Author: Claire Pascoe

I am studying with the Open Colleg of the Arts, this is my second blog.
Assignment 1 - Tutor Feedback

Assignment 1 – Tutor feedback & Reflection

Claire Pascoe

Drawing 1 – Part 1 – Reflection

Need to be more dynamic

More inventive – Looser mark making whilst still technically accurate

Project 1

More care over eclipses

More accuracy when drawing fabrics

Make ellipses more balanced

Assignment

Work with concepts, so that it drives me to do work in an alternative way

Be more inventive and creative 

Push strengths more and be more inventive with washes media and variety of line.  Show more expression as well as technical proficiency.

Sketchbooks

More mistakes in sketch books

Playful combinations of media 

Investigations and discovery

Link work to research

Compare works

More self reflective – look at initial intentions – evaluate whether it worked or not 

Check work against Assessment Criteria

Write down how well work meets the criteria

Exhibitions and Media

Exhibitions

Claire Pascoe

2nd May 2019 Tate Britain Ey Exhibition Van Gogh and Britain

Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)

In this exhibition the idea was to show how Van Gogh life in Britain had influenced his work.  Vincent Van Gogh spent nearly three years in England from 1873 to 1876.

The first part of the exhibition looks at the influences that Van Gogh took from these years in England.  He loved Charles Dickens, the newspaper called ‘The Graphic’ the black and white prints that he collected and paintings in Art galleries such as the National Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum. He would remember the art that he saw, and the images all of his life and some of the work that he produced later in his life would reflect this.

It was interesting to see that in this exhibition the possible references for some of his work displayed beside the works themselves.  

Own photograph taken at the exhibition 02/05/2019

For instance this painting ‘The Avenue at Middelharnis’ by Meindert Hobbema (1668-1709). Van Gogh was influenced by the perspective of trees by this Dutch artist which he saw in the National Gallery in London.  He later produced several works using the perspective of the trees that are shown here.

(Own photograph from the exhibition 02/05/2019)

‘Avenue of Poplars in Autumn Nuenen’ painted in October 1884.

Van Gogh painted this, and another similar painting two months after telling his brother Theo about seeing Hobbema’s ‘The Avenue at Middelharnis’ in London.

(Own photograph from the exhibition 02/05/2019)

Van Gogh collected what were referred to as ‘black and whites’, he collected around 200 and used these in his work because of the use of the light in them. This image by Gustave Dore (1832-1883) shows the dark industrial look of England that Van Gogh enjoyed found interesting and used in his work.  His painting ‘prisoners exercising’ painted in 1890 showed this dark side of England. He used pictures that he found in the newspaper ‘Graphic’ which also showed this gloomy dark side of

English life.

(Own photograph from the exhibition 02/05/2019)

This painting by James Abbott McNeill  Whistler (1834-1903) is called ‘Nocturne Grey and Gold Westminster Bridge).  

Own photograph of exhibition (02/05/2019)

This painting produced in September 1888 ‘Starry night over the Rhône’ has similar lighting as the James Abbott McNeill Whistler above so it is possible to see how the work may have influenced Van Gogh.

The following three Paintings were done at different times but follow the same theme and it is possible to see how Van Gogh style changed

(Own Photograph from exhibition 02/05/2019)

‘Worn out’ October 1881

‘At Eternity’s Gate’ 1882

Sorrowing Old Man (At Eternity’s Gate) 1890

This shows the way that Van Gogh returned to subjects over time and improved his work and style.

The next part of the Exhibition focused on the How Van Gogh work was viewed after his death in 1890 and how his work influenced artists.  

(Own photograph from the exhibition 02/05/2019)

One room was filled with paintings of flowers and sunflowers which previously had been viewed as feminine, but Van Gogh showed how they could have structure and this revived the use of flowers as a subject.

I found this exhibition really helpful, I had not realised how important the images that you see are, and how these images can be used to further your own work.  I have always known that this is important to research artist, but this really reinforced to me how this can impact on your studies.

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastidas (1863-1923)

National Gallery – Spanish Master of Light 25/04/2019

This exhibition really shows how important light is and how the use of this makes more exciting and realistic work.

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/Sorolla

https://www.joaquin-sorolla-y-bastida.org/My-Wife-And-Daughters-In-The-Garden.html (accessed 02/05/2019)

Photography was not permitted at this exhibition, so I am only including this image, where the light has been captured particularly well. I feel that I learned a lot about light from this exhibition, and particularly how light changes colours. For instance the dresses above, which we know are white but the light makes them contain blue, beige, yellow, grey and even green. This I found in all of his pictures, the sheer amount of colours used was astounding, this was to show light at its best.

Sea Star at the National Gallery by Sean Scully (b1945) 25/04/2019

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/sea-star-sean-scully-at-the-

national-gallery

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-evening-star

This exhibition contains a group of paintings based on the Joseph Mallord William Turner ( 1775 – 1851)  painting ‘The Evening Star’ above. This is sheer colour, the image broken down to its elements and portrayed on huge canvases,  two on each side of the room with a corridor in the middle where the Turner painting can be viewed. This arrangement allows the viewer to see all the paintings together and get a sense of the extraction of colour that Scully has used to portray the atmosphere described by Turner.

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/about-us/press-and-media/press-releases/sea-star-sean-scully-at-the-national-gallery (accessed 02/05/2019)

Here is one of the paintings featured which really show this atmospheric use of colour.

Interestingly in this exhibition was included the work that Sean Scully did on Van Gogh’s chair. Sean Scully was fascinated with this painting and visited it regularly at the National Gallery and produced the painting at below from his observation of it.

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/picture-of-the-month-april-2019 (accessed 02/05/2019)

https://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/sea-star-sean-scully-national-gallery-review-london (accessed 02/05/2019)

Sean Scully. Arles-Abend-Vincent, 2013. Oil on linen, each panel 149.9 × 139.7 cm. Private collection. © Sean Scully. Photo: courtesy the artist.  

Project 2 Detailed observation, Project 3 Still life

Drawing 1, Part 2, Project 2 and 3

Claire Pascoe

Drawing 1, Part 2, Project 2 Exercise 1

Project 2 – Detailed Observation of Natural Objects

Own image and photograph (accessed 27/03/2019)

In this image I tore open a tomato pulling out the inside.  In this image I worked on the detail and tone, trying to build up the dark medium and light tones.  I used some hatching and crosshatching .

Own image and photograph (accessed 27/03/2019)

In this image I have used coloured pencils of various different colours to build up the tone and create areas of dark and light.  

Review of this work

I think that tone can be shown in many different ways and different media.  When using the coloured pencils it is possible to use many different colours to show the different tones.  For example where there is dark tone in the above image I used purple, not a colour you would think about when drawing a tomato but purple is there in the dark tone.  I could probably have used more creative mark making, but I have used cross-hatching and hatching where this pattern fitted with the image.

If I had used a cloth to put the tomato on I could have changed the image, and this could have complemented the colour of the tomatoes so something like a greeny blue would have worked.  I like the contrast of the white plate and the red tomatoes though.

https://www.vincentvangogh.org/still-life-with-quinces.jsp. (Accessed 27/03/2019

This combination of colours in Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)  ‘Still Life with Quinces’ contains many different colour to give the image more depth.

