Monday 30 November 2009
Tiny Update!
I haven't written anything here for quite a while which is simply because I haven't really been producing anything! But as soon as I made a miniture draft for the artist book I am creating I decided to put it on here. If I'm honest I love it being this small, it was printed and cut out of a peice of A4 paper and folds up into a tiny concertina-style booklet that can fit in the palm of your hand. Fortunately the real thing wont be that much bigger! It's content is made up of the little 'tile/object' images I have been making and showing on here (I used some of them to make my wallpapers as well so they are turning out to be quite versatile as artworks go), along side the poems and Edward Lear texts that the objects were taken from. I've also written a bit about me and my work. I'm hoping to get the final 'product' finished tomorrow so lets hope that all goes to plan! If it doesn't I'm sure I can just use these tiny little drafts to win the readers hearts!
Monday 23 November 2009
Some More Wallpapers!
Thanks to everyone on facebook who commented on my previous designs. The general feedback was that I needed to add a little more to them to perhaps make the individual motifs link together a bit more, so with my new designs I have tried to do this. In the first I used some of my sepia drawings to create a more interweaved design. The second is another black and white objects design, based on 'The Pobble Who Has No Toes' by Lear where I have made the motifs go diagonally across so it fills the page a bit more. The strength in the pattern going across diagonally is that it creates movement between the motifs, in contrast to the slightly sparse feeling the up and down patterns have.Just to let you know, the sepia objects aren't following any Lear poems, I didn't really look at his texts when I did these photos and ink drawings, so for this design I just used my favourite images!
Sunday 22 November 2009
Just some wallpapers I designed...
...As I said I wanted to take my work down the decorative route so I've been playing around with wallpapers and making motifs out of my object images. With the two motif-based designs I tried to collect images using the Lear poems so one is based on 'The Jumblies' and the other on 'The Courtship of the Yonghy Bonghy Bo', the third is just an Escher style tiling of glasses...
Saturday 21 November 2009
Day In The Life Of......
.....A Painting.
I'm mixing together paintings and photographs in one big 'tiling' of images and this is the process I go through to make the paintings:Step One: Again I need a whole bunch of new objects.
Step Two: I paint a sheet of paper in black acrylic.
Step Three: Once thats dry I cut it up into squares of roughly the same size as my photos.
Step Four: I now have the little black squares to paint my objects on.
Step Five: I start painting one object onto each tile in white paint.
Step Six: I tack them up with my photographs.I've found that as I have done this more and more, my painting style has gone through a number of different stages, at first I used only white paint, painting only the white areas and highlights resulting in quite a thick, contrasty image. However after a while I started using black paint aswell to make the black areas of the images stronger and to tidy up the areas I had highlighted.
Now when I paint the objects I find that not only do I use solid black paint to enforce the darker areas, I'm also mixing it with the white paint so I can introduce grey areas and shading into my images. The result now is less contrasty, but a lot more tonal and life like. The direction I'm hoping to take with these images (both painted and photographic) is dictated by the objects. They are all quite decorative objects so I've been playing around with the idea of wall papers and making a homely feel. This could be because I'm away from home and often miss it.
The Edward Lear texts are still involved but they are taking a more supportive role in my work now. I'm going to use the poems to catagorize my objects when it comes to making motifs, so the individual wallpapers will be illustrative of his poems and texts.
I'm mixing together paintings and photographs in one big 'tiling' of images and this is the process I go through to make the paintings:Step One: Again I need a whole bunch of new objects.
Step Two: I paint a sheet of paper in black acrylic.
Step Three: Once thats dry I cut it up into squares of roughly the same size as my photos.
Step Four: I now have the little black squares to paint my objects on.
Step Five: I start painting one object onto each tile in white paint.
Step Six: I tack them up with my photographs.I've found that as I have done this more and more, my painting style has gone through a number of different stages, at first I used only white paint, painting only the white areas and highlights resulting in quite a thick, contrasty image. However after a while I started using black paint aswell to make the black areas of the images stronger and to tidy up the areas I had highlighted.
Now when I paint the objects I find that not only do I use solid black paint to enforce the darker areas, I'm also mixing it with the white paint so I can introduce grey areas and shading into my images. The result now is less contrasty, but a lot more tonal and life like. The direction I'm hoping to take with these images (both painted and photographic) is dictated by the objects. They are all quite decorative objects so I've been playing around with the idea of wall papers and making a homely feel. This could be because I'm away from home and often miss it.
