Trip to Birmingham

I went to Birmingham to visit the German Christmas market, although first I looked round the city's art gallery.  I really enjoyed their large Pre-Raphaelite collection, and a small but rewarding collection of prints called A Life in Prints: The Tessa Sidey Bequest.  But I suppose like many people I was most charmed by the 1890 painting Dominicans in Feathers by Henry Stacey Marks:

Here are my photos from the day out.  (Edited using the Instagram iPhone app.)

Happy Christmas Birmingham

My new friend!  I bought this big felted Triceratops.  I love his wonky horns.

Painting Methods, Life Drawing

Wartime Drawings

My project is about rationing during WW2, so to prepare I've been doing pen and wash drawings of wartime subjects. 

in the Anderson shelter

nurse and children

fixing a toy car

preparing a cow for the blackout

Coventry Cathedral

Painting Methods, Life Drawing

Today in Painting, we looked at complementary colours and shadows.  I drew a red circle and stared at it for ages, then looked at a blank part of the page and saw that the after-image was pale turquoise.  I tried again with purple and got a pale yellow after-image.

The teacher set up a blue and orange still life, and got us to think about using blue elements in the orange parts, and orange in the blue parts.  I'm happy with this and think the reflection of the oranges works well.  This is only my third attempt with acrylic, and the bottle does look like it's made of glass, and the middle orange's tummy button (?) looks effective, I marked that with the hard end of the brush.  I added a mottled teal background (harmonious with the blue bottle) because I thought the white space looked a bit empty and I suspected it would give me a better idea of how the colours in the main subject were working out.  We were supposed to be experimenting with impasto but I don't like that -- using lots of paint is expensive, and using a little but thickening it makes it a complete pain to handle.  I will tackle impasto at some point, but today was not the day!

Funnily enough, I hate oranges.

In Life Drawing, like last time we drew a full-page figure, trying to get it as accurate as possible.  Then we had to work out where the shading was and build it up using collage, a mosaic of tiny bits of scrap paper and newspaper.  I didn't think I'd like doing this -- I found it tricky to get the figure right and then it seemed a shame to start slapping glue on it.  But I love the effect of the tiny newsprint words creating shading, so I'm going to keep experimenting with it and finish the picture properly when I get a chance.

Photoshop, Contextual Studies

In our Photoshop tutorial, we learned about the stamp tool, effects and filters, liquify and motion blur.

Contextual Studies covered 1400-1500: specifically, Giotto, the Wilton Diptych, Uccello, Masaccio, Brunelleschi and Leonardo.

Fine Art

Fine Art today.  We talked about our Self-Initiated Project, or SIP.  It still needs to be on the theme of Food and Drink but now we're given free rein to interpret that how we like and come up with our own brief.

Project Content
- Mind Map, brainstorming ideas and focusing them into a brief
- Introduction
- Contextual artist research.  6-10 artists, equal split of historical and contemporary.  Keep linking this research with the idea development to show influences.  Do some exercises 'in the style of' if that helps.
- Experimentation with different media: paint, printmaking, collage, stitch.  Observational drawing.  Plenty of primary sources (museum visits).  Interviews?
- Development of ideas.
- Final Outcome - simple but well-executed is better than ambitious/incomplete.
- Final Evaluation. 

I was happy to find out I can use my research at the Imperial War Museum and work on a WW2-themed project.  I made my mind map, there were too many ideas there but after a chat with the teacher I worked out that the thing that interested me was the worry of trying to feed a family on rations -- wanting to protect loved ones against the great tide of history, and the vulnerability of families and ordinary people.  Women having to make decisions about the family on their own, as well as having to do war work.  All the official paperwork and tidy, stoic queuing being the only way to get through a terrifying time.  Still need to finesse it a lot, but that's the key for me.

Painting Methods, Life Drawing

Back to school!

Typewriter

I've always wanted a manual typewriter and this week I bought this one from eBay seller vildanden07 -- I went to his flat to pick it up and he was a very nice chap, helpful and informative, A1 seller +++++ and everything.

