Wednesday, 14 November 2007
Saturday, 10 November 2007
Super Saturday
I've just returned from the first Super Saturday event at college. I want to write about it but am too tired today, suffice to say, it was a success and I really enjoyed it and feel I learned a lot about research and about my own work. I made notes and will update shortly.
Joan Eardley
The Joan Eardley exhibition at the RSA was wonderful. I was surprised at the amount of work there was and also, because I have a very limited knowledge of her work, how many landscapes there were. I was quite excited by that because her use of texture and the leaning towards abstraction (although we are told she remained firmly a realist) did remind me of the sort of work I am trying to create at the moment. I was fascinated by her limited sphere of sources (i.e. Catterline and Inner Glasgow). Talking to another tutor today (Super Saturday) did make me think that perhaps in terms of her peers of the time, her work was very limited. But in saying that, it gave her unlimited time to focus on these two areas. I was overwhelmed when I was standing infront of the last piece she was working on - I had a very surprising and instant emotional response and have to confess it brought tears to my eyes. Whether it was because this was her final piece and it was unfinished and that made me think of the frailty of life or whether I could see that there was so much more development work she could have done, I'm not quite sure. It was a very emotive piece. I've bought the catalogue and will be pouring over it for a long time this term I think.
Upping the Scale
The idea of working larger is one which was suggested by one of my tutors. I'd been playing around with scale, mainly using small sizes for the images I worked on but some of these have been from zoomed in sections of a piece of work. I tried doing some very small pieces as well, and I like doing these. However, when the tutor suggested I work on the larger scale last week, it did feel like a reasonable response to the investigations I've been doing. The image below was done in class and I did have a great time on it. It forced me to work differently to make marks. I worked directly from the tube in some areas(which I loved) and in others, used a rag to move the paint around the surface.
The upshot of all this is that I have been struggling with the idea of working even bigger. So, on Friday I went into college to buy large pieces of card A0 and brought them home. The next issue was; what am I going to do with them? This was a trickier problem to solve because space is an issue. But, never phased by a challenge, I decided it was time to rearrange the house a little, so on Saturday, I changed the study around a little to give me a whole wall to play with. I then found some plastic sheeting and pinned that up and taped a piece of card to it.
The scariest thing was being faced with a totally blank piece of A0 card. I didn't have any white emulsion so I primed it with a pale blue. I should have thinned the paint because it was a little laborious putting it on, but it did cover the white well.
Because I liked the orange of one of the original pieces, I wanted to try to recreate that sort of effect. I am aware that if I try to replicate something smaller on a large scale it's going to be difficult to get the same sense of movement without the piece looking too contrived. I'm not sure it will work, but so far I now have the first orange base coat on. I may leave it as it is because it's thin in parts and a little of the pale blue shows through, but I like that.
The discussion I had with my tutor did touch on how I could recreate the different marks and I've switched to a large 3" household painbrush to try to see if I can get the same sense of spontenaity. It will be interesting to see how this turns out.
The upshot of all this is that I have been struggling with the idea of working even bigger. So, on Friday I went into college to buy large pieces of card A0 and brought them home. The next issue was; what am I going to do with them? This was a trickier problem to solve because space is an issue. But, never phased by a challenge, I decided it was time to rearrange the house a little, so on Saturday, I changed the study around a little to give me a whole wall to play with. I then found some plastic sheeting and pinned that up and taped a piece of card to it.
The scariest thing was being faced with a totally blank piece of A0 card. I didn't have any white emulsion so I primed it with a pale blue. I should have thinned the paint because it was a little laborious putting it on, but it did cover the white well.
Because I liked the orange of one of the original pieces, I wanted to try to recreate that sort of effect. I am aware that if I try to replicate something smaller on a large scale it's going to be difficult to get the same sense of movement without the piece looking too contrived. I'm not sure it will work, but so far I now have the first orange base coat on. I may leave it as it is because it's thin in parts and a little of the pale blue shows through, but I like that.
The discussion I had with my tutor did touch on how I could recreate the different marks and I've switched to a large 3" household painbrush to try to see if I can get the same sense of spontenaity. It will be interesting to see how this turns out.