Project 3 – Still Life

Exercise 1 – Still life using line

(Own image, own photograph) (accessed 11/04/2019)

I chose these items for this still life because they had interesting textures and I thought they would work well in the context of using line.  They are natural objects and are all spiky in some way. I felt that it was important that the textures were interesting, although I have included the smoother shell as a contrast.  The way that I treated the objects changed, I began with the cactus and realised that in making the cactus black and the spikes white this would create the right spiky look that I wanted.

I also liked that negative elements to this and thought that would make the drawing more interesting.  With the textures on the shell I thought this would stand out and look more interesting with a black background.  This seems to have allowed the shell to look more 3D which was what I was hoping for.

I felt that placing the highest item in the centre with the other items around it would allow the cactus to be black against the white which would help to highlight it.  I really likes the spikes and will look to use cactus in the future. Using two different coloured backgrounds allows the objects to be placed where they would benefit from the black or the white behind them.  This is something that I hadn’t thought about much before, but splitting the background makes sense when trying to get different objects to stand out or move back in an image. I did however find it difficult to show the smoothness of the large shell, when using line like this it is better to show the smoothness by using tone.

I used dipping pen and black ink which I think makes line easier to show and created the look that I wanted.  I found that light was difficult to show when using line and I will look at how I can show line better. In my thumbnails I moved the cactus about and looked at landscape and portrait, but ended up with the composition that I chose mainly to show the cactus to its best.  

Exercise 2 – Still life in tone using colour.

I have been researching ‘Still Life’ and have found that it is a genre that many artist work in.  In visiting Tate Modern, I saw a painting by Paul Klee (1879-1940), which made me look further at the cubism style, the painting I saw was not a still life but this made me research the work that he did.

https://www.moma.org/collection/works/33358 (accessed 11/04/2019)

This painting by Paul Klee shows a still life and the tone is clear using colour.  The background is so dense and rich, the fruit really shine out from the painting. The areas of light are yellow and contrast with the dark of the background.  

I have gone on to look at the work of Karl Knath (1891-1971), his work with collage and still life using cubism are similar to Paul Klee

(Own Image – Own Collection) (accessed 11/04/2019)

Some of these objects were together in the house eg the fruit bowl and the blue bottle and that is what started the choice of objects. The fabric is a top but used as a cloth, I felt that the patter went well with the composition,  I added the rabbit at the end, I felt that I wanted to show more tone in the image.

When I was creating the composition I decided to put the bottle at the back so that the eye is taken from the rabbit and up to the bottle.  I think the fruit bowl is too round and looks like I was looking down on it rather than from the side. I am working on my ellipses but this is still not right.  

The concept came from surroundings and what surrounds us, what everyday objects mean to us.  The rabbit and the bowl came from my mother in-laws house and has always meant something to me, although I had not thought about where they had come from in a long while.  The objects are just there always around me, drawing them made me look at them again, in a different way. When visited Tate Modern recently I noticed that artists often paint what is around them, they tend to paint their studios or things that they use.  Georges Braque (1882-1963), painted many still life paintings of the things around him, I particularly like the use of mixed media in his work and would like to try some collage with still life.

http://collection.imamuseum.org/artwork/49531/ (Accessed 17/04/2019)

Georges Barque  – Still life with pink fish.

I tried with this coloured pencil drawing to look at the tone and where the tones were dark and light.  I found it difficult to work in a loose way using the medium that I chose, I seemed to draw very tightly finding it difficult to create a more sketchy look, I think I worked too slowly and methodically.  I seemed to have some tonal colour in the image, the bottle didn’t work as well as I would have like. I like the blue in the image and the orange as the two colours contrast well.I think that in the end the tone is evident and the colours work well together.  

When I did the thumb-nail sketches for this image I moved the bottle around and changed the lighting to get the light coming from behind the image as the light comes in from the window. I decided on just a suggestion of the background would be enough as I didn’t want to detract from the still life itself.

Own Image, Own Photograph (Accessed 17/04/2019)

Exercise 3 – Experiment with mixed media

I have been looking at the work of Georges Braque, I also looked at some other artists who worked in mixed media and still life. This of course brought me to Pablo Picasso, Collage, seems to have played a big role in his work so this is where I started.  

Own Image, Own Photograph (Accessed 17/04/2019)

Testing ideas for Exercise 3.

I really wanted to use the collage as a background to show different textures and allow this to show through the image as well as around it.  Using dip pen and back and white ink I found that the marks were interesting and allowed the texture of the starfish to show. I wanted the viewer to know how rough the starfish would feel just by looking at the image.

I decided to carry on with the concept of drawing the objects that surround me and so I chose the fish that I was going to cook along with a shell that has been in my kitchen for a long time.  The fish was wrapped in a thin plastic which was difficult to draw but I have used collage and white and grey pen as well as pencil to try and get the semi opaque look to it. It is more graphic than I would have liked, as I feel the object don’t tie together as well as I would have liked.  I really like the shell and feel that the texture worked well with this.

The objects were lit from above, although I did try lighting them from the side but I really wanted the fish to shine.  I tried different objects but felt that I wanted a range of textures in the image so in the end I decided on the shell and the fish for there very different textures.  The lemon I have tried to use to join the two objects together and make the image more whole. I chose to draw the object from above because I wanted the marking on the fish to show and this did not work as well from other angles.

I have used dip pen with white and black in which really helped to describe the texture of the shell along with marker pens to add the colour that was required.  I let the background blue show through the fish and the grey background show through the shell. The white ink and dip pen created the scaly texture of the fish, along with thick black marker for the stripes.  I also used coloured pencils to add colour in the lemon and the Mackerel. The dip pen really allows the background to come through the image which I really liked, made it more interesting and fishy.

Own Image, Own Photograph (Accessed 17/04/2019)

Exercise 3 – Finished work.

Exercise 4 – Monochrome

Research

I started by looking at some artists that have worked using monochrome.

The work of Anish Kapoor (b 1954), was suggested by my tutor and I have been looking at his drawings, particularly the way that he blurs the boundaries between reality and illusion.  For instance you think that the drawing is of one thing, but it could really be of another thing. The dish, that when you look at it straight on it turns into a hole so deep and dark. His flat drawings have depth that allow the viewer to feel like they are looking past the drawing and deep into the image, like looking into a hole. They can also appear to protrude out at the viewer and some images seem to do both, draw the viewer in then look like the drawing is protruding out all in the same image.

Anish Kapoor Drawings, by Jeremy Lewison, published by Tate Gallery (1990)

(Photograph own collection accessed 17/04/2019).

This Vaginal image seems to draw the viewer into the red but the red has a phallic quality too protruding from the image.

I have looked at Ben Nicholson (1894-1982) and his work using white relief and the shadows that are created using this technique.  

Yves Klein (1928-1962) was known for his blue monochrome work, said to have come from his love of the French Mediterranean skies.  Printing with real human bodies, created images that look female even though they are a series of blue marks on a white canvas that seem to have movement built into them.

Marc Chagall (1887-1985)

https://www.masterworksfineart.com/catalogue-raisonee/blue-still-life/ (Accessed 17/04/2019).

Marc Chagall is also known for the blue and colour in his work although he worked in black and white too making etchings and lithographs.  This is very loose but really atmospheric which is what is interesting about it.

