happier with our own and start to prefer the idea of having a bigger, curvier body than one that's slim and perfect.  The idea of a 'visual diet' is brought up, and refers to the images that we consume everyday. We are constantly fed images of slim, toned, tanned women, so that is what we want to be. If we were to be fed a variety of images with a huge diversity of bodies, we would become more accepting of a wider range of body types and therefore our own. 

"The more we see that kind of body, the more we like that kind of body" 

- Lillian Bustle 

After watching and listening to this TED talk I think I want to focus a lot of my visual journal work on a range of different bodies, exploring body diversity and self-love.

OUIL401 - Visual Response Initial Ideas

I think one of the main things I want to focus on with my visual journal is the subject of Body Image, both negative and positive. I think advertising and social media has a massive influence on how we see our bodies and whether or not we are happy with our weight, height, general look.

I'm wanting to create a survey to see what kind of views people have of their bodies, and then will move onto responding to some of the answers that I get.

Survey Questions:

Are you male or female?
How old are you?
Would you say you're a confident person?
Are you confident about your body?
Have you ever felt bad about how you look?
What is your favourite thing about your body?
What is your least favourite thing about your body?
What do you think has impacted your body confidence and why?
Do you feel that theres a certain pressure to live up to what society portrays as being the 'perfect body'?
Have you ever suffered from a mental health illness that has been related to how you feel about yourself/body? If so, what and why?
How has advertising affected your body confidence?
How has social media affected your body confidence?
What is your idea of the 'perfect' body?

Below is the link to the survey that i made and posted on social media

http://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/0F51X/

OUIL401 COP: Visual Response Proposal

BA (Hons) Illustration - Level 04	Name
Module: OUIL401 Context of Practice 1	Date

STUDIO BRIEF 2: Visual Response

The Themes I am going to explore are….

1. Body Image 2. Gender Stereotypes 3. Sexualisation

The theories that will in form my work are…..

1. Negative body image is encouraged by societies unrealistic expectations of how we should look 2. Gender Stereotypes are an inaccurate generalisation of both males and females 3. Sexualisation exploits the female body more so than the males.

The specific subjects that I want to investigate are………

1. Body image and body confidence – the ‘perfect’ body and how this affects our confidence 2. Breaking the existing gender stereotypes 3. The female figure and it’s over-sexualisation

In order to visual investigate this content I will……..

1. Conduct a questionnaire and respond to it 2. Draw from life and from reference to explore gender stereotypes 3. Investigate the female figure, looking at clothing, nudity, and why the female form is overly sexualised compared to a males.

OULI401 COP - Study Task 3 Planning and Structuring an Essay

Chosen question - To what extent does advertising construct our ideas of gender? 
I chose this question as advertising is something that regularly irritates me through it's over sexualisation of women and the objectifcation of womens bodies. I am interested in exploring these themes further and also possibly looking into the affect that advertising has on how we see ourselves. 

Which academic sources will you reference?
Gill, R , (2003) Supersexualise Me! Advertising and ‘the midriffs’ in Attwood, F ed Mainstreaming Sex: The Sexualisation of Western Culture , London, I.B. Tauris

Gill, R (2006), Gender and The Media, Cambridge, Polity Press

Heldman, C. (2012). Sexual Objectification (Part 2): The Harm. https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2012/07/06/sexual-objectification-part-2-the-harm/. [Accessed 26 March 2016].

Hills, R. )2015). I Failed At Being A Sex Object.... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rachel-hills/failed-at-being-a-sex-object-and-became-something-hotter_b_7933376.html. [Accessed 26 March 2016].

Wolf, N (1990), The Beauty Myth, Chatto and Windus

What images/illustrations will you analyse? 

These are the three images that I have chosen to analyse. After doing some research into adverts and different companies, American Apparels hyper sexual adverts have caused controversy and come under fire from the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority). I chose to analyse these images due to their explicit nature, and their obvious objectification of the female body. 


Essay map

Thesis - American Apparels controversial representation of women in their adverts objectifies and overly sexualises women and their bodies. 

This will be addressed by analysing examples of American Apparel adverts, looking at the sex object.sexual subject argument, midriff advertising, third wave feminism and narcissism  and the male gaze. 

Four main arguments:

• Sex object to sexual subject - No longer seen in passive or victimised objects but in playful sexual subjects, knowing of their sexual power.
• Midriff advertising - four central themes - emphasis on empowerment, objectification to sexual subjectification, emphasis on the body, discourse of choice and autonomy
• Third wave feminism - sex is power, younger females, in line with popular culture
• Narcissim and the male gaze - John Berger

OUIL401 COP - Study Task 2 Reading and Understanding a Text

1 - Tone of Voice: What can you deduce about the authors position in regard to the subject matter from their tone of voice.

From the tone of voice of the author I can deduce that the author is supportive of the role that media has on gender and identity. David Gauntlett continuously makes positive references and comments about the role of media and how this has helped develop gender and identity into a much broader spectrum than the traditional male and female roles that the older generation are accustomed too. Very little mention is made of the negative impact on which the media can have on people who are trying to develop their identities. The discussion towards men and their role is seen as something that has been slower to develop, many men have not modernised to their new role and even though traditional values of what men should be like and should act like are crumbling, the identities prompted to men are still constrained. Very little mention is made of the negative impact mass media can have on how people view themselves, constantly having to live up to the images and ideas promoted in mass media. 

2 - Five key points that the text makes. 
1. Traditional views of both men and women have changed, with mass media being the force behind this change. 
2. Constructing your own identity has become a known requirement, individuals know that they are in control and are in need of making their own choices on lifestyle and identity. 
3. Mass media has changed and become more liberal, spreading ideas of modern values and becoming more challenging of traditional values.
4. Mass media can play a role of making the population more or less comfortable with different ways of living. This encompasses different ideas of identities, different sexualities and overall ways of living.
5 - Mass media puts out these messages with levels of contradiction. The audiences are too widespread to give out one certain message, different areas of the media target different audiences and these audiences receive different messages in terms of gender and identity. 


3 - Five key quotes from the text.
1. "The traditional view of a woman as a housewife or low-status worker has been kick boxed out of the picture by feisty, successful 'girl power' icons. Meanwhile the masculine ideals of absolute toughness, stubborn self-reliance and emotional silence have been shaken by a new emphasis on men's emotions, need for advice and the problems of masculinity."
2. "...modern media is encouraging the other throw of traditions which kept people within limiting compartments."
3. "In contrast with women 'you can do anything' ethos, the identities promoted to me are relatively constrained."
4. "Popular culture offers a range of stars, icons and characters from whom we can acceptably borrow bits and pieces of their public persona for use in our own"
5. "People are changing, building new identities founded not on the certainties of the past, but organised around the new order of modern living, where the meanings of gender, sexuality and identity are increasingly open."


As is known, Gauntlett's introduction to Media, Gender and Identity focuses on several themes, fluidity of identities, the decline of tradition, the knowing construction of identity, the idea of 'role models', masculinity in possible crisis, 'girl power', popular feminism, diversity of sexualities, gender trouble, media power, contradictions and change. Gauntlet introduces to us the different ways in which media can play a role in all of these themes, and how the mass media is mostly responsible for the non-traditionalist values that many of us hold today. He explores the power that the media has in offering new ways of living and presenting ourselves, offering tools for the audience to utilise in creating their own identity and also how these tools can be of no use to some. It also tackles the idea of masculinity in crisis, looking at how as females get stronger and more independent, the males seem to be in a period of crisis, not being able to modernise to this new form of identity where they no longer have to be the sole provider.