Set Project: First Thoughts

 This term we have a set project this can be viewed here.  The idea is to consider the brief and write down first thoughts.  My first thoughts are that I am drawn strongly to both Earthly Delights and Expressionism. 

I think the problem with earthly delights is that I may do something that is too simple and that I may get lost on a tangent.  

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Marzella, oil on canvas,1909–1910

Expressionism on the other hand I have some strong ideas and I would really like to explore and improve my drawing/painting skills this term.  I could do this in conjunction with photographs and mixed media however I think I am more inclined to not try to use photography as something to help me here as this is too much in my comfort zone.  

My thoughts are to go with expressionism, learn further drawing techniques particularly, and if I feel confident enough to experiment with painting as well. 

I could do this by hand on paper or I could use a digital tablet or I could experiment with both and explore whether one works better than the other for me.  

In terms of the actual concept for this series I think this will need further thought and experimentation with ideas to see where that might lead me...

Self-Portrait: Icebreaker

 Here is my 15-minute self-portrait, which was inspired by Egon Schiele.  I used a 3b pencil and charcoal coloured pencils.  Here I feel I have captured some of my inner pain, frustration and anger!  Very therapeutic!

Egon Schiele was a German Expressionist (1880-1918) who, in his short life - he died of Spanish Flu, achieved so much.  The Leopold museum states; [Schiele] 'managed to create an oeuvre that was both symptomatic of and groundbreaking for his times, making him one of the most formative and colorful figures of Viennese Modernism.' (Leopold Museum: 2020).  Schiele created many self-portraits and these pained and divisive images exposed his own inner turmoil but also reflected the zeitgeist of the times.  Schiele used a continuous drawing technique which created intimacy between himself and the sitter.  As Schiele often drew nude figures, he was also arrested and charged with public immorality for distributing obscene drawings (originally he was arrested for seducing and kidnappinng a minor - luckily the charges were downgraded) in 1912 and the police confiscated over 100 drawings. He spent 24 days in jail. (Tate 2021) 

Egon Schiele, Self Portrait in Crouching Position 1913.

Later on, when Hitler came to power in 1933 Schiel's work was considered to be degenerate art.  Schiele's and other 'degenerates artists work either ended up being auctioned in Switzerland or it was burned in Berned by the Nazis. The joy of expressionist work is that it aims to express what is inside not surface beauty - this is part of the reason that many found this work difficult and private sitters would not pay for something that they would consider to be ugly. 'His decorative commissions for the Wiener Werkstatte - either too abrasive or too sexually explicit - almost invariably went awry, and his portraits were frontal assaults on a sitter's vanity. His profligate habits eventually exasperated his patrons - mostly older men, from whom Schiele expected a fatherly devotion that they were ill-prepared to provide.' (Egonschiel.com 2011) After Schiele was imprisoned and he grew older he became less introspective and more outward-looking and his self-portraits reduced.  Schiele went to war in World War I for the Austro-Hungarian army and this changed his outlook and his work.  Schiele in his own life only managed a fairly small amount of success as an artist and a very small income.  

A brilliant man, ahead of his times, managed much in his short life. 

References

Leopold Museum (2021) Egon Schiele [Online] Available from: https://www.leopoldmuseum.org/en/collection/egon-schiele (Accessed 09/01/21)

Tate (2021) Tate Liverpool: Five things to know: Egon Schiele [Online] Available from: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-liverpool/exhibition/life-motion-egon-schiele-francesca-woodman/five-things-know-egon (Accessed 09/01/21)

Egon Schiele (2011) Egon Schiele: Paintings [Online] Available from: https://www.egon-schiele.com/ (Accessed 09/01/21)

Welcome to Spring Term 2021!

 Welcome to Spring Term 2021!  Another lockdown so another opportunity to really explore new artists, new skills and create new work.  

I wanted to start this term with the artist Peter Blegvad.  He created a series I was taken with called: 'Observed, Imagined, Remembered' and I thought since we are now often in the position of imagining and remembering this would be a great place to begin.

Peter Blegvad Imagined, Observed, Remembered. Ink and watercolor, 1984.

Born in 1951 in New York City. Blegvad created a name for himself as a musician, songwriter, cartoonist and writer.  I first encountered his work in Atlas anthology III published by the Atlas Press.  In this he discusses his Observed, Imagined, Remembered series of works as shown above.

