26.05.2011

Experimenting with wallpaper

This is a wallpaper sample I took from Homebase the other day. Keeping Ghada Amer in mind, I wanted a quite simple yet patterned print as she has used in her piece "Roses off Limits"
I started working on a composition, still using the same photographs as before but working out which one is should draw and which one i should stitch.

 

I finally came up with this rough piece above. It's a photo copy of the wallpaper of which i easily draw onto for ideas.  Because I never pay attention to stitching, I wanted it to be sort of the main focus of this piece, so i placed the image that I plan to stitch in the center. And I will also be using the same colours as previously just like Ghada Amer. 

 Whilst doing this piece, i came to find that pen doesn't actually stay on the wallpaper. So I decided to keep the pencil guide lines underneath the pen, and in my opinion, I think it looks a lot better and clearer. I am very happy with this, and am glad to have done it on a different material.

25.05.2011

To continue looking at Ghada Amer's style and technique within her work, i chose to do another piece involving stitch-work. I started off by collecting an A4 size sheet of textured wall-paper, however she has used in her piece "Roses off limits" a flowery wallpaper. I then traced from a photograph i took in Photography class and traced back onto the wallpaper. I then used the soft pencil lines as a guide as I stitched through the foamboard.

 

Here you can see i've finished stitching, and i'm rather pleased with it even though it is traced. I'm not so happy with the facial features as they were smaller and more difficult.

Here I then introduced a pen drawing taken from another photograph. I chose to draw her in blue, a similar colour to the blue thread, because in one of Ghada Amer's piece, she works with a composition up to 4 images in 1 all in similar colour (such as pinks and reds) and varying the opacity to be able to see all the images. Which in my opinion, i feel this piece shows exactly that. The stitching almost acts like the opacity has turned down, bringing the pen drawing through, yet keeping the stitches visable.
I really like this piece, and feel the composition works well. However, maybe I would have added another image, smaller to vary the sizes a bit.

Drawings in my sketchbook

Here i just used pen and used dash marks to create a stitching look.

These show that i've been working with colour, placement and compositions.

24.05.2011

I looked over my researched artists and found Ghada Amer and artist living in New York who uses mixed media, one of which includes stitch work. I started off by making my own piece on Photoshop to create a stitching effect to one of my compositions shown earlier and today i decided to do this all by hand. I started off by drawing from images of myself in three different colours onto A4 foamboard, and then i made a faint outline of another drawing, however apart from using pen I used Ghada Amer's technique and hand stitched using orange thread.

Whilst stitching, I found it easier to made pin holes with the needle before hand so it's an easier guide from underneath. I really enjoyed this technique and reckon it turned out better than I thought (even though my drawings are terrible) Doing this process, it has built up my textiles skills and i feel a lot more confident doing this. It can also help me in the future for if i were to ever need to do stitch work (especially if I'll need to stitch my children's name badges on their uniform haha)

20.05.2011

Using Claude Heath's style

Since my review, I have thought long and hard about where to continue and develop my work. So i've decided to concentrate my work on Claude Heath as he concentrates on the figure and form of people. I will be taking Heath's work and technique into a lot of thought as he experiments with angles and colour as so will I.

A blind drawing from a photograph of Martin Parr taken in 2010. I used three different coloured pens, red, blue and green, of which are both used blind folded. I chose to start at the top of his head for my starting point for each pen and was wondering if each drawing would be completely different to each others. However they are all nearly in line with each other!

This is a blind drawing of a photograph of my mum, it is done the exact same way as the one above with three different coloured pens. I don't like this one as much as above's drawing because she is really out of proportion with her small almost squished head. However no blind drawing can be perfect. The only thing different about this piece is that i started each pen in a different place, the red at the top of her head, the green at the bottom right and the blue pen i started at the bottom left.

These two blind drawings are done in the style of Claude Heath because he uses different coloured pens as well. Except Heath draws onto graph paper for his precise starting points and i drew these onto foam boards that is usually used to build up layers to make 3D objects.

I do really like this style of drawing and will continue drawing from my photographs to keep this technique and style.

17.05.2011

Transferring blind drawing into paint

Had a little review of my work throughout painting today with the class. We hung up our pieces on the walls and spoke about the techniques we used, if we like it or not and why and listened to the class's thoughts and ideas. By doing this, I heard good and bad comments about my work, some had favourites and some were quiet. I was suggested on how to improve and which direction i should develop my work to.

To start off these pieces, simply used acrylic paint that i applied with cardboard onto A3 paper.
This piece and the one below are from my blind drawings i did previously onto graph paper, of which i simply transferred into paint. Instead of blind painting I took the easy option and pretty much copied it.

This piece is different to the once above because I went into the wet paint of used the end of the paintbrush to give a scratched out zig-zag effect which i feel goes really well with the style.

