Ancient Stones

Ever since we went to Carnac in Brittany I have been obsessed with ancient monoliths and Stone Age sites.  I took many photographs at the time and these have been brewing away in my subconscious.  I made a tiny photobook of the trip we made to Quiberon and the surrounding area and occasionally I pull this little treasure out to look at the images. 

Recently we were given a project in my painting class following the popularity of the book 50 Shades of Grey - notably unread by all of us!!!.  I immediately thought of my "stones" as a suitable subject.  Being a colourist it was not possible to keep to the brief of simple shades of grey, but as it was only meant to be a starting point, this was not a problem.

My little book of photos has proved to be an invaluable source of material.  Probably giving me enough inspiration for at least the next six months, or more.  I've produced 3 paintings so far this year from this subject matter and I still have at least another three in mind from further images.

The three images below may not represent the final versions of the paintings but they are at least at an advanced stage of completion.  They are all executed in acrylic paint on canvas ~50cm x 40cm. 

This has been an exciting departure from the completely abstract phase I've been going through recently.  No doubt I'll be returning to this in the future, but I'm still enjoying the figurative abstract interpretation of these ancient monuments, at least for the time being.

The Second Venice Quartet: The journey to abstraction

I used the paintings inspired by Venice (below) to create the next quartet. This was how the first Venice Quartet was actually displayed; the paintings were not in the same order as in the previous blog.   

The image on the top left (above) was used as the source material for the second Venice quartet (below).  A "view finder" was cut in the same proportions as the canvases to be used.  Four areas of the painting   to reproduce and enlarge were selected with this "view finder".  The pallet of colours was the same as that used in the first Venice Quartet.  The areas chosen were stylised a little and simplified and the orientation wasn't necessarily the same. 

These are the resulting paintings which, for me, are even more pleasing than the original quartet.  The painting itself dictated colour shape and orientation, I felt I had allowed the painting to take over and left fussy detail behind.   These too can stand alone or be presented together.  Both Quartets were displayed in my end of year show last year.

Quartet Inspired by Venice

Last year I made a series of paintings inspired by pictures of Venice. We went there some years ago now and I took beautiful photographs and have wanted to make something of them ever since. However, at the time I wasn't painting much and the moment passed. Since completing my Diploma it has given me the confidence to paint and has set me on the path of self discovery.

I started by looking at travel photos in magazines and my own pictures and found images that I wanted to translate into a figurative abstract painting. I decided on a small square format. The painting was inspired by gondolas and arches from the Doge's Palace. I didn't want nor could I paint like Canaletto or Turner, but I wanted to find my own style. I made some preliminary drawings in my sketchbook and used elements of these on the first canvas, seen here.

I started to block in areas of colour loosely in thin paint and, whilst painting, decided to lose the foreground image of the lamp as it was superfluous and cluttering up the foreground space, blocking the visual "way in" to the painting. I also took out the architectural horizontal line from the top of the painting as it "cut off" the visual flow through and the lamp post as the small size of the painting did not lend itself to fussy details.

The completed painting introduced water and more vibrant colours as well as extended curves introducing a dynamic quality and movement to the painting.  I subsequently used this technique in all four of the paintings in this quartet too giving a certain amount of unity. 

I completed three other paintings using the same pallet as in the first keeping the arch theme throughout.  One picture in a magazine had a banner saying Save Venice  "Salviamo Venezia".   Which I transformed to mirror writing in two of the images.  I reintroduced the lamp form, typical to Venice, in one image as I was really taken by it and wanted to use it somehow. 

 

This set of paintings can be viewed separately or together, either in pairs, triptychs or as the whole quartet.  It also inspired a second quartet of slightly more abstract images that I will introduce in my next blog.

City and Guilds Jewellery Course First Project

This is a completely new course for me and I have enjoyed learning new skills.  The first project was a  bit difficult as the original teacher had to have an operation and her replacement changed the project.  This was completely fine; in fact I preferred the new project to the original one.

The project is to make a pendant from two types of metal without soldering and using a non permanent method of attachment.  Research into source material for the design needs to be shown. We are required to make three designs and choose one to make.  All experimental pieces need to be displayed and reasons given why the final piece was chosen.

Evaluation of the cost and time taken to make the piece as well as resources required need to be made.