Blegvad states: 'At work, I was often required to depict things that I could not, without recourse to a model, render 'realistically', but for which I could usually invent recognisable hieroglyphs (as a cartoon is a hieroglyph) by basing these on an eidetic approximation of the particular item which I could 'see' with that undissectible organ, the 'mind's eye.  In my immaturity, I sometimes experienced a kind of vertigo when drawing, for a client, things purely imagined or remembered them to be.' (Brotchie A & Green M. 1985)

Blegvad also wrote a book (much later on) Imagine, Observe Remember - Here is an example page below

Peter Blegvad Imagine, Observe, Remember 2020

Blegvad : 'I wanted to be a poet and/or an artist, but I was very lazy (frightened of failure, I guess) and drank too much. I spent years in the Forty-second Street library planning a book about how to freeze time, and began an encyclopedia of everything in the world depicted thrice. That’s a project I’m still working on.' (Bruno F. 01/11/2009) 

Why I find this work so interesting is that he created it out of not knowing how something looked and was interested in how things changed in your mind's eye after you had spent time away from it.  There is a curiosity here and Blegvad has created many of these throughout his lifetime.  The original images in the Atlas book were of Listz (the composer), Larynx, Loch Lomond and Louris.  

Take a look at a couple of these here:

References

Heller S. (12/09/20) Design Observer, Imagine, Observe, Remember [Online] Available from: https://designobserver.com/feature/imagine-observe-remember/40364/ (Accessed 08/01/21)

Bruno F. (01/11/2009) The Believer, An Interview with Peter Blegvad [Onlne] Available from: https://believermag.com/an-interview-with-peter-blegvad/  (Accessed 08/01/21)

Ed. Brotchie A & Green M. (1985) Atlas Anthology III. Atlas Press, London

History of De Montfort University: Focus on Architecture

 In this post, I am going to show you the start of the process of writing an article with images.  It is assumed you would have researched your article thoroughly in earlier posts so I will condense the research here ready to use for the piece.  

De Montfort University campus sits in the heart of Leicester City.  An ancient city that began as a military fort in AD 43.  The city grew and prospered through the ages and was at the centre of the industrial revolution (1837-1901) and the city grew from 40,000 residents to 212,000 residents.  The Victorian building erected during this time still dominates the Leicester landscape.  

'The Leicester Municipal Technical and Art School was then formed in 1897, when the Leicester School of Art was merged with the Leicester Technical School, under the control of the town council. Construction began in the Newarke on what we now call the Hawthorn Building. Initially, only the wing facing the Hugh Aston Building was completed. The other parts were added later, with the Richmond Street wing built in 1909, the Gateway Street wing in 1928, and the wing facing Trinity House in 1937.' (History of De Montfort University: 2020)

Today to really start to get the feel of the university into this article and to create the focus I took some initial photographs of The Queens Building

Test Shots 

Olympus SH-2, F3.7, 1/40, ISO 200, FL 40mm

Olympus SH-2, F4, 1/50, ISO 250, FL 49mm

Olympus SH-2, F4.2, 1/15, ISO 800, FL 60mm

Olympus SH-2, F4.2, 1/60, ISO 500, FL 60mm

'De Montfort University set out to design Europe’s largest naturally ventilated building in 1989; it was completed 4 years later in August 1993, costing roughly £9.3 million. After construction on 13 August 1993, the Queen herself christened it as The Queen’s Building. ' (Compton M 2006)

'According to Bill Bordass, “The architect’s concept for the Queen’s Building was for a highly insulated, thermally-massive envelope with both a shallow plan and generous ceiling heights to facilitate natural ventilation and daylighting.” (Compton M 2006)

'The original brief for the Queen's Building called for innovative solutions that would reflect the creative nature of the then-new university. The architects were Short-Ford Associates and environmental engineers Max Fordham LLP, backed-up by a team of advisers, such as Cambridge Architectural Research on the stack-effect chimneys, and Bristol University on the physics of airflow.' (Bunn R. 2006)

There is much written on the Queen's building above I have just added some snippets of what I might include.  R. Bunn who wrote in 2006 wrote about how the building faired since its creation and on many levels, it has not faired so well.  There are still issues with the ventilation and although it has been improved and altered over the years to adjust with the times the building itself now is more about its status as an iconic building rather than what it does well, at the time this was high innovation but as with all architecture, it has to stand the test of time the users (students and staff) need it to work for them.  Bunn writes: 'The saving grace of the Queen's Building is that its occupants seem willing to forgive the building's transgressions on comfort and lack of user control in the belief that they are working in a building worthy of being loved for its very idiosyncrasies.' (Bunn R. 2006)

I will now begin to draft this part of the article and I will retake these images when it is not raining so I can avoid rain spotted images.  

I want to add an element of psychogeography as I would like to include my own connection to the city, the university, and my own history.

References

Bunn, R., 2006. Queens Building. [online] Bsria.com. Available at: https://www.bsria.com/uk/news/article/queens-building [Accessed 25 November 2020].

Storyofleicester.info. 2020. Home - Story Of Leicester. [online] Available at: https://storyofleicester.info/ [Accessed 25 November 2020].

Dmu.ac.uk. 2020. A History Of De Montfort University. [online] Available at: https://www.dmu.ac.uk/campus/history/history-of-dmu.aspx [Accessed 25 November 2020].

Compton, M., 2006. [online] Webpages.uidaho.edu. Available at: https://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/arch504ukgreenarch/casestudies/queensbldg-demontfortu.pdf [Accessed 25 November 2020].

