I'm in fine fettle and fired with a desire to paint!

Hiya everyone,

Now I know I haven't posted in a while but that's due to me researching a lot for my Contextual Study...
So the quote from the title "I'm in fine fettle and fired with a desire to paint" I had taken off Brainy Quote from Claude Monet since he was the artist I had chosen and considering its the exact approach description I take on board when I paint. So last week we started to develop in the way we paint and make a response to an artists work that we had picked beforehand.
So during my research I had picked out Monet's Lillie's series, Haystacks and Springtime :) I find that these were a good choice as they are a more diverse way of expression and just also because these are my favourite paintings.

The Lily Pond - Claude Monet



I like the way Monet presents his colours more direct like he is capturing the exact moment to what he was painting. Although the use of colour is extensive you cannot suspect that there are 30 different pigments in this painting which I find extraordinary, the purples and foggy whites portray the reflection of the sky so much more delicately that its like he's expressing his mood through his range of brushwork and colour. Also the mark making is much more enhanced (on a close up good quality photograph) that makes the rest of the background look almost surreal and visionary.

My interpretation:

The colours and techniques I have used are mainly watered down acrylic and watercolour. The techniques in which I have applied the paint is varied between wet on wet and mixed, and then revolved into being applied by other materials such as sponge, brush, smearing, and pattern. I can think of one artist that uses the same techniques that I have used in some parts of my painting which is Lena Kurovska

She too is a modern impressionist modern working with paintings of landscapes, still life's and nature.

What makes Claude Monet's work so beautiful and why it has affected people all these years is explained by this principle:



 "All beauty is a making one opposite, and the making of one opposites is what we are going after in ourselves"

These opposites of the vague and definite, the uncertain and the tidy, the persistent and the changing are a tremendous matter in every persons life. Monet didn't use the vague to hide, but to show the beauty of reality.

 

Its like his work has the tendency to slip from one mood to another, somewhat like the foggy outcasts on his paintings. It communicates with me personally as I've loved his work ever since I was introduced to him at a young age. It reminds me of the subtleness of a quiet happy life.

 







 

Statement Art!

Hi,

Following my last post on Political Art I have done a separate post to the developed piece I did on my own.
We were told that we must conclude all amounts of research and make our work into appropriate propaganda that says it all. Though not all my ideas quite ended up to be what the brief wanted me to produce...One in particular stood out from the rest which was to produce a statement piece of art; which concluded of me buying/ building a crate and printing trademarks of anti-racism text/ inspirational black power quotes on the outside or building up the inspirational figures that made society what it is today with the negativity actions kept on the inside of the crate. In the form of negativity actions I'd thought that I could use artificial fruit because after all I wanted to show my research reaching out in the form of cultural backdrops such as slaves in agriculture.

Quotes taken from Booker T. Washington and other inspiring people.

Shown below is my statement piece and why I had chosen to develop it:

The reason why I had made a statement piece was because racism is rotting the cores of generation to generation, simply speaking in my mind that I can do a piece that sums up everything from the past right up to our modern day in 2013. Also I had wanted to extend my way of working by not just following the brief but by developing my own sense of strategy.

The content of the crate is contained with the past of discrimination against people, with references to slavery, right up to the inspirations of Black Power such as Martin Luther King, Huey P Newton, Rosa Parks etc.

Its main purpose is to create a cover from which people push aside (bystanders) and to be represented in a way that concludes history and modern day success.

“They may take our lives, but they will never take... our FREEDOM!”



Helloo again!

 

 

The quote made for the title is supposed to give effect of the project "Political Art" that I was briefed to do next. Although my topic of effect is the past and present of Racial Equality.

Throughout my research I had sought through information from the slavery times to the recognisable events that took place in society of the 1960's.

"Politics is just like show business. You have a hell of an opening, coast for a while, and then have a hell of a close."

