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Friday, 15 January 2021

2D 3D Class: Monochrome

 Okay, today I joined a 2D 3D Class and completed the monochrome task - All of you (art and design students) will have yours on Instagram however since this is a one-off for me I thought I would just share my work here.

This is the image I used, just me as a baby....circa 1975!


This is my picture, I used acrylic as I has no ink handy!


I think I could have worked on it further by adding some darker defining lines, however overall I was actually quite pleased with result. It reminded me a little bit of George Roualt who had quite a few paintings of clowns.


George Rouault began his career working with glass and as he progressed he was interested in using mosaic artworks in churches.  He was a founding member of the fauvist movement and he used a very distinctive style 'He used scribbles, dominant colors, spontaneous figures, and dramatic lighting.' (Sun Signs 2017)

As a religious man, Rouault painted many scenes from the Bible and believed it was his sacred duty to show the sinful nature of society.  

References


Sun Signs (2017) Georges Rouault Biography [Online] Available from: https://www.sunsigns.org/famousbirthdays/d/profile/georges-rouault/ (Accessed 15.01.21)





Wednesday, 13 January 2021

Media Class: 20 Ideas in 20 Minutes

 To begin generating ideas in class we completed 20 ideas in 20 Minutes.  I completed the grid and here it is!


As it quite difficult to decipher my little scribbles here - I will explain the ideas that I thought were good further:

Create a photographic cabinet of curiosities in the manner of the Victorians like these images here:






Something on the nature of touch and isolation so using photography to show how we have not been able to go near people.  Maybe photographing skin or isolation some photographers have been doing this at this time - here this with the window between them.




I have been doing yoga and so I could use timelapse for a yoga routine perhaps there could be something different about this that would make it more interesting.




There are many more ideas here but I need to find one that is challenging and that will become something that has some universal meaning so people really want to look at the images! 


Monday, 11 January 2021

Further Exploration of Ideas: Alpha & Omega

 As discussed in my last post my initial ideas on my concept were considering the beginning and the end, the circle of life, and the idea of time.  

Looking further into this and considering Revelation in the Bible, it seems to me that we could be in the time of revelation.




Let's start with the plague of Locusts, locusts appear many times in the bible but they are a symbol of end times  - the bible states: in Revelation 9.1-7 '1 The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss. 2 When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss. 3 And out of the smoke locusts came down on the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth. 4 They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. 5 They were not allowed to kill them but only to torture them for five months. And the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion when it strikes. 6 During those days people will seek death but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them. 7 The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads, they wore something like crowns of gold, and their faces resembled human faces.'  

Then there is a plague - with Covid we certainly have this however it is important to note that we have had plagues many times in our history, The Black Death, Spanish Flu, HIV/AIDS and Cholera - these are the big ones.

HIV/AIDS - The figures at present stand at 60 million people infected and 25 million have died.  We are still fighting this throughout the world.

The Black Death (1347-1351) This ravaged Europe and in the space of four years took at least 75 million lives but some estimate up to 200 million.

Spanish Flu - This began in 1918 and ended quickly in 1919 but affected a third of the world's population and took  50 million lives.

Why am I discussing these unhappy topics in relation to my concept?   As I have chosen Expressionism as the theme for my work I think the concept here would go well as the German Expressionists depicted the horrors of war.  Consider these images from Otto Dix:



These images of horror remind me also of Goya's Disasters of War




Although in my own lifetime I have not seen the horror of war in the UK.  there are many wars still raging around the world and as I was stating at the beginning about revelation there is a feeling that though this might not be end times - it certainly is a moment where the world will be changed after this pandemic.  


References

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (05/03/20) The Five Deadliest Outbreaks and Pandemics in History [Online] Available from: https://www.rwjf.org/en/blog/2013/12/the_five_deadliesto.html  (Accessed 11/01/21)

KD Outsider Art (10/06/14) Otto Dix: The Madness of Modern Warfare [Online] Available from: https://kdoutsiderart.com/2014/06/10/otto-dix-the-madness-of-modern-warfare/ (Accessed 11/01/21)

BBC Future Planet (07/08/20) The Biblical Locust Plagues of 2020 [Online] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200806-the-biblical-east-african-locust-plagues-of-2020  (Accessed 11/01/21)

Bible Study Tools (08/05/20) Locusts in the Bible [Online] Available from: https://www.biblestudytools.com/topical-verses/locust-in-the-bible/ (Accessed 11/01/21)

The Martians have landed: Alpha & Omega

 As part of the class session, you are going to generate ideas in just images to show the Martians your initial thoughts on your CONCEPT for your major project.  So here is one I created for my own initial ideas.  I created this on a digital tablet. As you can see this does not show my best drawing skills but does try to communicate the ideas that I was thinking about.



The eye here - is the all seeing eye, which could be God, it could be technology, it could be CCTV! It is the idea that we are always witnessed and our actions are always witnessed.  The Alpha and Omega are teh beginning and the end.  In the Bible this is in Revelation 22.13: 'Behold, I am coming soon, and My reward is with Me, to give to each one according to what he has done. 13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.” 14 Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by its gates.…' and this is referenced elsewhere as God being the first and the last.  Obviously, the alpha and omega are from the Greek alphabet.

The clock is life ticking by to represent our short time on earth with the symbol also of the baby and the coffin.  The box is like Pandoras box - we do not know how life will turn out as there are so many variables and this is about fate, free will and whether we are in charge of our own destiny.  

These are the themes I would like to research further for the project concept. 

Sunday, 10 January 2021

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.  


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...



Saturday, 9 January 2021

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) 

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)

Friday, 8 January 2021

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.




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



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