Exercise 4

Own Image, Own Photograph (Accessed 05/06/2019)

I began by looking at the pears above and looking at how the light falls on them and how the blue pastel could best be used to create the shape.  This exercise was helpful when I did the exercise below in describing the shapes of the vegetables. I have found that using the eraser as a drawing tool can help to pick out the areas of light.

I again carried on with the concept of what surrounds me, and as I love to cook there are alway ingredients around my kitchen.  I wanted to really observe these vegetables and really see how complex they are and how the different surfaces can be depicted. The smooth shiny aubergine and the bumpy uneven surface of the asparagus stems.

Own Image, Own Photograph (Accessed 05/06/2019)

Assignment 2

Assignment 2

Claire Pascoe

Assignment 2

Own images, Own Photographs (Accessed 05/06/2019)

I have chosen an interior scene and chosen to work in charcoal, pencil and pencil crayon.  

When I was first thinking about this assignment I started to look into mirrors to see the way that interiors look when framed by a mirror.  In the course the painting by Eduard Manet (A Bar at the Folies-Bergere) caught my attention and began this interest in how the mirror shows an interior. This has made me look at interiors in a different way, I found that the views can draw the viewer into the image. I also wanted the image to be interesting so I have brought colour into the image but only for the fairy lights and the background window.

When I started to compose this drawing I looked at the mirrors in my house and the views that they showed, and how the views changed with the light and the direction of the viewer. I realised that I wanted to bring the viewer into the image. When I looked at this mirror and I could see the window on the stairs and the light coming from the window, I realised how light can be used for this purpose of drawing the viewer in.  I found the angles of the stairs interesting too, as well as the light coming through from the window and down the stairs. The idea of looking through a view to another view has always interested me too. By adding the settee in, in the foreground it brings the viewer back into the room.

The mixing of the monochrome with the colours makes the colour seem even more vibrant, but also makes the stairs look darker and gives them atmosphere. The different surfaces in the image are important too and bring interest, the shiny surfaces contrast with the soft furnishings allowing the use of different types of mark making.  The light coming through from the back window gives the opportunity to use tone and contrast in the image.

The angle of the stairs was difficult to capture but by using charcoal I was able to work on this at the beginning in some preliminary sketches and keep changing the angles until it looked accurate. I experimented with the coloured pencils to find the colours that best represented the colourful fairy lights.  The mother of Pearl and mirror around the edge of the mirror proved difficult to achieve as they are so reflective and I did not want to detract from the image inside the mirror.

I haven’t used coloured pencil very much in the past so this was new to me, I found that putting one colour on top of another could change the colour. putting white over pink can make it lighter or using blue with green to make a deeper shade of green.

I knew what I wanted to achieve with this piece, I wanted it to be interesting, I wanted to represent the image well however I have not experimented as much as I would have liked. I think that I did not experiment much because I knew what I wanted and seemed to be getting the image that I had planned.

Project 4 - At home

Drawing 1 , Part 2, Project 4 – Exercise 1, 2 and 3

Claire Pascoe

Drawing 1

Part 2

Project 4

Exercise 1, 2 and 3

At Home

Own Photographs from a visit to Tate Modern (Accessed 05/06/2019)

This painting by Pablo Picasso shows how artist use their surroundings for inspiration, just finding subjects to paint in their own homes.  Looking at the scene in a different was and seeing the views around them in a different way.

Own Photographs from a visit to Tate Modern (Accessed 05/06/2019)

This painting by Henri Matisse shows how he too used his studio surrounding as a subject for his paintings.  In this painting the vase really helps to bring the studio a more human edge and the red flowers really sing against all the brown in the painting.  The light coming through the window is captured on the cupboard door changing it to a pink colour which helps to break up the brown.

Light makes a great difference in interior works and can change the environment and atmosphere dramatically, a scene flooded with light in the day time can feel cold and sinister in the evening.  

Exercise 1

I have realised that I find this kind of fast drawing very difficult so I am not sure that the drawings that I produced are quite what was required.  This is something that I will endeavour to work on in the future, I seem to get totally stuck on detail and find it difficult to move past this.

Own Image, Own photograph (Accessed 05/06/2019)

Charcoal on paper

Far too much detail just can’t seem to be fluid enough.

Own Image, Own photograph (Accessed 05/06/2019)

Pencil on paper

Own Image, Own photograph (Accessed 05/06/2019)

White chalk on black paper

Own Image, Own photograph (Accessed 05/06/2019)

Pencil on paper

Own Image, Own photograph (Accessed 05/06/2019)

Pencil on Paper

Own Image, Own photograph (Accessed 05/06/2019)

Black ink on white paper.

Own Image, Own photograph (Accessed 05/06/2019)

Charcoal on Paper

Own Image, Own photograph (Accessed 05/06/2019)

Charcoal on Paper

This one is a bit looser and done in less time so I felt like I have progressed a bit from the first drawing.

Exercise 2 – Composition – an interior

I have chosen to look at my kitchen area

Own Image, Own photograph (Accessed 05/06/2019)

Charcoal on paper

Own Image, Own photograph (Accessed 05/06/2019)

Pencil on paper

Own Image, Own photograph (Accessed 05/06/2019)

Charcoal on paper

Own Image, Own photograph (Accessed 05/06/2019)

Own Image, Own photograph (Accessed 05/06/2019)

Painted paper with conte stick and pencil crayon

My Chosen View

This picture became my chosen view, although I think it is a bit graphic, possibly because of the way that I coloured it. The perspective is not as good as I would have liked.  The light on the table is probably the best thing about this image

Own Image, Own photograph (Accessed 05/06/2019).

By going right into the corner of the kitchen I was able to draw whole of the room that was laid out in front of me.

Exercise 3 – Material Differences

Own photographs taken at Tate Britain (Accessed 05/06/2019)

I have found this work by John Bratby (Still Life with Chip Frier 1954) really inspiring for this exercise, the ordinary objects grouped together may an interesting composition.

Own Image, Own photograph (Accessed 05/06/2019)

Charcoal on paper

Own Image, Own photograph (Accessed 05/06/2019)

Charcoal on paper

Own Image, Own photograph (Accessed 05/06/2019)

Charcoal on paper

Own Image, Own photograph (Accessed 05/06/2019)

Charcoal on paper with pencil

PART 2 - Intimacy, Project 1 composition

Drawing 1, Part 2 intimacy, Research on Still Life.

Claire Pascoe


https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-from-vermeer-to-van-dyck-the-most-iconic-artists-of-the-dutch-golden-age (accessed 04/03/2019)

In this article it explains the effect the Golden Age of the Dutch Republic, had on 17th century art.  The Dutch Republic became the most prosperous nation in Europe thanks to the ending of the 30 year war and independence from King Philip ll of Spain.  The Dutch became very wealthy from the trade that they did with other countries and also from expanding their empire. The Dutch became prominent in Commerce, Finance, Science and Art.  

The prosperity in Dutch society created by the Dutch East India Company started a merchant class who had more money than they had ever had before.  These merchants bought things to make their lives better, and their homes more beautiful. They bought imported fabrics, carpets, furniture, household items and food they wanted this to be shown too in the art that they bought.  This prosperity allowed art to flourish, these merchants wanted art to put up in their homes, art that would represent how well they were doing and how wealthy they were. They wanted to immortalise their luxurious lifestyles, so the artists of the day started to incorporate them into their paintings.  These paintings contained ostentatious items from foreign lands to show that the owner of the art knew of these objects. This created a demand for art which created a demand for artists, this explains why so much art was produced at this time.