 The materials that I have mainly used were drawing ink and printing ink though they are very similar printing ink tested my patience on how long it took to dry whereas the drawing ink played the same part as the other one but it dried a lot quicker. I found printing on paper was most efficient as the ink printed very nicely and with no areas that didn't come out (as seen on the image below).

Below I have created my trio of statement pieces. These are shown below:

 

Black Power Print

The materials I had used was the prints that I had created and printing ink. I found it very enjoyable however the method is messy and takes a while to dry which took some days to getting used to before I could work into any of them. Ahh I'm so glad I have finished this project now and moving on to the painting experimentation next week! Now there's something that I can do very nicely...

 



May the force be with you..

Hi!

The idea surrounding the quote "May the force be with you" is the kind of saying

"The force" is a magical power that gives people strength. This phrase is kind of a way of saying "good luck".

I thought that this title would be appropriate and funny due to a recent project: Clay Sculpting, I knew that I wasn't going to be as good in this Sculpture project as I was in that one.

 

 

SO... this post is going to include all my ideas, inspirations and processes of two non permanent sculptures I took to decide on making my final sculpture of what it is today.

 

My sculpture however had to revolve around these two words that I had been given "Fractal and Geometric". And with doing this came a lot of ideas and research that surrounded the words such as structure, strength, purpose and manageability. One idea was to look at fractures in the body; as a reference to my sculpture of being a strong foundation but to have a subtleness of "Fragile" and "Safe" to it.

 

I looked at artists like Fiona Henderson, Raymond Leowy, Rebecca Horn and Hugo Heredia Barrera. All these artists are entirely different in their own way of working, for instance I looked at Raymond for his industrial creation of the first train; in achieving fame for the magnitude of his design efforts across a variety of industries it was his interests that he found inspiration such as trains, cars and aeroplanes. However, I'd found most inspiration from Hugo Barrera more forthcoming as encountering his work for the first time, I was struck by a profound sense of contradiction: What should be heavy seems weightless. What should be solid seems liquid. Hugo's pieces combine wire, glass, and metal in impossible industrial configurations. His concepts ranges from practical tables to huge abstract gallery installations.



 

 

To sum it all up this statement will help you understand:

 

 

Personnel need to understand brittle fracture. This type of fracture occurs under specific conditions without warning and can cause major damage to industrial plant materials.

So basically the link o the industry and my chosen words "fractural" would be that the word could act as a consequence nonetheless without the support and maintenance of personnel behind the industrial success.

Meaning that without the someone or something there to support the weakness of the sculpture i.e. weight, position of figures, or adhesives of some kind; then it could result in failure. And with evidence that the "Geometry" side is conceited by mathematics, this will show a relative position of strength within the structure I am going to make.

Why include Industrial Revolution in my research?

I have included it onto my research because with the materials I am using (bolts, nuts and metal pieces) I thought that the connection would be appropriate in ways that even the upmost grand architectural building itself starts off with something small and develops consequences and faults along the way.

The words I have been given have been a challenge to recite on what my ideas would be, however the opposition between the opposing words have begun to resolve in understanding when I'd researched into using the Industrial Revolution as a priority idea in making this sculpture.

 

 1st sculpture was based on my first idea of building a foundation before you have the skills and knowledge to improve it further. I actually exaggerated the idea of having loose parts scattered around to represent that anything can fail but you would just have to come up with other solutions to improve.

2nd sculpture based on ideas such as the Industrial Revolution and the processes of what it takes to build a position of architecture or a foundation to start it off. In my other ideas I more or less thought that this idea could start a sense of flow in my project from moving to one topic of research to another and coming up with controversies to see whether I could link it in or not.

The final permanent sculpture was created and designed to conclude all references of research made into coming up with one last idea for a permanent sculpture. The idea was that anything can be made as long as you have the materials, equipment and research to back it up and given this idea I started to think of strong qualities to have; like the wire unlike my first idea was multiple layers of thread... 