The Edward Lear texts are still involved but they are taking a more supportive role in my work now. I'm going to use the poems to catagorize my objects when it comes to making motifs, so the individual wallpapers will be illustrative of his poems and texts.
Friday 20 November 2009
A Day In The Life Of.....
....A Photo.
The project I'm currently working on is quite sequence based, I mentioned earlier in my blog about Edward Lear and how I looked at him as a starting point, but I have moved onto the actual objects themselves. An artist called Sarah Sza said that she gives meaning to her objects through the context she makes for them (I'm afraid I dont have a direct quote of this) and I find myself understanding her the more I look at my objects. On their own they are just objects found in my home or a random charity shop, but I'm putting them in poems, along with other decorative objects which have also taken on meaning and they all link to each other. Another thing I have found is that how I treat each object creates a massive link between them. Even without the poems and texts that include them, the processes I use to make them into art give my objects meaning and context.So this is what I do with them:
Step One: Find/ buy them (obviously).
Step Two: Place them on a black sheet of paper (usually painted black) and photograph them.
Step Three: In photoshop I crop them down to become a square.
Step Four: I convert them to greyscale through split RGB channels.
Step Five: I adjust the brightness and contrast.
Step Six: I add a scratchy looking boarder.
Step Seven: They all get printed out and cut down into shape on a guillotine.And they are done! I will then tack them up with all the painted images onto my studio wall!
The project I'm currently working on is quite sequence based, I mentioned earlier in my blog about Edward Lear and how I looked at him as a starting point, but I have moved onto the actual objects themselves. An artist called Sarah Sza said that she gives meaning to her objects through the context she makes for them (I'm afraid I dont have a direct quote of this) and I find myself understanding her the more I look at my objects. On their own they are just objects found in my home or a random charity shop, but I'm putting them in poems, along with other decorative objects which have also taken on meaning and they all link to each other. Another thing I have found is that how I treat each object creates a massive link between them. Even without the poems and texts that include them, the processes I use to make them into art give my objects meaning and context.So this is what I do with them:
Step One: Find/ buy them (obviously).
Step Two: Place them on a black sheet of paper (usually painted black) and photograph them.
Step Three: In photoshop I crop them down to become a square.
Step Four: I convert them to greyscale through split RGB channels.
Step Five: I adjust the brightness and contrast.
Step Six: I add a scratchy looking boarder.
Step Seven: They all get printed out and cut down into shape on a guillotine.And they are done! I will then tack them up with all the painted images onto my studio wall!
Thursday 19 November 2009
My Favourite Gallery (So Far!)
I've only been there a maximum of...three times. I've seen two different shows there- a collection of Alexander Rodchenko's work, and 'The Painting of Modern Life' exhibition which I went to see twice because I loved it so much! (By the way I will put some links to the exhibition sites at the end of this post). It's quite a blank space, set out on three floors it has an interesting shape with some rooms full of natural light and others with no windows so it can give a different feel to the work depending on where you are. I think what I like about the gallery itself is how it's simplicity means you can focus on the art and access any information very easily. However it also means I want more from the work, which I love. I love when I get curious about art I see!The best thing is how the work is exhibited. 'The Painting of Modern Life' was so brilliant for introducing me to a whole new world of art, and helped me better understand how painting and photography can work together. This exhibition also introduced me to Michelangelo Pistoletto who I think has some really interesting work- mainly with his mirror images. During his career he focussed mainly on performance art and these mirror images were no exception. The way the piece changed depending on what it was reflecting, and how the viewer would react to seeing themselves in the art was a very clever way of making the audience participate with the art.The first two pictures are of the Rodchenko exhibition (thursday 7th Feb- Sunday 27th April 2008) 'Lili Brik' Portrait for the poster “Knigi”, and 'Stairs, 1930'. The third is the cover art for 'The Painting of Modern Life' exhibition' (4th October- 30th December 2007). The details about these exhibitions can be found at the Hayward website http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/hayward-gallery-and-visual-arts/hayward-gallery-exhibitions. The last two images are from Pistoletto's book 'Azioni Materiali' with one of his mirror images 'Adamo ed Eva, 1962-1987'
Wednesday 18 November 2009
Edward Lear
'Remove the pan into the next room, and place it on the floor. Bring it back
again, and let it simmer for three quarters of an hour. Shake the pan violently untill all
the Amblongusses have become of a pale purple colour.
Then, having prepaired the paste, insert the whole carefully, adding at the same time
a small pidgeon, 2 slices of beef, 4 cauliflowers and any number of oysters.