Some really great artists emerged such as Rubens (1577-1640), Rembrandt (1606-1669) and Vermeer (1632-1675).  The art these and many other artists of the time produced, particularly in their Still Life works, contained signs and symbols.  The Christian religion was used symbolically to draw the viewer’s attention to their mortality highlighting their need to behave in certain ways in order to enter heaven and not hell.  The rotting of fruit, withered flowers and the draining of an hourglass are reminders of death Memento Mori (reminders of death). This is something that I learnt about in ‘Creative Arts Today’, Semiotics is the about what things can signify the signs and symbols that are in images all around us. Still life works can have many signs and symbols in them which the artist is trying to use to give meaning to their work. These paintings allow us to look for deeper meanings of what is being signified for instance a broken glass can show something of loss but can also mean wealth (too wealthy to care that the glass is broken).  

These paintings reflect on our own times too, the globalism and consumer culture reaching a peak, the true social costs of the items that we buy.

Art at the beginning of the 17th Century was very different to that at the end and this Clara Peeters (1589-1657) painting is very simple and contains the everyday things that normal people had in their homes. Beautifully done the items look ready to eat.

https://www.artsy.net/artist/clara-peeters (accessed 04/03/2019)

This painting below was painted by Willem Kalf (1619-1693), and shows exotic fruits and items imported by the rich merchants, the oriental vase and carpet.  

https://theculturetrip.com/europe/the-netherlands/articles/the-10-most-important-old-masters-in-dutch-painting/ (accessed 04/03/2019)

The background in these paintings is dark and the objects shine from the canvas in vibrant light and colour. I particularly like the vase with the reflected light on it, it has depth and looks so realistic.

Dutch artist Jan David’s de Heem (1606-1684), created even more opulent and ostentatious paintings making Willem Kalf paintings look restrained.

https://useum.org/artwork/Abundant-Still-Life-with-a-Parrot-Jan-Davidsz-de-Heem (accessed 04/30/2019)

This still life contains many things that people had never seen before, such as the parrot and exotic fruits.  It clearly shows off someone’s wealth with the sheer abundance of everything, clearly not someone’s humble home like the painting at the top.

Vanitas

This term is similar to memento mori but it also reminds the viewer of the worthlessness of worldly goods and pleasures.  This is from the Bible the ‘Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes’ ‘Vanity of Vanities all is vanity’. Still life paintings often contain items like wine, musical instruments and books these things are put there to remind us of this aspect of life.

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/harmen-steenwyck-still-life-an-allegory-of-the-vanities-of-human-life (accessed 04/04/2019)

In this painting by Jan Jansz Treck (1606-1652).  This is a example of ‘memento mori’ and Vanitas, as it contains the recorder, lute, shell and sword which all symbolise wealth as well as the skull to symbolise death. The chronometer and the expiring lamp allude to the transience and frailty of human life.

Paul Cezanne (1839-1906)

https://www.moma.org/collection/works/78670 (accessed 04/03/2019)

Paul Cezanne made many still life paintings over his lifetime. This is much freer than the Dutch 17th Century paintings.  The brush strokes can be seen and the background is light, making the whole painting much lighter and less heavy than the older paintings above.  The apples are simple shapes, simplified by the thick brushstrokes and given shape by the use of tone and highlight. The background has leaves and shapes in it and the blue makes the red come out of the apples.  

One of his famous works ‘Dish of Apples’ which is in ‘The Met in New York’ has a lovely decorative background, he used blue but with more of a pattern.  Looking at other paintings it seems he often used blue to highlight the apples.

Henri Matisse (1869-1954)

https://www.superprof.co.uk/blog/history-still-life/ (accessed 04/03/2019)

This is a still life by Henri Matisse, it is based on the work of the Dutch artist Jan Davidsz De Heem ‘La Desserte’.  I looked at how his work was very opulent and ostentatious, this painting by Matisse brings his still life into the modern world.  It is still full of objects but the colours are brighter and clearer the objects are simplified but balanced with the colours used. There is a cubist look to the painting too which Picasso used in his still life’s.

https://www.henrimatisse.org/goldfish.jsp (accessed 04/30/2019)

This Matisse still life painting was produced in around 1912, the colours immediately attract our attention, the use of contrasting colours is the key to this.  This is done by using complementary colours, that is colours that are on the opposite side of the colour wheel such as red/green or in this case blue/ orange. I want to look at this more and make some drawings using the complementary colours. The black background works well with the pink too, this use of colour is very inspiring.

Cubism and Still Life

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/c/cubism (accessed 5/03/2019)

Cubism is thought of as one of the most influential styles of the twentieth century.  It began around 1907 with Picasso (1881-1973) he brought different views of the subjects that he was working on together in the same picture and it made them fragmented and abstracted. Paul Cezanne influenced this idea of seeing things from slightly different points of view.

In trying to understand this complicated style I have been looking at the work of Georges Braque (1882-1963) also, he used multimedia to make his work.  The collage work is particularly interesting the images seem to have been cut up and re assembled and I think this is how I am making sense of cubism.

The works seem to be geometric and objects seem to have been broken down into areas that show different viewpoints at the same time and in the same space. They end up showing what the items look like in three dimensional form but they seem to make the images even more two-dimensional or flat. So instead of creating the illusion of depth these paintings create flatness like objects have been flattened.

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/pablo-picasso-fruit-dish-bottle-and-violin (accessed 05/03/2019)

This Painting above by Pablo Picasso 1914 is of a bowl of fruit, violin and bottles, the violin is abstracted so that we can see parts that we know make up the instrument.  The bottles is there in shape and colour but seems to to have been cut up to show the important parts that we recognise. The parts of the image have been layered up to make the image, newspaper has been used in this collage. The artists then used the appearance of college materials to make paintings that looked like collage.

Georges Braque (1882-1963)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-reviews/10328295/Georges-Braque-He-changed-Western-painting-for-ever.html (accessed 05/04/2019)

I have always been drawn to 1950’s design and I think that this picture has many of the attributes of design in the 50’s.  The colours and the abstracted design of Georges Braque’s Atelier Vll painted in 1954, give a real 50’s feel. It is so balanced which is something the Georges Braque worked at in the images that he made.  Georges Braque freed himself from what we associate with traditional painting such as perspective, modelling and colour and seemed to enjoy the paint, working through his ideas to find the balance that he wanted.  This image is very full but the colours are balanced with the interesting shapes that he finds. I read in this article that the bird signifies the creative force scoring over his life free, above his studio.

When I look back now at the Dutch paintings that I began with it is possible to see the journey that Still Life has taken to become the exciting genre that it is today.  It has had a massive influence on design which is what makes it so interesting to study. The elements and the meaning that they have as well as the colours used and the use of the space on the canvas and the medium used must all be incorporated in making interesting still life that works.  A lot to think about when planning to make a still life image, but thinking about these things is important and in doing this research, I can now see the difference it would make to my work.

Contemporary Still Life

In bringing this research into the modern day I came across the article in the Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/culture/gallery/2013/oct/19/10-best-contemporary-still-lifes (accessed 05/03/2019). The work of these artists which are all still life works, looks at the genre and shows how the artists of today have moved forward.  