I think it's beautiful, the front reminds me of a vintage car.  It types well but it needs a new ribbon and a careful clean.  There isn't a model number, all I can tell about it is that it was made in Nagoya, Japan, I'm guessing in the early 1960s because there's something rather Mad Men about the style.

I used to bash away on my mum's typewriter when I was little but I'd forgotten how hard and slowly you have to type, and how nasty it is getting your finger stuck between the keys!  Maybe I should wear thin gloves.  Anyway, looking forward to getting it up and running.   It feels very satisfying to have such a physical interaction with a machine like this, technology is so sleek now, a swipe of the finger across the touchscreen, a fluttering of the fingers across the keyboard.  Here's to thumping away at real metal keys and getting inky fingers.

The exposed belly of the beast.

When I lifted the lid, I saw this scratched very faintly into the metal.  I wonder what it says?  I can't read Kanji but I thought it might say 'Made in Japan', or maybe it records the name of the factory-worker who built it or its first owner.  My friend passed the query on to various bilingual folk but they all say it's too faint to decipher.

Half Term Adventures

Okay, so the daily (lessonly) updates fell by the wayside because I got so frantically busy!  The taster courses demand a preposterous amount of work from the students, but then you get to choose one of the topics as a pathway, and the workload after that is (I'm told) less intense.  I decided to pick Fine Art because I want to be an illustrator, and Fine Art is all about conceptual thinking, as well as drawing, painting and printmaking -- and I can still work in Textiles or 3D form if I want.

I do still have photos of my work to upload, though, so I might back-post them in due course.

This week has been half term, a week off to give everyone a breather.  Here's what I've been up to.

Park & Read

Spotted at Cambridge's Park & Ride bus station.  Something for everyone...

'Meet the man behind the machete.' / 'Donkey Drama!'

Contextual Studies

We looked at the art of ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome.

We were set the task of re-imagining our Aboriginal Australian journey in the style of an Egyptian tomb painting.  By trying to work in the style of these artists, it should help us to understand how they worked and the aesthetic and technical problems they had to solve.

Fishies in Bed

 

I love it when the goldfish tuck themselves in under the bridge, all in a little row.

Printmaking, Fine Art

Printmaking and Fine Art...

3D and Life Drawing

Lara's hand.

3D and Life Drawing...

A Mushy Kiss

Graphic Design, Photography

Graphic Design and Photography...

Textiles

Contextual Studies

We talked more about some art images the teacher had chosen.  She tried to show us how works that appear to be very different -- such as Vermeer's Milkmaid and Tracey Emin's My Bed -- may have some similarities.

Then we talked about the cave paintings at Lascaux and ancient Aboriginal Australian art.  We were asked to make a picture representing a personal journey using that style and its techniques.

Printmaking, Fine Art

Drypoint etching... and painting techniques.

3D, Life Drawing

3D and Life Drawing...

Graphic Design, Photography

An introduction to some basic graphic design principles; and photograms.

Textiles

Paper and coloured inks...

Contextual Studies

A Photoshop session which turned out to be a free period, library induction and Contextual Studies.

Printmaking, Fine Art

Linocutting and colour mixing today.

 

3D, Life Drawing

Today was my first proper day on the Art Foundation course.

Pulp

Pulp!

Misprint

I'm reading a biography of the Mitford Sisters and of course when you're reading a biography -- especially one with so many characters -- it's important to have pictures of faces to refer to.  Unfortunately, in this, the 20th edition, there are two inserts with the same set of photos.  I emailed the publisher just to let them know, and nice Richard at Abacus apologised and posted me a fresh copy of another biography on a relevant topic by the same author.

UK Riots

 Do you recognise this blob?

(Ealing shop window the morning after the riots, 09/08/11.)

Judith Kerr Exhibition

Exhibition at the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green.

Having tea with the Tiger. Lovely how all the props are exactly like the pictures.

With Mog, in a very small Mog suit. Almost as if it was really meant for a child...

The real Mog watching herself being painted.

'The real Mog liked eggs for breakfast.'

Indoor Sandcastles

There's a beach in MK shopping centre.