Developing a Villanelle

 .A villanelle is a poetic form with nineteen lines and a strict pattern of repetition and a rhyme scheme. Each villanelle is comprised of five tercets (i.e., a three-line stanza) followed by one quatrain (a stanza with four lines). The first and third lines of the opening tercet are repeated in an alternating pattern as the final line of each next tercet; those two repeated lines then form the final two lines of the entire poem.' (Literary Devices: 2020)

Do not go gentle into that good night by Dylan Thomas is a very famous villanelle

Felt the shadow, creeping, crawling upon my back

Hot breath upon my ear, loud and urgent

The spirit of death was coming, I was under attack

Spent the night, screaming, dying silently, anxiety attack

Slithered under the bed, curled up, shaking

Felt the shadow, creeping, crawling upon my back

My eyes wide open, forevermore, now the eternal insomniac

The winter cold had seeped into my veins

The spirit of death was coming, I was under attack

Now the window open, evil draft, a sign of the maniac

Was it within me, does it exist beyond my shattered mind?

Felt the shadow, creeping, crawling upon my back

Falling through the air, my life in flashback

I returned to the womb sucking in the sweet solace

The spirit of death was coming, I was under attack

Time ran out, I knew I had been running

No escape, the hand of fate had chosen and now I must go

Felt the shadow, creeping, crawling upon my back

The spirit of death was coming, I was under attack

This is my first draft of a villanelle, this form works well and the scheme is correct however it need work on the composition and concept.  I think I could make this stronger with a narrative that becomes more urgent throughout to finally end on the two repeating lines. Considering this was a 20 minutes exercise I think it was not a bad start!

References

http://www.literarydevices.com/villanelle/

Portrait Image for Website

 Today we were looking at how to take a portrait image using our mobile phone for our website. To create my images I am using a Doogee X95 phone and I have an HD Camera app.  All my images get backed up automatically on Google Photos so I can easily access them from the cloud. On the camera app I can change the settings manually or add a simple filter.  I choose to take my images black and white and square and I used the normal colour photo on auto settings and the beauty settings in my second set just to soften the light.  

I downloaded these onto my desktop and then created contact sheets on Photoshop (File-Automate-Contact Sheet) 

These images above were in my office today 

These images were from Sunday in my home - I think the light was much better in my apartment so let's take a closer look

Settings: F2.2, 1/20, ISO167, FL 3mm

This is okay but I think I look a bit tired!  The light is okay and has been softened - lets compare to one of the colour images form home

Settings: F2.2, 1/20. ISO 194, FL 3mm

I do prefer this the light is more natural, I look less tired and may just be presentable!

Now let's compare a couple of the black and white images 

Settings:  F2.2, 1/20. ISO 194, FL 3mm

This I like as the light falling across one side of the face and looks perfectly reasonable.  Always more difficult when looking at yourself but overall an acceptable image

Settings: F2.2, 1/25, ISO 171, FL 3mm

I have decided the light in my office actually ages me! Or perhaps I am just old but no, I think I prefer the one above with natural light.  The mixture of artificial and natural light in my office does not help me!

I may use one of these images on my site or I could retake these or do something different, the important thing is to represent myself well on my site.  

Building on Digital Skills: Photoshop & Painterly Effects

 I have used Photoshop for many years, however, as I am sure is the case with most people, I use the same tools and functions of Photoshop all the time and rarely do new things.  So considering this photoshop rut that I am in and wanting to expand on my skills I considered carefully what I would like to do on Photoshop that I have never really tried.  I have a love of all kinds of art and so I thought it would be great to learn how to create a painterly effect on my images perhaps for a project.  

As is usual with photoshop there are usually many ways to do the thing I want to do so let's try something out! Here is the first youtube tutorial I looked at:

Unusual Slider to Create Painterly Effect in Photoshop! by Piximperfect

Now I will follow this and show you my own process of following this instruction.  

First I need an image I would like to work with. I will use this one here: 

I am now opening Photoshop and adding my image.  The first step was to create a background copy of the image and this is what I have done here.

Next I go to filters and convert for SMART filters and I click ok.  I then go to filters and camera RAW filter and then a new dialog box appears 

The next instruction on the video was clearly in a different version of Photoshop to my version so I can see what the man is doing but now I have to work it out on this version - the 'luminance' that he is using does not appear as it does on the video 

I, therefore, begin to improvise I go instead to grain and increase this, then to texture and increase this, and then to clarity which I reduce and then I reduce dehaze and reduce the contrast.  All of this adds a soft effect to the image

The rest of the video seem to do just what I did and play with the filters etc.  So I thought okay I have not learnt that much! But here is the final image...

It is basically softened and perhaps does look slightly more 'painterly' however I think I want something a little stronger here and perhaps more complicated than manoeuvring some sliders and filters!

This was a good start and so I will now continue to investigate further options to build upon my Photoshop skills.