My source material was obtained form the microscopic animals such as the amoeba and Paramecium;. fruits including apples and pears and abstract art; in particular Kandinsky.

The course covered:
Cutting metal with a saw
Drilling holes in metal
Riveting sheets of metal together
Annealing metal
Hammering metal
Using wire

I chose to make a pendant/brooch from brass and copper sheet and silver and brass wire.  The final piece is shown below.  I prefer brooches to pendants in general so I thought a dual purpose piece would fit the bill.  the apple hangs from the coil I produced for the brooch pin.  The entire piece is riveted together in sections.  There is no soldering or other form of attachment used.  The final piece depicts an apple with two bites taken out of it and a worm hole.  The apple is 0.9mm brass sheet textured with course grained wet and dry sand paper; the core is hammered and oxidised 0.8mm copper sheet; the pips are also made of 0.9mm brass sheet and textured with very fine grade sand paper and decoratively riveted to the core with silver wire.

Apple Pendant/ Brooch

Assessment Result

I received the result of my formal assessment recently.  A little disappointed that I only received a 2:2.  I thought my essay was worth more than that. My professional artist (i.e those who have masters degrees in fine art) friends have been somewhat more encouraging.  Anyway, onward and upward.  I think my days with the OCA may be over as I am unsure if a distance learning degree in art is exactly what I want, but I haven't made up my mind finally.  I am continuing with my art course at the local college where the tuition is excellent and on hand for critiques when they are required!  It is also lovely to have fellow students available who are ready to encourage too.  I know not everyone is lucky enough to have a good college within easy travelling distance and the time to attend.  I am indeed fortunate!

I will probably continue this blog adding my current work, which includes painting, etching, ceramics and jewellery making as well as digital art.

Submitting work for Assessment

I am in the process of trying to get my work in order to send off for assessment in a couple of days (hopefully).  The window for submitting work for the next assessment date is between 15th September and 15th October, as I am off to New York at the weekend for a short break I am trying to get it all together before I go.  It is proving a bit harder than I anticipated and I'm not at all sure that I'm doing it correctly.  I watched the videos on the OCA site and it seems that all types of submission are acceptable but I still need to get the inventory done and, of course, that can only be completed at the end of the process once everything else is in place. As this is digital art I don't have a sketchbook, only my Learning Log, everything else is on computer or on this blog and can be submitted on CD or may be seen on this site.

I have my Learning Log and my Tutor reports for all my assignments.  I only have the Question and Answer sheets for the last three assignments; I don't know if these are essential but I suppose I will need to call the OCA and find out what the situation would be if the missing ones are not available.

Compiling the List of Contents for each item is probably the hardest thing to do now, as all the art work was completed ages ago.  Is it acceptable just to say for example for the Contents of the Learning Log: Projects and Assignments, or should one paginate the Learning Log and list the page numbers for each one?  I have placed the tutor reports in the digital folders for each assignment so these can be submitted on the CD(s) but I will have to make a list of contents for these too. 

I now wish I had anticipated this situation at the beginning of the course as I am sure this could have been easier if it had been done progressively rather than all at once at the end.  However, having said that, I can get things together when I need to, to a deadline.  So I hope I'll be able to do it again!  I think I need a bit of luck and a fair wind behind me.......

More Summer Work

I only have working titles for these new images for the moment. The first two are derived from multiple photographs taken in Brittany this year. The second two are pure digital images. All of these images are finished but I may develop them further into new works.  I may also use any or all of them as a starting point to combine with other images. 

Beach Huts 3



Hutss and Hitch 7

 

Set Square 1

 

Vanishing Point 3



Summer 2011 Brittany

We had a very wet holidayin Brittany this year and it was not conducive to sketching or painting. I took some photos and have just started to work on them in photoshop. This was a detail taken from the original photograph. I loved these little sailing boats anchored just off shore. The sails just sang against the sea. I'll be doing some more of these and maybe taking them into some paintings later on.

Assignment 5 CDA1 Tutor Report received

Very positive feedback received today for my final assignment, strongly recommending I submit this  for formal assessment.  I feel a little bit overwhelmed.