This is a blind painting of my class mate Shaun Herrington. I applied red and yellow acrylic as my base colour and a darker red on top. I wanted to keep quite a lot of white space to give it depth almost. As i was doing this piece, i decided to do it as a blind painting but found it hard as i had to keep re applying paint onto my brush.
I do like this piece however  because it is on A3, i feel it would be better as A5 maybe.

I have used the same technique as my second piece, used the end of the brush to scratch into the wet paint to get my blind drawing. I feel that this shows different techniques of applying paint as the red in the background shows through the scratched out yellow paint. This piece is off another class mate, Julie.

Right... well... I found a photograph from the newspaper of a town in China and i thought to paint it, not really really realising how difficult it would be. This piece is actually un-finished because I didn't feel connected to it.
However, it shows another different type of painting technique, showing an almost painting palette look as i slightly mixed my colours onto the paper to give this messy effect.

Here, shows a different type of canvas, this is plywood that i found already primed with white paint.
I wanted to show action and excitement in the piece as i moved and swerved my large paint brush around. The movement is shown as the paint fades through out the strokes. I also added solid blocks of colour and splash marks to give it that little bit of excitement and enthusiasm.
I particularly like this piece because it actually took me roughly 1 minute to produce!

13.04.2011

Blind drawing as really started to inspire me, so i continued to draw my friend Mylene Costa in this particular technique. I feel that when i continuously do this technique i have become better at it so they haven't turned out to look deformed, yet you can still tell. For this piece, i decided to use felt-tip pens on A3 paper (blue, green, purple and yellow). I used these because they are quite bold and strong colours. I would have used paint, however I didn't have enough colour.

As you can see i started off drawing in the middle with the purple pen.

I kept added layers and layers of different colours.

I even added text of which is in the same blind drawing technique.

I am really pleased with this, and feel that i don't need to do anymore too it.

12.04.2011

DRAWING COMPOSITIONS

I created these three compositions using Photoshop, these are several drawings i have previously done and simply adjusted the colour on some of them. I used the dissolve tool to overlap each image.

 

I started by scanning in my continuous line drawings into Photoshop and used the paint tool to colour them in, i used two types of brushed, a flat angle low bristle count and round fan stiff thin bristle brush. These types of brushes allowed me to get solid flow of colour aswell as darker parts if i painted over and over the same place.

To create this piece above of Shaun Herrington I traced over my original continuous line drawing and traced again but  moving the drawing slightly. I then uploaded onto Photoshop to create this finished piece - of which i am very pleased with!

 Here i chose to do a continuous line drawing of people i know, working from photographs i found it much easier as they weren't moving around. I found out that i prefer working with pen, as it's easier to move around the paper to create the rough drawing look.

5.04.2011

Blind Drawing on Graph Paper  

Today was our first painting session of which we all spoke to the teacher about our previous subjects and what topic we chose to do for Art (mine is the human figure) We started off by drawing blind drawings (not looking at the paper, only what we are drawing) using pencil onto graph paper. I chose to draw my hand in several positions as it is part of the human figure. I then proceeded to draw people in my class, and from newspapers. I honestly do enjoy blind drawings because i feel it's a whole new way of drawing and how you have to properly inspect something using either touch or sight to be able to put it onto paper.

Someone from the newspaper.

Someone from a magazine.

Woman in my class, age: Unknown.

Boy in my class, age: 19

Two drawings of my hands in different positions.

31.03.2011

I am currently working on my last video animation. It will consist of me as a line drawing singing along to "Tire Swing" by Kimya Dawson. I will be creating myself onto Photoshop by uploading a photograph of me and drawing a stencil around the photo. Then uploading the stencils onto iMovie to sing along.
At the moment i'm finding that it takes a long time to do each photograph, however I hope it'll turn out good.
These are some of the drawings that'll be in my video. At the moment I plan to have myself singing along for a bit and slowly moving onto myself walking around.

15.03.2011

Continuous blind line drawing.

 

We started off drawing session by doing continuous blind line drawing. We did this by closing our eyes and using our finger to move along in sync with the pencil. These are what I produced. I feel that I can work quite well doing continuous lines however the blind part was tricky.

 

22.03.2011- 3 dimensional drawings

We also had to bring in four objects, of which i chose to bring in a clock, rose candle, pair of shoes and nail polish. I chose these because they can link with people, as time is a precious thing to us as well as accessories. 

We drew with pencil, and had to create three dimention turn drawings. This is when you keep side of the object in the same place whilst turning it.

I really enjoyed this and feel my work doesn't look too bad, however i don't see how this can help me in the future? Otherwise, it was fun.

 

We did the three-dimentional process over and over but this time i used ink.

 I felt that i went too carried away with the ink, and using it to add shading, so it doesn't really show a "line" drawing, more than sketching with ink on stick.

 

I then chose to use coloured ink. In my head i pictured it being really nice, with everything black apart from the red rose. However i feel it just looks like a mess.

 

All of these drawing were larger than poster size.