Wednesday, 7 November 2007
Scale
Started working on a slightly larger scale last night - it was great fun. I was limited by my paper size but have more ideas and enthusiasm for developing this further.
Monday, 5 November 2007
Lack of focus
Another class tonight and I'm looking forward to it but not quite sure what I'm going to work on. I bought oil paints at the weekend and would love to try using them but don't have a locker at college so getting work home which is still wet might be a problem. Think I will try though.
Saturday, 3 November 2007
Developing an idea
These images aren't in the right order. When I get a minute I'll try to sort them.
Exhibitions
I've been to two exhibitions recently which I really enjoyed. The first was at the Dean Gallery and celebrated the centenary of the birth of Sir Basil Spence.
I loved the images and the models. Ironically the exhibition itself was badly layed out in that the audio visuals were noisy and distracting - often three or more different screens in one room which made you feel like you were walking into a wall of noise. Whether this was intentional or not, it made me irritable, uncomfortable and distracted from the wonderful images I was looking at. I particularly loved his posters, especially the design for the Southern Motors Garage, which is garage close to where I live. The exhibition is part of a project to document Spence's life and his work can also be seen here. Until I do an official family tree investigation, I also like to think we are related!
The other exhibition was Victoria Crowe, "Plant Memory" at the RSA. I love her work and have for ages. I have a complete folder on my pc of any image which has appeared online and her work crops up in my researched images again and again. The exhibition was relatively small but the images were wonderful. I was particularly interested in the way she achieves blocks and layers of wash and textures as this is a direction I have been trying to get my work to go. Looking at her images face to face, gave me a much clearer idea of how this can be achieved.
I've been a little lazy in keeping this blog updated with regards to last week's classes. They were both good and I managed to resolve one of the things I was working on. The images here show a progression of experimenting with the things I was stuggling with last week. I am trying to both merge nature and man made structures but also reverse colour. So that nature is stripped of it's colour and becomes monochromatic and the man made structure has colour.
The final one I did was in some ways the most successful - it took the least time and perhaps that was a good thing because it meant I didn't "think", I just reacted to what I was doing and that made it a much more natural response. I think I have a lot more to do on this before I run out of steam on it but I am allowing the work to take me, rather than trying to push things too quickly. The next development is likely to explore the ideas of colour a little more and perhaps movement. I have some interesting images I took in the Lake District which combine landscape, structure and speed - they were taken from a moving car.
I'll try to work on this more next week.
I loved the images and the models. Ironically the exhibition itself was badly layed out in that the audio visuals were noisy and distracting - often three or more different screens in one room which made you feel like you were walking into a wall of noise. Whether this was intentional or not, it made me irritable, uncomfortable and distracted from the wonderful images I was looking at. I particularly loved his posters, especially the design for the Southern Motors Garage, which is garage close to where I live. The exhibition is part of a project to document Spence's life and his work can also be seen here. Until I do an official family tree investigation, I also like to think we are related!
The other exhibition was Victoria Crowe, "Plant Memory" at the RSA. I love her work and have for ages. I have a complete folder on my pc of any image which has appeared online and her work crops up in my researched images again and again. The exhibition was relatively small but the images were wonderful. I was particularly interested in the way she achieves blocks and layers of wash and textures as this is a direction I have been trying to get my work to go. Looking at her images face to face, gave me a much clearer idea of how this can be achieved.
I've been a little lazy in keeping this blog updated with regards to last week's classes. They were both good and I managed to resolve one of the things I was working on. The images here show a progression of experimenting with the things I was stuggling with last week. I am trying to both merge nature and man made structures but also reverse colour. So that nature is stripped of it's colour and becomes monochromatic and the man made structure has colour.
The final one I did was in some ways the most successful - it took the least time and perhaps that was a good thing because it meant I didn't "think", I just reacted to what I was doing and that made it a much more natural response. I think I have a lot more to do on this before I run out of steam on it but I am allowing the work to take me, rather than trying to push things too quickly. The next development is likely to explore the ideas of colour a little more and perhaps movement. I have some interesting images I took in the Lake District which combine landscape, structure and speed - they were taken from a moving car.
I'll try to work on this more next week.
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