The Ori Gersht is an Israeli artist (b 1967), who has made a series of photographs and videos taking the normal still life subject of a vase of flowers and using modern video filming methods, blows the flowers up.  The resulting film is in slow motion with a soundtrack

https://vimeo.com/113898052 accessed (05/03/2019) made in 2006.

The flowers chosen by Ori Gersht are the ones depicted in traditional still life painting of the past, the music is high pitched to add tension but after the flowers are blown up there is silence as the debris float down.  

Peter Jones (b 1968)

Own Photograph (accessed 05/03/2019)

I first saw this contemporary still life artist at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2018, the little tiny painting of a bunny interested me so I found out about Peter Jones and looked at his other work.  This is an oil painting on canvas the blue background caught my eye, but when I saw more of his work particularly the monkey I found there was more to it. These stuffed animals that he draws are all a bit well loved or neglected, you are not sure which applies but they are quite worn out.  They give the viewer a real sense of vulnerability, if you had to paint what vulnerability looks like it would be these worn out creatures.

The contemporary artist that I have looked at use the still life in different ways to the traditional way.  If they use traditional elements like a vase of flowers then they use photography and film to make it contemporary, along with blowing them up.  Or in the case of Peter Jones they use traditional methods but use contemporary choices of subject to give an emotional response.

https://www.moma.org/audio/playlist/240/3086 (accessed 05/03/2019)

Other artists use less traditional materials like the Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco (b 1962) who painted on a skull. His still life’s use real objects and collected items which he then displays the items themselves becoming the still life.  Such as his beach collecting where he displays the detritus found on the beach organised by colour in a rainbow gradient.

Mark Dion (b 1961)

Own Photograph (accessed 05/03/2019)

Last year I saw  American artist Mark Dion’s exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery in London (14th Feb – 13 May 2018).  This is an example of contemporary still life where the collection is laid out and becomes the still life.

Tacita Dean (b 1965)

I saw the artist Tacita Dean’s exhibition ‘Still Life’ at the National Gallery last year (15th March – 18th May 2018) and this was a really different way of creating a still life.  The exhibition included both traditional and contemporary still life paintings that the Tacita Dean had selected, along with her films ‘prisoner pair’ and ‘ideas for sculpture in a setting’.  The exhibition really expanded the idea of still life and how I had thought of it before. The films were on a loop in the gallery surrounded by the traditional and contemporary still life works.  As the curator of the exhibition as well as one of the artists Tacita Dean showed what still life could be. She used the contemporary photographic work of artist Wolfgang Tillmans (b 1968) with his ‘window sill’, the everyday items of modern life are photographed, along with Spanish artist Francisco de Zurbaran’s (1598 – 1664) ‘A Cup of Water and a Rose’ beautiful traditional still life. Still life used to mean just that still, but with film still life is now not so still.

Visit to Tate Modern 06/03/2019 photographs from my own collection.

I decided to visit Tate Modern to see a few of the still life paintings that they have there

This painting by Henri Matisse (1869-1954) – shows a corner of his apartment that is in Paris where he was living from 1899 to 1907.  The painting includes the small still life on the table as well as the space around the room. The shot of red and yellow in this picture really makes the composition work.

This is a still life picture by Italian artists Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964), he painted the same selection of items many times in his paintings.  This makes the items that he chose become less like domestic items and makes them turn into sculptural objects that require contemplation and looking at.  

This painting is by Austrian painter Marie-Louise Von Motesiczky (1906-1996) it is an unusual shape for a painting which is what drew me to it.  This painting was painted when the artist and her mother had had to leave their home in Vienna and travel to Amsterdam when the Germans arrived in Vienna in 1938.  These normal familiar objects were perhaps comforting to the artist at a time of upheaval for them.

The above painting by French painter Georges Braque (1882-1963) shows how the still life fitted into the cubism style of painting.  Georges Braque collected musical instruments and this painting gives us the sense of the sound that the instrument made when it was played. The fragmented style like the fragmented sound.  I really liked this idea of choosing to paint what you like and what you have around you and reflecting the sound that the instrument makes in the painting.

In this painting above by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), he too has painted his surroundings like Henri Matisse above.  This has made me think about painting my surroundings and how I could find something interesting in what is around me. I like the window at the back with the light coming through to what is quite a drab room. Picasso actually depicted his studio 12 times so he must have felt that it interested him to paint it.  It looks like he has just stepped out as his tools are out and ready for work.

The photograph above is by American photographer William Eggleston (b 1939). This is a great example art being in the everyday world that surrounds us as in the Picasso and Matisse above.  The pink toilet and bath date the photograph so that we know it is not modern as do the old electrical appliances. These ordinary objects look extraordinary and our attention is drawn by them as with the still life pictures above.  The colours are very intense due to a process that William Eggleston uses called ‘dye transfer’, were the colours are printed one at a time. One of the first photographers to work in colour and have their work exhibited in an art gallery.

The photograph above and the two below were taken by American fine art photographer Catherine Opie (b 1961).  This exhibition of 50 photographs taken at the Los Angeles home of the actress Elizabeth Taylor (700 Nimes Rd), depicts the actress without ever showing her. Catherine Opie never actually met Elizabeth Taylor, and the work looks at this idea presence and absence. This collection of items show the presence of Elizabeth Taylor without her being photographed.  These photographs capture the last moments before the items were sold and dispersed. I was really attracted to this idea of presence and absence and hope to come back to this in the future.

Mark Rothko (1903-1970) The Seagrams Murals

Whilst on my visit to the Tate I looked at the work of Mark Rothko and his use of the positive and negative and how his paintings change according to which colour you focus on as the positive or negative in the painting.  The painting that I saw were commissioned for the ‘Four Seasons Restaurant in New York’. The environment he tried to create was not correct for the restaurant so they came to the Tate.

This positive and negative in an image is something that I have found in the drawings of Anish Kapoor which my tutor suggested that I look at.  In his work a mark can be protruding or phalas like or the same mark can be seen as sunken or vaginal.

Assignment 1

Assignment 1

Claire Pascoe

Drawing 1, Assignment 1

When I read the brief for this assignment I knew straight away what I wanted to draw.  My son Jack who is 22, has been away for a year in Japan and has just left to spend two years in Canada.  The sight of his shoes by the door was too much for me, I couldn’t bare to move them, but seeing them everyday just reminded me of how much I miss him. The emotional response that they trigger is so hard to portray, but I hoped that because the response was so strong it might help with the Assignment.  I decided to include one of his favourite toys, left behind in his room, representing his movement from childhood to adulthood. His ski goggles, (as he has gone to Canada to work as a snowboard instructor) and his door key, no longer required, which all have an emotional pull for me. His door key has his wrist bands from festivals he visited tied to them.  

Whilst drawing his shoes I noticed all the marks on the suede where his feet have moulded them, I imagined his feet making these marks and the anatomy of the feet in the shoes.  

Own Photograph (accessed 22/02/2019)

Own Photograph (accessed 23/02/2019)

I did this preliminary sketch using just a pencil, found that it looked flat and didn’t convey the emotion like I wanted.

Own Photograph (accessed 23/02/2019)

In this preliminary sketch I used charcoal and found that I liked this better. I think that it conveys some emotion, but I may try another idea that I have had about using a blue wash.

Own Photograph (accessed 24/02/2019)

This was my first attempt using the blue wash and I thought it was maybe too dark although I did like the effect, so I decided to try a some other shades. I would also prefer to have the paper portrait rather than landscape.  