So as I started researching more and more into mechanism artists that created sculptures that had a purpose such as Rebecca Horn. So I'd thought that I'd give this idea a go and see how it turned out. Like Rebecca Horn used enlarged gloves with tips of pencils and ink pens on the ends I had this really good idea to link creation of materials to my sculpture. So now it ended up to look like a hand mechanism that controls the movement and purpose of the pencils at the ends due to the amount of weight balanced on the hand as well on the pencils.

 

Given all the preparation to make this thing I reckon it has turned out very well! As I had wanted it to speak a sense of 'Fractured Figures' as Raymond Leowy described a way to create a structure that was solid in shape but was opposed to space and scale is a distinguished way. There is also a hint of symbolism in the final one: In this case the hand.....acts as the mechanism.

There is references to the Celtic land of symbolism that the hand has a meaning in connection to Power, Ruler-ship and Authority.

 

The Drawing Circus

I just found this in a magazine I bought last week and wanted to show you where I had gotten my influences for my life drawing experience.

The Drawing Circus: The Garden of Earthly Delights

The Drawing Circus and Magpie Magazine present an evening of live music and life drawing with performances from Mary Hampton, Collectress and Julie Fossaert.

Step into a surreal garden, pick up a pencil and draw enchanted scenes of human figures transforming into plants and birds. Be immersed in a symbolic dream world and lulled by enticingly sweet sounds.

Mary Hampton: “Her bizarre flights of fancy are the dreams of children”
Collectress: “Possessed Bronte Sisters teasing an unsuspecting dinner party”
Julie Fossaert: “French folkstress forming sounds from the cosmic belly”

 
Somehow their work has made me aware that the human figure can be represented in many ways and by the look of their work it reminds me of being pulled into a scene of Shakespeare's Midsummers Nights Dream. The way they present the women in their work its like they are trying to show a charade of actions of what's happening in the picture. You can see this by also looking at the background features that are shown behind the figures, in hope that they can overwhelm the audience into having an open mind and see what the piece can bring out of the person.These artists illustrated expression and literature of Romanticism into their life drawing work and  shown points of view that immersed themselves in both of 'a night of unparalleled creative wonderment' as they put it. The event is part of The Big Draw and also aims to raise awareness for the publication of a new anthology celebrating the work of contemporary women artists published by Magpie Magazine.

 

 



"Lights!, Graphite!, Pose!"

Helloooo everyone,

A "life drawing" is a drawing of the human figure from observation of a live model. A figure drawing may be a composed work of art or a figure study done in preparation for a more finished work such as a painting.

So today I'd just thought I'd catch up on a session that I missed a couple of weeks ago 'Life Drawing'. The title "Lights, Graphite, Pose!" is just a quick relatable quote that I know you all will know but just twisted in a sense of this session I am going to do.
Though unlike most life drawings you see, I am going to express some emotion into my sketches to enhance the pose and re-create a personal story. I find that this will create an approach of developed observation and show you how the human figure can be interpreted due to many factors in their life.

 

So, here they are...I have just done them in graphite as I didn't want the grunge mess that the charcoal creates. I have used mark makings and tone to show form in the figures and harsh lines to show the outline. My approach to drawing these figures was drawn from photographs that I had found using this website: http://www.a-muse.me/ and just random poses found on Google search.

 

I had found inspiration looking at the drawings from Leonardo da Vinci to see how he illustrates tone, texture and form in the human figure and how I could reflect from using his work. He is known for his "startling accuracy of anatomical sketches".

 

 

 

Like your arm candy fashion forward?

Hi everyone,

 

As the title says "Like your Arm Candy Fashion forward?" I discovered a site that also used recyclable materials to make bags and other accessories.

One of my reasons for the love of this new trend is that they are something much more than any handbag or clutch, they have been made not to tailor the customers needs but also to tailor the earths needs of recycling materials that can be used again and again...

I really like this accessory trend because you can combine a bunch of different textures and materials to enhance your look and/or give your outfit the colour that it needs without having to change clothes.

