For this exercise I was asked to collect as much reference as I could find the 1950s. And to catalogue the information according to these categories:
People and costume
Architecture and interiors
Art – painting, drawing, sculpture
Graphic design – posters, books, typography
Advertising
Transport
Film and TV
Surface pattern and decoration.

The brief was to be eclectic in my sources identify the visual qualities that are universal within the categories – shapes, textures, colours, style and other features.

For my research I chose to concentrate just on 1950s Britain. In Britain, the 1950s was an era where the economy was recovering from the effects of world War one and two. Because Britain was badly damaged by bombing there was a housing shortage which led to many temporary and fabricated houses being built. These were designed in a way that would be quick and easy to build and were pretty simple in design. As the economy grew, people were able to start purchasing items again which led to an booming industry of furniture, appliances and other household items. The 1950s style is quite distinctive from the hairstyles of the men and women, to the outfits that they wore which includes the nipped in waist and A-line skirts of the women and the rounded shapes of household furniture and appliances. Interestingly, one of the popular patterns on fabric that was used to make dresses and curtains etc. was that of the symbol of the atomic bomb.

The 1950s style once again become quite popular in recent years. This includes the rounded style of kitchen appliances and vintage furniture from the 1950s that would be repainted in pastel colours. There is a tendency to relate pastel colours to the 1950s however, from my research I found that this was not actually the case. The colour palette was actually more similar to that of the 1970s with the majority of the furniture including sofas and fabrics being in muted dark colours like Forest Green, dark red and dark blues with brown wooden flooring seeming quite common. In the 1950s they did however seem to like using bright colours, particularly in the kitchen with an example being where a bright blue would be used as the main colour for the work surface, with a matching table top and even matching tiles on the walls.

To go with my research I was asked to make an illustration of someone sitting in a chair surrounded by typical artefacts to give a teenager an idea of the 1950s. For my illustration I chose to draw a man sitting in a chair reading a newspaper, with a cup of tea and a cigarette besides him. Cigarettes were very popular in the 1950s and were even considered to have health benefits. I tried to keep the style of the room in keeping with the 1950s style of furniture and colours used for furniture. Behind the man we can see a doorway in which there is a woman (his wife) who is busy in the kitchen. Although women did work during the war due to necessity, once the war ended so did their careers and they went back to their wifely duties as before. Men were considered the providers and worked and provided income for the household and family. Women on the other hand were expected to care for their husband and the children and take care of the home, this included all cooking and cleaning. My aim was to reflect these gender roles within my illustration as this is a big contrast to how things are in the present day with gender roles.

In order to file my research I created folders on my computer for each of the topic headings and searched on the internet and on various online libraries, including the OCA library and the bridgemen library. Unfortunately my laptop broke a few days after I finished my research so although I had luckily backed up my documents before hand, I am missing the last few days of my research. I did however have the research to hand whilst I was planing out my illustration and drawing the initial pencil drawing. I also had my sketchbook to hand where I had already drawn and been experimenting with the colours I wished to use. At this time, I am writing from my new laptop and am presenting what I have of my research.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Someting I learned from this project is that I need to find a new way or software to keep my research that I am able to label individual images and keep those images on seperate files. For this project, I used a word document for each heading. But I realised that this is not going to be easy to find individual images when I need to go back and use this reference libray I was trying to create. I would also like to keep building on this library to create a vast reference base for all future work.

Work in Progress…

I am quite pleased with how this turned out. I have not had a lot of practice drawing rooms and using perspective in this way, so it started with a bit of trial and error. I used watercolour and gouache to paint this. Paiting is a new medium to me and is one that I am gradually learning. I chose not to use ink on this piece as I wanted to tey to emphasise objects by using more contrast in my painting. I realised that I would like to start to learn how to deplict lighting in my work, be that from lamps or natural light and shadows and also how to paint faces and clothing. This is something that I would like to develop further with my study.