Watch patiently till the crust begins to rise, and add a pinch of salt from time to time.
Serve up in a clean dish, and throw the whole out of the window as fast as possible.'
-An extract from Edwards Lears 'Nonsense Cookery: To Make an Amblongus Pie'
the Amblongusses have become of a pale purple colour.
Then, having prepaired the paste, insert the whole carefully, adding at the same time
a small pidgeon, 2 slices of beef, 4 cauliflowers and any number of oysters.
Watch patiently till the crust begins to rise, and add a pinch of salt from time to time.
Serve up in a clean dish, and throw the whole out of the window as fast as possible.'
-An extract from Edwards Lears 'Nonsense Cookery: To Make an Amblongus Pie'
I've said before about how I often start with Lear in my attempts to make funny art, but how for some reason it never really works. I've struggled quite a lot with this simply because a lot of Lears texts have depressing themes within them. 'The Courtship of the Yonghy Bonghy-Bo' is full of lost love, rejection, regret and loneliness. So naturally when I focused on his poems to create a series of old-fashioned looking photographs (following the style of Julia Margaret Cameron) they all ended up looking quite sad and depressing. The first image is based on 'The Quangle Wangle Quee' and has quite a lonely, isolated feel to it (by the way the 'man' in the picture is me!) although at the same time has an element of absurdity to it, with the massive hat the character is wearing. However in the second image which was based on the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo poem I've shown Lady Jingly looking extremely sad with her hens, I suppose the hens add absurdity like the massive hat, but not in such an obvious way..The other images are from the project I am currently working on. The image of the pidgeon with the vegetables relates to the quote above and the next photo is a similar experiment for 'The Jumblies'. I've taken the objects within the texts and put them together without their context. The idea was that people would see these traditional 'still life' style images and question why on earth I decided to put a pidgeon and some oysters in the same painting. I liked the idea of randomness and wanted to puzzle my audience. However I moved on to looking at each object on its own but in a style which links them all together and the last image below shows some of the images I put together based on 'The Owl and the Pussycat'. I feel like with this project its become more about the objects themselves then the idea of my work being funny or surreal. Maybe one day I will make exactly what I want and produce a body of work that adheres to my aims...... although I'm sure if I did I would get bored very quickly!
Edward Lear
'Remove the pan into the next room, and place it on the floor. Bring it back
again, and let it simmer for three quarters of an hour. Shake the pan violently untill all
the Amblongusses have become of a pale purple colour.
Then, having prepaired the paste, insert the whole carefully, adding at the same time
a small pidgeon, 2 slices of beef, 4 cauliflowers and any number of oysters.
Watch patiently till the crust begins to rise, and add a pinch of salt from time to time.
Serve up in a clean dish, and throw the whole out of the window as fast as possible.'
-An extract from Edwards Lears 'Nonsense Cookery: To Make an Amblongus Pie'
the Amblongusses have become of a pale purple colour.
Then, having prepaired the paste, insert the whole carefully, adding at the same time
a small pidgeon, 2 slices of beef, 4 cauliflowers and any number of oysters.
Watch patiently till the crust begins to rise, and add a pinch of salt from time to time.
Serve up in a clean dish, and throw the whole out of the window as fast as possible.'
-An extract from Edwards Lears 'Nonsense Cookery: To Make an Amblongus Pie'
I've said before about how I often start with Lear in my attempts to make funny art, but how for some reason it never really works. I've struggled quite a lot with this simply because a lot of Lears texts have depressing themes within them. 'The Courtship of the Yonghy Bonghy-Bo' is full of lost love, rejection, regret and loneliness. So naturally when I focused on his poems to create a series of old-fashioned looking photographs (following the style of Julia Margaret Cameron) they all ended up looking quite sad and depressing. The first image is based on 'The Quangle Wangle Quee' and has quite a lonely, isolated feel to it (by the way the 'man' in the picture is me!) although at the same time has an element of absurdity to it, with the massive hat the character is wearing. However in the second image which was based on the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo poem I've shown Lady Jingly looking extremely sad with her hens, I suppose the hens add absurdity like the massive hat, but not in such an obvious way..The other images are from the project I am currently working on. The image of the pidgeon with the vegetables relates to the quote above and the next photo is a similar experiment for 'The Jumblies'. I've taken the objects within the texts and put them together without their context. The idea was that people would see these traditional 'still life' style images and question why on earth I decided to put a pidgeon and some oysters in the same painting. I liked the idea of randomness and wanted to puzzle my audience. However I moved on to looking at each object on its own but in a style which links them all together and the last image below shows some of the images I put together based on 'The Owl and the Pussycat'. I feel like with this project its become more about the objects themselves then the idea of my work being funny or surreal. Maybe one day I will make exactly what I want and produce a body of work that adheres to my aims...... although I'm sure if I did I would get bored very quickly!
