Drawing - Journey write up

For the Journey project I decided to focus on photography, as the images gave me plenty to work from and also through taking the photos they showed a journey themselves. I used my photos from travelling around Indonesia, a walk around Leicester, and a journey to an old train station. I used a mixture of photos and videos for these and used them as a starting point. I then began to look at collage artists such as Mark Bradford, who used images, things he found and other different materials, to create large collages. This inspired me to use my photographs and experiment with painting over the top. I started drawing head shots of children’s faces from Indonesia, mainly images of them with a blank expression, then painting them over the top of collages of photos. I think this could have worked better if I made the backgrounds more textured and the portraits more detailed. I wanted my work to represent what you see/what you miss when you are out, people who you don’t know and what their stories may be. 

Paint - Write up

I chose to go with ‘the body and/or self’ and within this I chose to go with ‘expressive’. I began to look at different styles of expressive painting mainly of portraits. While researching different artists I came across Paul wright, who’s art work is very textured, as he paints in a messy style, with different strokes almost blurring the face, it influenced my work into moving into ‘blank expression’. I wanted to paint portraits of people with a ‘blank expression’, so the audience has to read into what the person may be thinking or seeing. I also looked at Catherine Hennessey, who works with water colour and ink; she creates very meaningful images that bring across an emotion, often without showing the whole face. I liked the style and media she used for her work, and this ended up being similar to the route I have decided to go down. An artist similar to this that I also looked at was Agnes Cecile, she mainly paints with water colour and ink, some of her work is very expressive and loose, where as other pieces are precise. She uses a lot of colour, drips and splashes. 

Lens

Agnes Cecile

Agnes Cecile is one of my favourite artists, her work is so skilful and different. There are many artists who use water colour and inks for portraits but I think her work is some of the best. All of her paintings are different in colour, expression and meaning. Some have bursts of colour where as others are lighter and use only a few tones and colours. She also uses pens, white and black, to give outlines, highlights and shadows.

Some of her paintings are very detailed and intricate, whereas others are a loser more expressive style. I also find her speed painting videos on Youtube inspiring as you can see how she builds up the paintings and creates the marks. These are a few of my favourites –

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g857UNIKQsM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xryN4wT-XeA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cUv4csQw1o

Lens - Stop Motion

I wanted this video to show how a person can get fed up, over worked by the hectic life styles some are made to lead in busy cities such as London. The pressure has built to much and he's just stopped. To create the video I used a video of London projected over the man, I ended up doing about 4 shoots of it, then used photos from the different ones to put together to create the video. 

The London video was by a friend who is a 2nd year Photography student at dmu, he gave me permission to use his video. This is his video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhU9U5VcJDc

Seminar Presentation

Paul Wright

Paul Wright’s art work is inspiring due to the amount of colour and tone he uses to create the face. Mixtures or blues, reds, purples, and greens are just a few that he uses to give the portrait depth, using dark lines to mark out the structure of the face. He’s painting style is very loose and he works with oil paints.

This painting almost looks as though the face has been caught while moving, the different lines give it a blurry effect, the eyes really stand out in this painting. The paint strokes/marks make the painting more visually interesting to look at.

Drawing - presentation research

Nick Rain

My drawing presentation is not on an artist that draws, I struggled to find an artist/drawings which linked well with what my journey project already consisted of, also not being able to go on the London trip or visit galleries I started searching the internet. I came across a photographer, who may not be a drawing artist, but his images were really thought provoking and had a real meaning, not something that could be made up. Each photograph had a disturbing story behind it, and you could see this from the expressions on the girls faces, the pain that they were hiding. They made me instantly want to look further into the images and find out more about the subject. Many of the images were from over 10 years ago, but it doesn’t stop the emotion from the portraits.

Nick Rain did a series of images from different parts of the world; they were an assignment and part of a project to Combat Trafficking in children and women. The photographs are all in black and white, and are portraits of young girls/women who are trafficked by ‘pimps’ for prostitution, some of the girls look younger than 10 years of age. Not all of the photos are about the prostitution; some are about children who are trafficked for other reasons, such as begging. Some of the photographs are also just about poverty in men and women, the jobs they have to do to get buy, the places they have to live in and the things they have to see and live with for the rest of their lives.

The fact that these images are in black and white makes them even more effective, they make you focus on the person and nothing else around them, and it makes the photographs look darker and more depressing. The images draw you into the girls eyes, and makes you question about their life, and it’s even quite hard to believe. The photos show a scary real life.