Gabriel Orozco Exhibition at Tate Modern Part 2

This is a link to the Tate Modern blog on this exhibition http://blog.tate.org.uk/.  It is quite interesting to see other peoples opinions and how varied they are form hate to love.  My tendency is to love although I didn't love everything.  I was not so keen on the shoe box; I didn't really get it and I thought this was just a gimmick, you can say what you like "it's art because I say it is",  etc. etc.  This for me said nothing at all, and Spitting toothpaste which I frankly could not look at..  I was less than keen on "Until You Find Another Yellow Schwalbe 1995" I found it fairly monotonous. 

However in this room there were truly inspiring pieces; "Four Bicycles (There is Always One Direction) 1994",  "La DS 1993" and "Elevator 1994"  all of which were found objects but reinvented.  Bicycles was a work of 4 bicycles connected together by handlebar connection to seat connection. none had either seat or handlebars but instead another bicycle was attached.  Don't know if I have made this very understandable.  I liked this a lot and thought the way it occupied the space was fascinating trying to work out how it was all connected and he shapes it made.  All the circles in three dimensions formed by the wheels and the cogs intersecting in space.  The DS was another favorite; the streamlining even more extreme than in the original and the perfect execution of the object to make it look as if it had always been like this.  The lift was another interesting object.  It may not have been so obviously aesthetic as the previous two items ; however it was interactive , in that one could step inside it.  The lift cabin had been reduced in height as a section had been cut out of it (rather like DS) and re joined, the lights were on and the doors open.  It made me feel reticent to walk into it because I had the feeling the doors may have closed and not let me out again.

One of the most interesting pieces and the works emerging from it was "Horses Running Endlessly 1995".  This consisted of a giant checkerboard with knights alone placed on it.  The knights are only permitted to make the usual L shaped move.  The different moves were plotted and the permutations transferred to grids in order to make patterns.  Orozco is fascinated by circles and these diagrams use circles and intersecting circles to describe the knights' movements "Samurai Tree Invariant paintings 2006-7" a selection of which were on show here; these were executed in only 4 colours each.  These are a collaboration between Orozco and a Paris based assistant.  These were lovely paintings in their own right but he calls them diagrams.  There was a tonal diagram in graphite pencil and this was quite beautiful.

The final room had the game "Carambole with Pendulum" apparently a French version of Billiards, which Orozca has reinvented and asks people to invent the rules for themselves.  The billiards table is oval and the red ball is suspended from a thread attached to the ceiling above directly above the centre of the table.  there are two white balls, cues and chalk available to play the "game".  This is another of Orozca's interactive pieces.

Apart from the very varied media  used by Orozco, clearly photography is one of his great loves,  The photographs are beautiful notably "Breath on Piano 1993", "Extension of Reflection 1992" and "Island within and Island 1993" amongst others, the last is particularly poignant as it shows the Twin Towers on Manhattan from a derelict island; a portent of things to come!  What I found most notable is that each of these photographs gave me a feeling of the solitary.  They were all very strong images and I carry them with me in my mind's eye.

An important exhibition perhaps not given the publicity it deserved.  I could so easily have missed it.

Gabriel Orozco Exhibition at Tate Modern Part 1

On Wednesday I went to the Mexican Artist, Gabriel Orozco  exhibition at Tate Modern.  This as a thoroughly enjoyable experience; I felt it was a very well curated exhibition and a great opportunity to see his most famous and memorable works. 

The first piece was My Hands are my Heart (1991),  The double photograph of the man compressing the clay between his hands and then showing the resulting piece, this then exhibited alongside the fired clay "heart". This is apparently brick clay an everyday material rather than a specialist clay.  This is supposed to represent a "moment of creation".  This is a work on a small and personal scale, I found it rather moving; I had not realized that the clay piece was included in this as I had only been aware of the photographic piece before going to the exhibition.  In the same room were a series of folded paper and oil paint "Rorschach" type images I think they were called Paris.  The folds had been executed in different ways and the resulting images were dependent on the folds and the colours of paint used,  I went with three friends to see this show and we compared notes on each of the images to see how our interpretations differed.  This was a very interesting exercise; we all saw different things in the resulting images but agreed that we mainly found them quite phallic or sexual.

Black Kites (1997) was a human skull which was a found object; it had apparently taken him several months to complete the very painstakingly accurate chequer-board pattern inscribed on it with graphite pencil. This occupied the central space in this small room and the surrounding walls were covered with banners "Obit" with the first lines of obituaries from the New York Times written on them in scripts and fonts reflecting the originals.  These were often amusing but my favourite quote was "He was eccentric even for an Englishman".   The juxtaposition of the skull and the obituary quotations and the association with mortality is obvious.