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Edward Lear
'Remove the pan into the next room, and place it on the floor. Bring it back
again, and let it simmer for three quarters of an hour. Shake the pan violently untill all
the Amblongusses have become of a pale purple colour.
Then, having prepaired the paste, insert the whole carefully, adding at the same time
a small pidgeon, 2 slices of beef, 4 cauliflowers and any number of oysters.
Watch patiently till the crust begins to rise, and add a pinch of salt from time to time.
Serve up in a clean dish, and throw the whole out of the window as fast as possible.'
-An extract from Edwards Lears 'Nonsense Cookery: To Make an Amblongus Pie'
again, and let it simmer for three quarters of an hour. Shake the pan violently untill all
the Amblongusses have become of a pale purple colour.
Then, having prepaired the paste, insert the whole carefully, adding at the same time
a small pidgeon, 2 slices of beef, 4 cauliflowers and any number of oysters.
Watch patiently till the crust begins to rise, and add a pinch of salt from time to time.
Serve up in a clean dish, and throw the whole out of the window as fast as possible.'
-An extract from Edwards Lears 'Nonsense Cookery: To Make an Amblongus Pie'
I've said before about how I often start with Lear in my attempts to make funny art, but how for some reason it never really works. I've struggled quite a lot with this simply because a lot of Lears texts have depressing themes within them. 'The Courtship of the Yonghy Bonghy-Bo' is full of lost love, rejection, regret and loneliness. So naturally when I focused on his poems to create a series of old-fashioned looking photographs (following the style of Julia Margaret Cameron) they all ended up looking quite sad and depressing. The first image is based on 'The Quangle Wangle Quee' and has quite a lonely, isolated feel to it (by the way the 'man' in the picture is me!) although at the same time has an element of absurdity to it, with the massive hat the character is wearing. However in the second image which was based on the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo poem I've shown Lady Jingly looking extremely sad with her hens, I suppose the hens add absurdity like the massive hat, but not in such an obvious way..The other images are from the project I am currently working on. The image of the pidgeon with the vegetables relates to the quote above and the next photo is a similar experiment for 'The Jumblies'. I've taken the objects within the texts and put them together without their context. The idea was that people would see these traditional 'still life' style images and question why on earth I decided to put a pidgeon and some oysters in the same painting. I liked the idea of randomness and wanted to puzzle my audience. However I moved on to looking at each object on its own but in a style which links them all together and the last image below shows some of the images I put together based on 'The Owl and the Pussycat'. I feel like with this project its become more about the objects themselves then the idea of my work being funny or surreal. Maybe one day I will make exactly what I want and produce a body of work that adheres to my aims...... although I'm sure if I did I would get bored very quickly!
Sunday 15 November 2009
Not-So-Funny Art
'The warm glow that suffuses the ' golden hour' in Los Angeles acts to filter the grim realities, the outright lies, the self-deceptions, which allow Hollywood, and by extension, America to flourish.' - Philip Lorca Dicorcia on his 'Twilight' series.
The first two images from the five below are photographs by Dicorcia from his series 'Twilight' (sometimes know as The Hustlers as the models were all men on the street who Dicorcia had paid to sit for him. Each one is titled with the sitters name, place of birth and rate of pay). When I found Dicorcia's work I saw a mayjor link between the sombre, lonely feel of his images, and the still silence in Hoppers paintings. Also the project I was working on at the time was about the hassles within daily life, so I used his tired lethargic style to produce my own set of photographs which are the next three photograph below.Like Dicorcia's work theres a part of you that can relate to the subject matter in my images. I looked at things like waiting for the bus, cleaning, food-shopping and being ill. When I showed other people my work they had all had similar experiances of thier own- it was great to have such a direct reaction "man I hate waiting for buses!!"/ "I have a really boring job like that" however negative the feelings toward my subject matter might be! It's strange, while I love the idea of 'funny art' and making people smile when they look at my work, there's this big part of me that just keeps returning to sadness and depression. Maybe thats just my influences (Hopper and Dicorcia etc) or perhaps theres a part of me that feels I need to address these things...... which is quite depressing...
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