Own Photograph (accessed 24/02/2019)

I like the lighter shades that I have worked on here, and I think this may work, to show some of the emotional attachment that I have to the items.

Own Photograph (accessed 24/02/2019)

Having looked at the items I chose, I felt that there were better things I could choose that would convey the message better. So I swapped the flask for the robot, which definitely has more emotional impact on me. I put the robot at the back and made the shoes look like they are walking away from the robot, walking away from childhood. The keys look like they have been dropped on the floor, just discarded.

Assignment One Final Piece

Own Photograph (accessed 24/02/2019)

Project 2 - Basic shapes and form

Part 1 – Project 2, Exercise 1, 2, 3 and 4

Claire Pascoe

Part 1 – Project 2 – Basic Shapes and Fundamental Form

Exercise 1 – Groups of object

                          Both photographs own collection (accessed 06/02/2019)

Tate Britain visit 03/02/2019

This still life from John Bratby I saw at Tate Britain and was taken by the use of white in the painting, although the table is cluttered the items stand alone partly because of the white I think.  I think the items look haphazard although a lot of thought must have gone into the arrangement of them. The eye is drawn into the painting and the areas around the objects are interesting, which takes you on a journey around the painting.  There is a story there too about how things don’t change, we all still have many of the item in our kitchens now even though this was painted 65 years ago.

Exercise 1 – Groups of objects

Book- (Robert Kaupelis, 1992, Experimental Drawing, New York, Watson-Guptill)

I didn’t really know where to start with this exercise, so I began with reading the chapter on ‘Organization / Structure – making things ‘work together’ in the above book.

In this book it says that for a piece of work to ‘work’ it needs to have several things -,

It needs to be composed / it needs to have structure / make a statement / be unified / well organised / harmonious / well designed / have total integration of the parts / nothing that is superfluous / everything holding together.

The book explains that organization of a drawing created an expressive form where all the parts of the work as well as what the artist intends are related to one another and that the total work is formed in a unique and distinctive way.

The elements of art – Line, Shape, Space, Colour and Texture and the principles, Balance, rhythm and Harmony.

Proximity is explained as the forms or elements that relate to one another for instance the empty spaces and the tension when objects are placed near each other.  How when the forms touch or overlap one another their relationship is changed.

Similarity is when forms or elements have things in common or have certain similarities, our brains have a tendency to immediately associate or relate them to one another.  Similarities of line, shape, tone, weight, texture, colour, size, direction and associated, symbolic or spacial relationships.

Closure is when the brain makes up what is not in the image for itself, for instance if you saw a head and some feet your brain makes up the body in the middle for itself to make a person.

Movement this is important, it is the way that the eye will move over a composition.

Equivocation – Figure and ground

This is the ambiguous dimension or element that may be ‘read’ in more than one way and serves the artist first as a means of relating figure and ground ( the positive and negative space) or figure and ground interchange.

Being aware of the positive (the object being drawn) and the negative shape (the area around the object).  

This is a lot to think about but it is a start in helping me understand a bit more about how to group objects together.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Own sketch (accessed 05/02/2019) sketch book 1

This was my first sketch for this exercise using ink and a brush to make it more fluid and spontaneous.

                                    Own Sketch (accessed 05/02/2019) sketch book 1

This is the next try with pencil.

                                          Own Sketch (accessed 05/02/2019) A2 Paper

This was done in charcoal, was finding it hard to get a straight line. Shopping and shopping bag.

                                                Own Sketch (accessed 05/02/2019)

This was black marker on the supermarket carrier bag, done very quickly.

                                       Own Sketch (accessed 05/02/2019) A2 Paper

Pencil on paper, took more time and worked on the lines more.

Recycling

                                      Own Sketch (accessed 05/02/2019) A1 Paper

Here I worked on some recycling boxes and jars on the carpet, I liked the way that the carpet came up around ether objects.

The intersections of the objects created interesting shapes below

    

                                               Own Sketches (accessed 05/02/2019)

Exercise 2 – Observing shadow using blocks of tone

                               Own Sketch (accessed 05/02/2019) in Sketch book 1

This was my first try, using conte stick, I found it quite difficult to control in this work,  the only way for me to get some control was to smudge it with my fingers, the lines are difficult to get straight.

                                        Own Sketch (accessed 05/02/2019) A2 Paper

I tried with this sketch to keep it lighter but the shapes are not as good as I would have liked, so I had another try. I like the tension between the two bowls and the space between them. I ended up smudging with my fingers to create the tones that I wanted.

                                       Own Sketch (accessed 05/02/2019) A2 Paper

The bowls are still not as well shaped as I would have liked but the tone is clearer on this one, with it having areas that are darker and  there are more tones too.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Exercise 3 – Creating Shadow using lines and marks

                  Own Sketch (accessed 05/02/2019) Sketch book 1

Here i was trying to look at different lines and marks, and thinking about the tones that they create.

                             Own Sketch (accessed 05/02/2019)

Here I worked on tones using hatching trying to create different tones this I found quite difficult so I want to try this again and see if I can get better tonal effects.

Odilon Redon (1840-1916)

I had never seen the work of this artist before and I was very interested in the effects that he produces in his work.  The mood that he creates is makes the images very atmospheric and this is so difficult to do. The dream like images like the one below made me search to find out how this was done.

 

http://www.leclere-mdv.com/html/fiche.jsp?id=5848347 (accessed 15/02/2019)

 

I had a go at using charcoal all over the page to create the mid tone, then went about putting in the dark tone and the very light tones.  I have never done this before and below is my first attempt, which I learnt a lot from doing. I used a reflective surface which helped me with some ideas for Exercise 4 of this part.

 Own collection (accessed 17/02/2019)

 Exercise 4 – Shadows and reflected light   

Own Collection (accessed 17/02/2019)

 In this preliminary sketch I used the technique of filling the page with charcoal to create the mid tone then added the dark tones and used an eraser to remove the mid tone.  I found in this sketch that I didn’t have the reflections that I wanted in the items so I decided to try again with some different items, to get better reflections.

Own Collection (accessed 20/02/2019)

 I had two white bowls and by putting one on top of the other bowl I managed to get the reflection of the flask that I was looking for.  I sat on the floor to get the right angle so that I could get the reflection in the top bowl.

Assignment One

 When I read the brief for this assignment I knew straight away what I wanted to draw.  My son Jack who is 22, has been away for a year in Japan and has just left to spend two years in Canada.  The sight of his shoes by the door was too much for me, I couldn’t bare to move them, but seeing them everyday just reminded me of how much I miss him. The emotional response that they trigger is so hard to portray, but I hoped that because the response was so strong it might help with the Assignment.  I decided to include one of his favourite toys, left behind in his room, representing his movement from childhood to adulthood. His ski goggles, (as he has gone to Canada to work as a snowboard instructor) and his door key, no longer required, which all have an emotional pull for me. His door key has his wrist bands from festivals he visited tied to them.  

 Whilst drawing his shoes I noticed all the marks on the suede where his feet have moulded them, I imagined his feet making these marks and the anatomy of the feet in the shoes.     

Own Photograph (accessed 22/02/2019)

Own Photograph (accessed 23/02/2019)

I did this preliminary sketch using just pencil, found that it looked flat and didn’t convey the emotion like I wanted.