Nahui Ollin (pronounced now-we-oh-lean) is the actual branding of these Candy Wrapper Bags. Each Candy Wrapper Bag is individually and carefully hand woven and constructed from a very ancient, nearly forgotten, Mayan technique. It is a technique of folding and the intricate weaving and sewing together of the candy wrapper, comic, or newspaper cut offs.It can take up to four thousand candy wrappers and up to four days to make one unique Candy Wrapper Handbag.

When purchasing a Nahui Ollin (Candy Wrapper Handbag) you are truly purchasing one of a kind piece. All the arm candy bags are produced under Fair Trade and Sweatshop free practices in Mexico. Every sale this site makes helps support local artisans who rely on this trade to care for their land and their families.

Designed in New York and made in Mexico, make one of these Nahui Ollin (arm candy, Candy Wrapper Bag) part of your eco friendly wardrobe and know that like the arm candy bags you are unique in every way.

Look for more details here:

http://www.ollinarmcandy.com/

Who said Chic couldn't be cheap?...and recyleable.

Hi,

I know my last post was nearly a month ago. This was due to my account being down for some time but on the plus side I'd done some planning for my up to date work posts :) 

Fashion Paper Garment.

At first I had no idea how to come about my ideas for developing this project, but I had one specification: that it was made out of renewable old fashion magazines...see what I did there, I'd used the project title as a starting point for my ideas.

As I was researching I had got together various handbags and with these created my own bag designs. With each image, I had chosen features that would build up not only my designs but my overall finished product as well. I did this because I wanted it to seem as realistic as possible though it was made out of paper, given that I had used cello tape too to bind the weaved paper together, I'd thought this too could help represent my weather-proof strategy and also portray the purpose more effectively.

So...my "paper accessory" turned out to be a 'recyclable' 'weather-proof' product that benefited a specific target audience as well as suiting the purposes. Also I didn't expect it to be as good as I wanted it to be compared to my design work! By using my methods of planning I think I wouldn't be where I was today in the course without effective use of artists research, research on paper manipulation techniques, mind map planning, and developed drawings. 

I actually really enjoyed this project because personally I love messing with materials and try to make something out of it.

Here's how my finished product turned out:

Side View of the bag to show the front and side features

Front View

My Designer Influences...

• Ally Capellino
• Pieces
• Daks
• Fleet llya

Breaking the mould..

Starting something new is never easy but knowing me I always like a challenge.

The next stage in the course was implementing design ideas for working with ceramics. Truth be told I hated it but it was good to be able to use clay in a way that would replicate my design ideas, in this case making the drawing influence life into that little blob of clay. The first time I looked at my designs, I thought "how am I going to make this look like this?!" I admit it was hard for me because I am used to paint and canvases and fiddling around with clay to make it take shape and form was hard, however as time went on...I actually got the hang of making things work.
After working with ceramics I began to understand how all the planning and design work was necessary as I changed my mind often how everything was to come about and that finding the balance of not making it too dry or too wet, made hours of working with it annoying but bearable.
I have now completed my final design work in ceramics as well as the final piece (thank god) and now moving on with Fashion Paper Garments.

“I dream my painting and I paint my dream.”
― Vincent van Gogh

Starting the project..

Hi guys, during the summer I've been collecting random vessel like objects to start a Form and Function project in September...yes very exciting! This is my first blog that I will be updating every week to let you know what I'm getting up to and how I'm progressing throughout the project.

Below is some of the work that I did over the summer which concludes of observational drawings, sketches, thought webs, and research pages:

 

Image of mixed media drawings

 

Image of a reflective vase drawing with an introduction to research

 

At the start of summer I was used to the techniques and materials I had developed during my a-levels like ink/watercolour wash with heavy biro detailing, mixed media, and drawing on different types of materials; as you can see in the photo examples. I hope in the future of this course it will extend my knowledge of skills and techniques and also this will show with the frequent uploads of the work in my sketchbook as well as my other work.

 

Image of observational drawings in different medias

 

Welcome!

Hi! Welcome to my blog, hope you guys like my stuff :)