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.



Artists and Illustrators I Could Research:
Edward Ardizzone
Edward Bawden
Eric Ravilious
Ronald Searle (all war artists and illustrators)
Henry Moore's shelter drawings
Kathe Kollwitz
the Women War Artists from the exhibition (get book)
Jade Marczynski War Stories embroideries

Luc Tuymans, Gerhard Richter, Anselm Kiefer, Picasso's Guernica, Mike Roles, Anthony Gormley - fine artists good at portraying human vulnerability

Judith Kerr, Quentin Blake, Emily Gravett, C. Walter Hodges, Howard Pyle, NC Wyeth, Hannah Webb, (see CI pp. 46 and 52)

Ideas:
Get replica rationbooks and typed text, blow it up on photocopy
Screenprinting, cf. Warhol's Disasters
Dummy book illustrating eg. an interview: scanning in ephemera as backdrops, like Emily Gravett -- too ambitious for 5 week project?

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The Brief

1. (c. 100 words)
- Title of Self Initiated Project
- Aims - what's the purpose of the project? what's it about?
- What final outcome will you work towards?

2. (c. 100 words)
- Influences, starting points, contextual references
- Early ideas, research and sources (include bibliography)

3. (c. 250 words)
- Anticipated techniques, media and processes
- Timescale, detailed plan of action

4. (c. 50 words)
- Method of evaluation.  Record decisions confirming or adapting your ideas and any changes to ideas or practical solutions.

Deadline: Friday 9th December