 Own Photograph (accessed 23/02/2019)

 In this preliminary sketch I used charcoal and found that I liked this better. I think that it conveys some emotion, but I may try another idea that I have had about using a blue wash.   

Own Photograph (accessed 24/02/2019)

This was my first attempt using the blue wash and I thought it was maybe too dark although I did like the effect, so I decided to try a some other shades. I would also prefer to have the paper portrait rather than landscape.

 Own Photograph (accessed 24/02/2019)

I like the lighter shades that I have worked on here, and I think this may work, to show some of the emotional attachment that I have to the items.

 Own Photograph (accessed 24/02/2019)

 Having looked at some of the items I chose, I felt that there were better things I could choose that would convey the message better. So I swapped the flask for the robot, which definitely has more emotional impact on me. I put the robot at the back and made the shoes look like they are walking away from the robot, walking away from childhood. The keys look like they have been dropped on the floor, just discarded.  

Continue reading “Part 1 – Project 2, Exercise 1, 2, 3 and 4” →

Project 1 - Exercise I and 2, Project 1 - Feeling and Expression

Part 1 – Exercise 1, Project 1, Exercise 1 and 2

Claire Pascoe

Drawing 1

Part 1

Form and Gesture

Leonardo de Vinci (1452-1519)

I visited the National Gallery Exhibition in January 2012 which contained not just paintings but some of his drawings also.  I remember being particularly interested in the intricate drawings I saw, how he manages to capture the form and also the personality and feeling of his subjects.  The anatomy of the human body captured and allowing the drawings to become so realistic, but also conveying the humanity of the person portrayed. His annotations in his sketchbook show his striving for perfection, his observation of his subjects so close and intense almost an obsession.  This struggle producing such informative drawings that you feel closer to the subjects.

Kathe Kollwitz (1867- 1945)

This is not an artist that I have come across before and one that I would like to find out more about.  The time that she lived through was very turbulent in Germany and I can see this in her work. The poverty and hunger that surrounded her is depicted in her work, her husband being a doctor ment she saw suffering from his patients.  She suffered from depression after her son was killed in the First World War. Her drawings show despair and human suffering. I was interested in her use of hands, particularly to show this suffering with the hands of the subject often on the face or head in hands, or hugging themselves.

https://ago.ca/exhibitions/kathe-kollwitz-art-and-life (accessed 10/01/2019)

In this self portrait it is possible to feel the despair that is in her mind at the time.  I love the use of lines here and shading, the intensity of the study.

Cy Twombly (1928 – 2011)

This American Painters work really surprised me,  his use of line in its abstract form, so delicate in places shows how in abstraction feelings can be conveyed. On reading some information on the Tate website https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/cy-twombly-2079 I read that he influenced Jean-Michel Basquiat, I did not know this but I can see this from his work.

I have been interested in Jean-Michel Basquiat for some time, his use of line and abstraction has been something that fascinates me.  I would like to know more about this artist too and will look at his work in the future. I have looked at the work of Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper John who the Tate describes as his contemporaries.

Jenny Saville (b 1970)

On first looking at this artists work I was taken by the struggle of the subjects, she seems to capture the struggle of the human spirit in her work.  Life and death, sexuality, difficult times in human lives. This struggle when it is so stark could be very shocking, but for me I want to understand how she captures this, how this human spirit in turmoil is depicted. I think it is the realism in the subjects that allows us to see this, the subjects are very well drawn.  This reminds me of Leonardo da Vinci and his striving for realism in his work. Her subjects are painted worts and all, in the most realistic way, nothing hidden, all there for the viewer to see.

Jenny Saville Facebook Page (accessed 10th January 2019)

Exhibition Visit – 16th February 2019

Bill Viola (born 1951)/ Michelangelo (1475-1564)- Life, Death, Rebirth, 26th January -31st March 2019, Royal Academy London.

This is a breath taking exhibition, I have always been interested in Bill Viola and his work on the cycle of life.  The first time I encountered his work was when it was featured in a news programme because of his depiction his mother and her last moments of life.

The first work is ‘the Messenger’ 1996,  this work is a film of a man becoming visible as he comes out of some deep water.  I was reminded at one point of an ultra sound scan that a mother has in pregnancy.  The man seems to be reborn when he reaches the surface and takes his breath.  This work has a continuous cycle, showing this moment of rebirth followed by his return to the depths of the water.

This drew me to his 1992 work the ‘Triptych’ which is mesmerising.  I have had three children, but I have never actually seen a birth before. This significant moment mixed with the death on the third screen has so many similarities which are highlighted by the artist.  The breathing of the mother and Bill Violas own dieing mother,  and the white sheet around the baby and his mother.   In this room are some of Michealangelos drawings, they are so detailed and beautiful.  I want to understand how these drawings were made the marks and so precise and delicate.

There is 500 years between the two artists but the works contain some of the same thoughts and ideas that Michelangelo was struggleing with. I was taken by the depictions of mother and son in his drawings of the Virgin and Child ‘Taddei Tondo”(c. 1504-05). The closeness and love shines out from the page but it is hard to see how he creates this feeling. I think it is small things like the way they are looking at each other and the position of the heads, their hand out to each other.  Michelangelo and Bill Viola have this interest in the way that life and death co-exist and our mortality.  Michealangelo includes symbols in his work such as the Goldfinch whose red feathers symbolise the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

Exercise 1 Warm up – Temporary Drawings

At the time that I was thinking about this I was doing the make up for the local pantomime in the village that I live.  I realised that this is temporary drawing too even though it is maybe not quite what was asked for in the brief. I have a film of one of the 50 cast of adults and children that had to be made up each night for the four nights of the pantomime.  The way that the child is slowly transformed into the pantomime character, changing how she is perceived.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3-EHqgBXIPE

World War One, Sand Art, Pages of the Sea

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-45760981 (Accessed 03/12/2018).

I was thinking about Temporary Art and this is temporary art on such a large-scale. Danny Boyle (b 1956, English director, Film Maker), took over dozens of beaches around the Uk on Armistice Day 2018 and designed these beautiful works. They were made using a rake onto the sand at the beach, they show service men who lost their lives in the First World War.

Contemporary poet Carol Anne Duffy, wrote a poem to go with this and was recited by people who came down to the beach.  First World  War poet Wilfred Owen (1883-1918) was depicted in the sand at Folkestone beach.  This connection with poetry Danny Boyle says is because this was the only way to communicate truthfully what was happening.

The following is a time-lapse film of the making of Wilfred Owen on Folkestone beach along with its destruction by the sea.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-46172371/armistice-day-wilfred-owen-s-face-etched-in-sand-in-folkestone

This was such a poignant way to mark remembrance, at the place where the soldiers left the uk to an unknown fate.  Watching the images disappear into the sea looked very moving, the young lives cut short so tragically.

https://www.pagesofthesea.org.uk

‘THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE JOINED DANNY BOYLE  TO SAY THANK YOU AND GOODBYE TO THE MILLIONS WHO LEFT THEIR SHORES DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR, MANY NEVER TO RETURN’.

‘ACROSS THE UK AND IRELAND COMMUNITIES GATHERED ON BEACHES FOR A UNIQUE MOMENT MARKING 100 YEARS SINCE ARMISTICE’.

The Museum of Architecture’s Gingerbread City at the Victoria and Albert Museum London

8th December 2018 to 6th January 2019.