After finding these images I researched into the photographer more, he has been on many journeys, and travels, including some of the places that I have included in my work. Although as a photographer of his travels, I didn’t find the rest of his work anywhere near as interesting as the project he was involved with. Art is supposed to draw in an audience, make them think and question, his series of images for the project definitely do this even if they were for something completely un-related to art. 

Nick Lepard

I first looked at Nick Lepard when I was doing a-levels, the style in which he paints still inspires me, as it is so textured. He uses the paint to create strokes and marks in his portraits which shape the face and also makes the painting very expressive. He manages the lose look while still keeping the detail and expression in the face, and that is what inspires me the most. 

Even though this painting is more tidy, the lines in the face create the shape and expression of the man. The hints of blue and grey, show a coldness and the tone is very dull. He is a great artist to look at for my paint project.

Drawing - Presentation research

Nick Rain

Slaves To Poverty

Mark Bradford

Mark Bradford creates collages on canva’s, he incorporates elements from his daily life into his work, using things like leaflets, posters and other things that he finds. He works using paint and collage, also stencils, and graffiti. This piece is called ‘The Devil is Beating His Wife,’ within this; he has used different materials and colours to represent different things in life. I have been looking at his work for inspiration for the ‘journey’ project for drawing. 

Jorge Charmorro

This artist manually manipulates photographs, changing images to become something new, or someone else. Here he has used pages from a book of images of statues, using a cut out of part of a portrait, this almost brings the statue to life and gives them a new meaning.

        

   

Charmorro also cuts out parts of the faces, paints on them and puts string on them. The portraits with the eyes and mouths missing almost show a lifelessness, and a depressing emotion. 

Water Colour - 'indi1288'

    

This is an artist who I found on deviantart.com, the user name was ‘indi1288’, when looking at water colour portraits I really liked the colours, and the detail in this artists work, the features of the face are very precise, and there is clean lines. Within this the use of colour, such as the hints of blue and red really give a more detailed effect. The subtle drips/splashes that the artist uses really give the paintings some meaning, and make the paintings look more interesting, without being over the top.

 

Sally Mann -Faces

I feel like this collection of images by sally mann show expressions captured by the people, as if they didn’t know the photo was being taken. I like the effects from the old camera and the out of focus features.

With parts of the face being out of focus this also gives the impression that these were snapshots .

The eyes were very important to me as I think in sally mann’s images these are the main focal point, they are always sharp and clear, they almost tell the story of the photograph. The image above is my favourite out of the collection, as even though the eyes are very dark they stand out and make you question what is going on in the mans head and what he is thinking. 

With my own photographs I tried to take close up photographs of people during conversation to give a more ‘natural’ look. I took photos of different textures to add to my images on photo shop to try and give a similar effect. 

@che_az –Instagram

                  

         

I found this photographer/artist on Instagram, his username is @che_az. I really liked his collection of photographs, and for the Journey project I think they link really well. He is overlaying photographs with textures, and other images with give the photos a different meaning, and almost a thought inside the persons head.

                                 

They also show movement and time, using blurs and making parts out of focus.  I think they are interesting collection digital manipulations.

Catherine Hennessy

“0000019” water colour, pen & ink.

I really like the style in which Catherine Hennessy paints, a lot of her work are only the features of a face instead of a full head. This means the focus is on area’s such as the eyes, which give a depth to the paintings and draw the viewer in. She works in colour and black and white, some are quite delicate and minimal, whereas others are bold and bright. My favourites of hers are her black and white paintings, and they are perfect for inspiring me for my paint project -  self expression.

“photo sensitivity” by Catherine Hennessy

Ink & Glue experiments

Life drawing - Left foot

seminar presenation

Summer Project

                     Indonesian Art work - Batik

This summer I was working in a school in Jambi, Indonesia for a month, during my stay there it was almost impossible to miss the traditional Indonesian fabric - Batik. Most of the time batik is an intricate, detailed patterned fabric made by hours of hard work, which consist of dying, sewing and using wax. However, when we travelled to Jogjatakarta we came across this little shop/gallery. All of the batik here was handmade, and were unconventional styles. 

 Even though this isn't a style I would consider working in, I found it interesting and inspiring. The work may not have a deeper meaning or be individual to the artist but I think that this can be just as inspiring as the contemporary, modern day artists we have in this country and else where.

They are an artwork in themselves, and there is definitely skill involved. They are colourful and textured and I couldn't resist buying one, the blue one at the top is on the wall in my bedroom! 

(they also let me have a go!)