Lintels (2001) is an installation of dryer lint from laundromat dryers hung on wires rather like washing.  these delicate pieces seem to represent the detritus of life or represent a sort of death.  They are grey felted and almost amorphous sheets of varying sizes; hung in pairs or alone and quite far apart.  One could walk under them but not touch them so it was interactive yet not tactile.  This was originally hung in New York just after the destruction of the Twin Towers and one can sense the poignancy of this instalation in this context. "For me what is important is not so much what people see in the show, it's what you see after...how your perception of reality is changed… " GABRIEL OROZCO

To be continued......

Just Moving on

I have been working on some other things recently and will be posting these from now on as I have now completed the OCA CDA1 course - At last!  I am now just waiting to get the final report from my tutor and decide then whether or not to go for assessment. 

This is a bit of pure abstract digital art I have been having fun with.  I hope to be taking this a bit further and produce a painting or print based on this abstract image.

Modern British Sculpture Exhibition

I went to the Royal Academy yesterday to see the Modern British Sculpture Exhibition.  I had heard very varied and mostly negative comments about it from people who had been to see it and was not expecting to like it a great deal.  It goes to show you should never take any notice of anyone else's opinions and you should always go to see something and form your own. 

This was a great exhibition of sculpture from 1900 to the present day. It was very well curated; in the second room they showed ancient art in juxtaposition to contemporarty work in order to show where inspiration had come from for various pieces;.  It was in near enough chronological in order, thus emphasizing the temporal development of abstraction in sculpture.  It was not comprehensive in that there was limited space and there were mainly small works, with a few exceptions.  Some foreign artists who had spent time in Britain were shown where they were relevant to the development of British sculpture. 

I loved the more contemporary works but I couldn't really sketch them.  I would need to go back and spend more time there; I may if I can find the time before it closes on April 7th.

A great piece which I could not have sketched was Environmental Construction by Victor Pasmore and Richard Hamilton as exhibited in 1957.  A wonderful piece of perspex sheets coloured and clear hanging vertically and horizontally from fine steel wires.  This gives a real feeling of contained space; you just have to experience it to appreciate it fully.

Another piece I loved was "Stack" (2011) by Tony Cragg.  This was a huge cube of layers of "stuff" inculding matress, cardboard, cards of threads, old bowls and all sorts of waste and rubbish; the detritus of living sandwiched very neatly between, what appeared to be pieces of wooden pallet. It was like a piece of archaeology.

I did some very quick sketches of some pieces I particularly liked to remind me when I returned home.  I sometimes work these up from memory, by referring to these, in a larger sketchbook if I feel like it, or if they are relevant to work I am doing.

 



Assignment 5 CDA1 part 2

I have now just about finished the writing up on development of my ideas, which includes my second image of entitled Vases the first image being called Ghosts.  the first image was created from a number of scanned objects which were then manipulated and changed; whereas the second image was derived from a photograph from which I made a more abstract painting.  I developed the painting further into a more absract image and used photographs of this to create an abstract digital art image for this project.

Thi initial photograph was one of chimneypots taken in France last year.

This is the first painting made from this image but with one degree of abstraction.

The painting was inspired the Italian atist Giorgio Morandi who painted mainly still lifes in a limited pallet of indigo, yellow ochre, Naples yellow, burnt Sienna and white. 

The second painting with a second degree of abstraction with the same pallet as used above.

This is the digitized image derived from this painting and the third degree of abstraction along with the black and white image required for completion of the assignment.





The tonal contrast is evident in the greyscale version as well as the color version the difference in tone is graded from the background to the foreground giving an impression of depth.  This is aided by the framing of the objects with a darker tone on the left hand side and bottom third of the image behind the "objects".

Assignment 5 CDA1

I am just about ready to submit the fifth and final Assignment.

The brief was to create an image for a magazine using (Photoshop Elements techniques) that works in colour and black and white on the theme of Metamorphosis.  In addition to this, research into metamorphosis in historical terms was required as well ascarrying out research  into the theme in visual terms using drawings / sketches and other visual methods to develop ideas.



Ghosts - Final Version







Ghosts - Final Version B/W



I have written an essay on the history of metamorphois in art covering Cubism , Surrealism, Dada, Futurism and Bauhaus movement and placed these in a wider historical context.  I have researched the theme in visual terms giving examples of how I developed my ideas. And I have written up the way I developed my image and looked people's work who have completed the same course. 