Own photographs (accessed 03/01/2019)

This exhibition is not drawing but I was drawn to the temporary nature of the work.  These Architecturally designed houses are all made from gingerbread and sweets with icing, they are all temporary.  They are so intricate and make a gingerbread city, with everything a city requires and more from gardens to chair lifts and ski slopes.

This exhibition consists of over 60 gingerbread buildings designed and created by architects, designers and engineers.  It is all temporary and will all be gone again when the exhibition closes. The sheer scale of the work involved in creating this for just a short time is amazing and shows what can be produced even when it is temporary.  It was very inspiring and I made a gingerbread house that was then eaten by my family this picture shows the left overs.

Own photograph (Accessed 04/01/2019)

Project 1 – Feeling and expression

Exercise  1 Experimenting with expressive lines and marks

Calm

With this exercise I felt that less was more, the calmness is part of the reduction in the marks made.  The pencil marks are light almost not making a mark, with the charcoal the addition of smudging the marks I felt added to the calmness of the marks made. Stillness was something I tried to think about making the lines seem still.  Flatness too seems calm, keeping the lines so that they look flat. The more the lines are spaced out seems to make it more calm looking and thin lines rather than thick lines.

Anger

Spikey, heavy pressure, fast, thick going to thin and sharp.  Up and down lines, the side of the oil pastel makes a great line and can be pushed along to then make a point.  The feather can be used from the tip and on the side to create different lines. The oil pastel was my favourite for this the pressure that I put on the pastel was like using the anger in me.  

Joy

Curly, rounded, floaty, light, smooth

These words were in my head and the ink and feather was, I felt the best for this as it moved well on the page.  The charcoal didn’t seem to move so well on the page not flowing like the ink did, I really wanted this flowing, light and curly mark.

Anxiety

Intense, dark, shut, barriers, down, complex.

I choose this because it is something that bothers me from time to time.  I felt that the marks intensity was essential to this so very much that, more more.  Lots of lines all over the page tight and intense, unescaping, pulling you down. The pressure that I could put on the Oil Pastel was good, this I liked, going over and over the lines.  This felt like doodling on a particularly intense phone call or event. I liked the mark that the ink made when drawing the feather down these made me think of Anxiety as it pulls your mood down depressing. I feel that this emotion was the one in which I felt I could portray, with marks, in the most successful way.

Edvard Munch (1863-1944)

Evening Standard Tuesday 8th January (Accessed 10/01/2019)

This article from the London Evening Standard about Edvard Munch (1863-1944), made me think about why this is such a haunting image.  The lines are closed together and seem to give a texture to the piece that looks like wood and gives it a tension too. I did not know that there was a black and white version of this painting, his work shows emotions that we don’t want to think about.  In the cutting, Robert Dex Art Correspondent for the Evening Standard says that this exhibition has a deeply personal and emotional artworks from the man behind the scream. I found it interesting to see how feelings expressed in this way draw the viewer into the pictures and the viewer picks up on how these feeling actually feel.  There is a real understanding between the artist and viewer.

Exercise 2 – Experimenting with Texture

Https://www.thoughco.com/definition-of-texture-in-art-182468

I started thinking about texture and found this web site, I like the description of texture on the site as,’it is used to describe the way a three dimensional work actually feels when touched’.  That seems like a difficult task but it is something to aim for. How an object feels can be pleasurable, but also uncomfortable or even give a familiar feeling. These feelings then give the viewer of the artwork an emotional response to the work.  

The idea is to create the feeling of an object, imparting the qualities of that object in the art work. In my drawing below I am trying to impart the soft and comfortable qualities of my sofa to the viewer.  I want the viewer to understand that this is soft and warm and comforting.

(Own work own image) accessed 28/01/2019 (Sketch book 1)

(Own work own image) Accessed 28/01/2019 (Sketch book 1)

Here I choose some items from around me that had different textures that I wanted to try to draw.  I wanted to try and understand the textures in pencil first then to move on to other ways to portray the texture and then work on more textures in a freer way.

Here I wanted to work on the sheepskin and fur and try different ways to portray this in different media.  The wet paper gave a furry velvety texture, but I think the water colour pencil was the most descriptive of the texture.  If I tried mixing the media more I could probably find a better solution to how to portray this furry texture better.

(Own work own image) Accessed 28/01/2019 (Sketch book 1)

Here I looked at the avocado a how I could show the bumpy, rough texture, the pencil drawing I think showed the texture well.  The importance of light and showing the light on the skin of the avocado improved the textural qualities of the drawing.

(Own work own image) Accessed 28/01/2019 (Sketch book 1)

Straw hat texture.

I liked the watercolour pencils for this as it was possible to use the water to add shading to the individual strands.  The wet paper and ink made a more fluffy texture to the marks, which added to the tactile quality to the marks, I liked this too.

(Own work own image) Accessed 28/01/2019 (Sketch book 1)

The pencil worked best for portraying the shiny flask, this is because of the many tones that can be achieved when using a pencil.  These tones work well when portraying a shiny surface, I think.

Frottage

(Own work own image) Accessed 28/01/2019 (Sketch book 1)

Using this method it is possible to see how texture can be portrayed just by using lines and dots.  I was surprised by this exercise, it has really made me think about how textures can be created. This is something I will think about in the future when using texture, I will try to think how the texture would look if it had been rubbed in this way.  

(Own work own image) Accessed 28/01/2019 (Sketch book 1)

Here I thought about the work I had done in the ‘Frottage’ page and how I could make marks that were like the marks made.  I tried to be a bit looser with the lines but I do find this quite difficult to do.

(Own work own image) Accessed 28/01/2019 (Sketch book 1)

Some more of the marks that were inspired from the Frottage work.

(Own work own image) Accessed 28/01/2019 (Sketch book 1).

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Exhibitions and Media

World War 1 -Sand Art- Pages of the Sea

Claire Pascoe

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-45760981 (Accessed 03/12/2018).

I was thinking about Temporary Art and this is temporary art on such a large-scale. Danny Boyle (b 1956, English director, Film Maker), took over dozens of beaches around the Uk on Armistice Day 2018 and designed these beautiful works. They were made using a rake onto the sand at the beach, they show service men who lost their lives in the First World War.

Contemporary poet Carol Anne Duffy, wrote a poem to go with this and was recited by people who came down to the beach.  First World  War poet Wilfred Owen (1883-1918) was depicted in the sand at Folkestone beach.  This connection with poetry Danny Boyle says is because this was the only way to communicate truthfully what was happening.

The following is a time-lapse film of the making of Wilfred Owen on Folkestone beach along with its destruction by the sea.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-46172371/armistice-day-wilfred-owen-s-face-etched-in-sand-in-folkestone

This was such a poignant way to mark remembrance, at the place where the soldiers left the uk to an unknown fate.  Watching the images disappear into the sea looked very moving, the young lives cut short so tragically.

https://www.pagesofthesea.org.uk

‘THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE JOINED DANNY BOYLE  TO SAY THANK YOU AND GOODBYE TO THE MILLIONS WHO LEFT THEIR SHORES DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR, MANY NEVER TO RETURN’.

‘ACROSS THE UK AND IRELAND COMMUNITIES GATHERED ON BEACHES FOR A UNIQUE MOMENT MARKING 100 YEARS SINCE ARMISTICE’.