Some redirection is beginning!
Sadly my current web provider is not quite living up to what I need from a website. SO as a result, I would like to invite you to my new fancy website! The link is below. I am hoping I've ironed out all the hiccups in my new one but if you come across any problems, it would be a great help if you let me know! Thank you! https://artfission.wixsite.com/home
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As promised, here is my developed continuous line drawing. I used Windsor & Newton ink in black and white, and various gouache paints for the background.
Starting with a continuous line drawing of the face stopped me from worrying about details, and gave my work a looser and more spontaneous feel. Challenging our art! That's what our art teacher has been pushing us to do thus week. We've been doing lots of different exercises to try out different techniques, such as negative space drawings, using limited colour or an unusual medium such as tape, continuous line drawings, and working on a large (A1) scale. It's very easy, especially in an academic setting, to get caught up in the fear of 'doing it right'. Detailed realism is fantastic, don't get me wrong, but it can create limits for your creativity, and can lead to a very perfectionistic attitude. Loosening up your art using different approaches is challenging, but new techniques can bring about surprising results that bring something fresh to your artwork. Showing my continuous line drawing, which I added another two continuous lines on top of it. I found myself stressing about what to draw and how to draw it and whether it would be this, that and the other. I made myself stop, and break out of the excessive planning and perfectionistic mindset, by getting a rather abstract gouache background I enjoyed painting using a sponge and fingers, then did a continuous line self portrait on top. This broke me out of worrying about face proportion, and gave me something to develop and refine a little.
I'll get a few pics of it up tomorrow to show how it loosened up my style a bit. Does anyone out there have anything they do to break their art up a bit? Share it in comments! As I've mentioned before, I try to carry around small notebook at all times. I use it to scribble down ideas, doodle compositions and character designs, and record helpful information I come across in the day to day. Rcently I filled up my first, which lasted me about half a year, and so I've started a new one. I've been drawn to illustration more recently - when life's busy, it's easier to pick up a pen and paper and do some scribbling, unlike painting which takes more preparation. I also find that illustration can be a starting point for a more thorough and detailed piece of artwork. And so, partly inspired by Austin Kleon, who shows a lot of insight into his everyday working process on his blog, I've collected a few of my favourites from my new little book. (above and below) Fantasy/horror character designs themed on old fashioned submarines (above) Exploring circulr composition
Link below to an art competition I entered, in case anyone is interested.
All entries are available to view from today for 30 days, before the judging, https://www.cagonline.gallery/2018-EXHIBITIONS/2018-ALL-Women-art-Exhibition Just thought I'd show what I've been working on this work, including completed illustrations to works in progress to refined doodles.
Well, January certainly was a busy start to the year! A busy start to a new art project too - part of what's been keeping me rather ocupied actually. I've been exploring abstraction, quite a new route for me. This first year of A-levels doesn't contribute to the end grade, which means I have the oppurtunity to explore and experiment, and take risks. Now, I have chosen to explore music visually in this project. I have a mild form of synaesthesia, where my brain makes strong links between sounds/emotions and colour/space, (there are many different forms of this condition by the way, this is just my personal neuro-experience). So I've started exploring this through art, beginning with ink, moving through paint and going...well good question.
I'll put up my series of works in a gallery under 'My Projects' so the development can be seen all together.
