First of all, an early Merry Christmas to everyone! I know I said before about snow being inspiring, and as it nears Christmas, the festive atmosphere does start sparks of inspiration. It's often the music that begins it, especially with all the choral singing going on. And I guess the chilly weather means I'm more likely to cosy up with a pencil and paper indoors....
As the end of the term finishes, I'm finishing off parts of our college disguise project - quite a lot of experimentation and exploration. In my class, we're encouraged to photocopy our work so we can work into it, and experiment freely. So I've been exploring 'disguising' my work with paint dragging, and also writing/text. It's so interesting to see the huge variety of interpretations in class, none of them the same. Speaking of finishing things, I've posted an explanation of my Catch-22 project today, describing my development and thoughts behind my work. I'm thinking of taking a similar approach of character exploration with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, who is fascinating. Shelley's entire concept and characters have been something that've captivated me for a long time. There's so much that her work explores and brings up, and it's something I want to give a go to exploring. My Notebook is full of other ideas, so hopefully the Christmas break will give me more time to develop some of them..... Until the New Year: Merry Christmas!
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It's been snowing here this week, which I find very exciting - winter is my favourite season mainly because of snow.
I find snow so atmospheric and beautiful, and as a result I have a couple of ideas on the go. There's nothing better than staring up into the darkness to see swirling specks that stretch into oblivion..... Little things often inspire me in the day to day. I keep a notebook on me at all times, so I can jot down random ideas that come to me throughout the day. It can be strange things, like someone's hairstyle, or a streetlamp or even a normal train window. My mind starts experimenting and extrapolating, and spins a story and a scene, and down it goes in the notebook. Often songs can awaken my muse, and then I try to capture that inspired feeling in some frantic scribbles! Many of my ideas don't get used, but I do often look back through my notebook to work on some of my older thoughts, which does sometimes take a while - my handwriting can be hard to decipher! Just seeing the common themes can help if I'm feeling directionless, because it reminds me of the things I enjoy painting, like steampunk and space and portraits. I also have online folders of photos that give me that inspiration spark, which can also be a helpful starting point. I've come to the end of one of my projects this week - my Catch-22 covers. I've posted my more experimental/expressive version today, and I'll post the final one in the next couple of days. Look out for my explanation and analysis of them over the next week or so in my 'About my Work' tab, I'll let you know when it's up. I'd love to here thoughts on your favourite version too, so DM me on Instagram or drop me an email..... I've noticed how I've been leaning towards steampunk again recently - and definitely science fiction. I love the ability to create characters and worlds in futuristic settings, And steampunk lets you explore how the world literally operates, which I find so interesting.
These last couple of weeks I've tried out an idea based on the book Catch-22. I really recommend it, it's got an excellent mix of humour and satire that highlights the irony of war. I chose to sketch Yossarian (the main character) in ink using crosshatching to get a sense of roughness, and tried to get a combination of anger and determination combined with hopelessness and sadness in his expression, because I felt these were very important elements to his character. I've posted my initial sketch, and I'm currently working on two more variations, both painted - one more expressive and the other realistic. The amount of reference photos I used was probably the most I've ever used before for a single piece - I wanted to get historical accuracy where I needed it as much as possible, and then used several different face references to create Yossarian's. I've got some interesting more subtle ideas for context for my realistic version - I'll explain them when I get it finished and posted! C-M
As promised, we've been taught oils in class this week. Above is the piece I did, based off a piece by Jenny Saville. I really enjoyed trying out oils, because I had to really concentrate on layering, and the paint stayed wet so that you could mix the layers in. The colours are so rich too. It did leave the classroom smelling rather strongly of white spirits though, and the paint is really messy too...
Another exciting thing I did this week was going to see the Open Studios event in Sheffield. Six floors of artist studios were open to the public. This was really interesting, because you could have a look at the working environments of artists, and get to see their workspace and talk to them. There was a wide variety of different specialisms, too, from sculptors to mosaic artists to oil painters and more. The really exciting thing for me came unexpectedly - I got to meet Andrew Hunt, a Sheffield-based artist who has inspired my painting technique for a while now. He uses oils to paint very life-like portraits that hold a lot of character. I was inspired by him when I was only just starting to paint again, after seeing his work in Sheffield's Now Then magazine. It was amazing to be able to see him working in his studio, and to say to him that I really admired his work. I've started posting my work in progress on Instagram this week, so if you'd like to see more of my process, please follow me and maybe send me a message to say hi! https://www.instagram.com/handsofawatch/ I just want to say wow!, first of all, to everyone who has visited my site. I launched on Facebook this week, and received over 100 views in 24 hours! Incredible! Obviously that's not a daily occurrence, but I don't mind, I make my website for my art, not my art for my website.
Being back at college this week has left less time to do painting and the like, but we have started an interesting project surrounding 'Disguise' in art class. We've been covering art theory surrounding artists challenging us to think about stereotype and assumption. This lead me to think about the purpose of my art. Personally, I don't want my pictures just to show what is already there. I want to communicate with others through artwork. My art is part of my voice. So what do I want my art to say? I want to speak about things that are important to me. I've started listing what I want to say through my art. If you're interested, this is what is important for me to say so far.
These are particularly important to me, and I'm going to work giving my art more direction through exploring these areas, as well as others which are harder to group into just a statement. So far this week, I've worked on a piece exploring attitude to Free Will, and also a reaction to Remembrance Day. Learning oils in college next week, which is something entirely new.... It's a bit nerve-wracking posting work I'm not confident about, but I want to be able to show how my work progresses and evolves with time.
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Claire-M BathI'm a mostly self-taught artist, currently studying A-Level art at college. Archives
March 2018
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