Progress in Assignment 5

I have been thinking more about this subject and the piece of work I could produce for it.  Butterflies are quite high up in my thinking at the moment and I've thought of ways of producing butterflies from scallop shells and the sort of environment in which to place them.  I have been scanning in lots of leaves and shells as well as pens and also creating gradients and using filters to manipulate the scanned images.  The brief is to create an image for a magazine which could also be presented in black and white.  This is something that I need to bear in mind as it is quite hard to create a colour image with sufficient contrast to work well in both colour and black and white.

This is a very early stage in the composition.

The background sky is a gradient and clouds filter
Foreground is scanned leaves transformed with perspective
The trees are a disintegrating leaf treated with various filters and enhanced with blending modes
The Butterfly consist of scallop shells and an owl pen which have been manipulated with filters and blending modes both separately and together once combined and colour changes made after this

As stated above this is a very preliminary stage and  much needs much work before I am happy with it.  I think I need to make the background recede more by altering the contrast or creating some sort of gradient.   I need more content in the background, not just a stark horizon .  More variety in the trees and maybe a path or track leading the eye back into the picture. The "butterfly" is not right yet but I am using it in the mock ups just to get an idea of what needs to happen; I also would like to put in a flock of them but I'm not sure if I will be able to do this or if it would be visually successful.  Maybe a single insect would be better visually. If one looks at Magritte his images have only one or two objects but they have huge visual impact.

PIET MONDRIAN

Whilst researching my 5th Assignment I came upon this animation - GENIUS!




This one really is relevant to metamorphosis! Great music too.

Hmm!

What to do? What to do?  The fifth assignment is really tough - Metamorphosis - yes that is the brief.  I am really stuck for an idea on this one.  I am studying what others have done and also the great and the good in the shape of Mondrian, Picasso, Man Ray the list goes on.  I have pulled every book off my shelf and gone to the internet too, to investigate this subject.The example they give in the course notes is not very inspiring but others who have done the course seem to have got to grips with it - why can't I?

I have gone through the exercises for each of the projects with varying degrees of success and enthusiasm.  Project 18 was quite tedious and repetitive and I haven't bothered to post any of the images here.  These are a few from Project 19.


This is OP ART, made from a gradient I created and manipulated.  I really like the way the blue in the middle of the circles seems to expand and contract - at least it does for me. It also leaves an after image on the retina once you look away and look at a plain screen.

This is a photograph i took of leaves in autumn colour which has an ugly leaf stalk that would be better disguised.  This is exactly the same exercise as given in the course notes but obviously with a different tree.

I've cloned a leaf by painting it onto a separate layer and added a stalk to attach it to a visible stem, and added a highlight to the leaf.

This was created using the pattern clone tool, again a stalk was adapted to give a realistic attachment to a stem.  No highlight was added to this  version.


I was just playing with the pattern clone tool, paint brushes and modes here to produce an abstract painting.


This was a fun project too; I really enjoyed it.

Project 17

Original image

Tracing with brush

Tracing refined and colour changed

Simple gradient

Simple gradient

Simple gradient

Texture layer

I have had a wonderful time with this project.  It involved tracing over an image, with the obvious selection problems; what to include or exclude, the colour, thickness, texture and so on.  All of which can be changed.  the instructions in the project suggest using lower opacity to begin with.  I can't say that I did this nor could see the logic behind it.  However, I did use the technique in a second layer to create shading with larger brushes and different opacity.  Transparency of layers allows you to alter the amount of visibility of the under layers and I allowed some of the background original image to show through in some versions thus adding some detail in the shawl.This series shows the gradual building up of the image and further manipulation that has been applied.  Clearly the possibilities are endless. As an aside,I now have a graphics tablet and pen which makes the whole process of "drawing" so much simpler than with the mouse; however, I still get cramp and that is very disappointing!  But I still love it.

Simple gradient

Shading

Combination of tracing, texture layer, simple gradient with
background layer just visible.

Tracing, shading, texture, simple gradient

Tracing refined and colour changed, shading, texture and

   combination of two simple gradients 

Grey scale showing the density levels of the texture layers

and the drawn elements

Posterized

Posterized and inverted