My current piece is proving to be very challenging. I'm giving 3D work a go, by using the notation patterns I've drawn and putting them into a wire structure. The wire is quite difficult to work with, since it is difficult to achieve sharp twists that I want. However, I do really like the ability to bring the musical patterns into a space and have them physically intertwine. I'd like to bring colour into it somehow, which will be another challenge, but I'd better actually have a structure first! I'll keep updating with where I'm going with this, and if you want to ask or suggest anything DM me on Instagram or drop me an email! I also want to thank anyone who's reading, I'm still getting 30 hits at least a week! Even when I've been too busy to update properly in a while! I really appreciate it, and hope I manage to at least provide some spark of inspiration to someone out there. Now, my further delving into Dada would never be smooth. That would take the fun out of things. My aim, when researching new artists, not to regurgitate what I've seen, but to pick out what I like, question what I don't, and ultimately to react while inevitably rejecting something. This first question came from the heart of what Dada is, to be honest. Dada aimed to use nonsense to challenge the status quo, to do things without meaning. For example, the quite alarming 'abstract poetry' , like Hugo Ball performed, where he used phonetics and 'nonsense' language to create his poetry. This idea of nonsense and obscure meaning was slightly unappealing at first for my own art. I love filling my work with imagery, metaphor, symbols and stories in many different forms. But as I continued reading into Dada, I began to understand more about the aims and purpose of this nonsense. Hans Richter, a Dadaist summed it up as: "We were looking for a way to make art a meaningful instrument of life." So although Dada aimed to have no meaning, unlike previous art movements, in doing that it took on other meanings. The meaning is not lost, or nonexistent. The anger and angst and chaos and rebellion and confusion is there despite not being communicatedin the way that previous artists had done. The way it was hidden or at least not immediately apparent gives even more meaning and depth, at last in my eyes. And the meaning was also personal for the artists, even if others didn't fully appreciate it or receive the full meassage. But does this matter? I often find myself thinking about how others will see my art. It can be both an encouragement and a boundary. What matters more to me, the internal or the external meaning? My personal meanings, or the reactions of others? But thinking about it, there is very little external reaction that an artist can control. Maybe it is sad that the meaning poured into my art could be lost, but maybe other reactions could give dozens of personal meanings and interpretations , each unique for the viewer. And that's even more important, in a way. Kurt Schwitters, another Dada artist, had a column which was his 'beloved 'Schwitters-Saeule''. This was a literally a column, an untransportable sculpture in his house, constantly being added to. It was filled with layers and holes, each of which was for a particular person in his life, to which he added hair, pencils, shoelaces.... all sorts of things. Sadly this was destroyed by WW2 bombs, but even if we were able to witness its magnificence, noone would be able to full understand the meaning and depth of it. But it can still be reacted to. I've had ideas from it that are personal to me, and others will do the same, each reaction being unique. Yes, noone will fully appreciate Schwitters' full meaning behind it, but even more will come from 'inaccurate' intepreatation. So specifically in reaction to Dada and meaning, I don't want to take the idea of no meaning. I want to take the freedom of not worrying about reactions, and instead fill my art with meaning, some completely hidden to all but me, some subtle, some as open as possible. No-one will react to your art in the way you do and that you want maybe, but that's important, and more will come from it as a result. (source: "Dada art and anti-art" by Hans Richter) First of all, Happy New Year to you all!
New year, new you, and all that. While I'd much rather keep on at my slowly but surely pace, I have been looking into a new art area and art movement - Dada. It began with artists' block on the last week of college, when my art teacher swooped (ok, maybe not quite) to my rescue, suggesting that I look into 'cut-up' technique. This is basically where you take something existing, often text, and cut it up, then blindly pull out the pieces and let chance determine the order. It has been used by David Bowie to construct some of his songs I believe, and also by the writer and artist William Burroughs. Looking into its origins, led me to the art movement 'Dada'. And that's basically what I've spent my half term reading about. Dadaism is hard to sum up in a sentence or two, since it's such a large and varied movement. It emerged in the early 20th century, aiming to challenge normality, in society and in the world of art, by dramatically shunning rules. Sometimes, but not always, it took a political stance, especially in Berlin. Dada artists often used nonsense in their work, to both challenge and shock observers as well as to pull away from artistic and social convention. You may have heard of artist Marcel Duchamp submitting a urinal to an art gallery with the aim of questioning the idea of what art is. This is just one example of what Dada artists got up to. The movement has been incredibly influential, and some say it was the beginning of postmodernism. Many of the early surrealists emerged from Dadaism. I hope to share my research and reaction into Dada over the next few weeks. The cut-up technique has already given me some ideas, and saved me once from a pool of stagnation. I've been experimenting with different amounts of control over the process, sometimes letting chance fully dictate the outcome, other times being more selective. It is a strange and new experience, since usually I've worked to improve and further my art by increasing control of my tools and understanding and application, whereas this is the opposite. Although it is strange, it's quite freeing, letting something be reinvented through chance as I push slips of paper into a random order. I'm considering applying this to some otherwise quite personal pieces of art. Like many people, there are things I would want to say, maybe even shout, but there are barriers such as privacy and sensitivity and confidence that prevent us. I've already experimented with writing down 'things I want to say' and combining them with related lyrics for example. It feels like a more comfortable ground between not expressing anything and possibly oversharing. And it also is quite comforting to have meanings known only by me in my art, that others can think about, and react to in more ways than if the meaning was obvious. It also ends up sounding rather poetic, in a fragmented dreamy kinda way: North my direction, walk burns me burn bright ...cloudy stars, It is heart, heart my weary.' I'll share a bit more about my thoughts on Dada, meaning and emotion in my next few posts.... C-M |
Claire-M BathI'm a mostly self-taught artist, currently studying A-Level art at college. Archives
March 2018
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