Category: AAD009


Oct
2020

Museum

categories: AAD009

 

While in the museum I wanted to create exactly what I was seeing as I knew hat this would be the best way to translate the image with the media. I took very little time with the sketching process and worked in layers over the whole page to slowly build up what I was seeing. This process as rewarding as it is in the end is very frustrating as it feels like you never make progress, the imagine also doesn’t seem to reveal itself until the very end when you take your eyes off it. I found that willow charcoal allowed me to get most of the tone onto the paper and a rubber assisted the highlighting process. I used compressed charcoal and conte sticks for the finer details that wouldn’t have been achievable with the darkest tone of charcoal.

The first two sketches are of ancient sea floor, the first being an A3 sketch and the other an A2 study of the fossil. I think that this looks really interesting and the different textures translated really well onto the paper. The third drawing is of a dinosaur skull. This I really like, it wasn’t until now that I realised that it does closely resemble what I was looking at. I blocked in some background and suggested shapes to make the page look more filled and completed, I didn’t want there to be any negative space on the drawing at all.


Oct
2020

Alt. Means (sculpture 3 houses)

categories: AAD009

                                     

The first house I built was made of paper and tape. I took inspiration from my art studio which looks like a log cabin, not only was rolling the paper for the logs fast but it also had quite a good look. Assembling it was also quite easy as I just made a square and continued to layer it. The design is very self explanatory and the house was constructed in about 15 minutes.

The second house is a natural materials tree house. I used sticks, cardboard, fabric and dried artichoke for it. this house was a little fiddly to start with as getting the wire structure to sit while putting the material over it was quite challenging. I used a hot glue gun for structural integrity. I tried to make a thatched roof appearance with the artichoke and this worked really well. I think that this was a simple design that would hold well and it looks unique.

The cardboard house took a long time for me to make as I made each wall separately and cut out all if the windows and doors with a scalpel. I assembled the house before I painted it as you can see. my main idea for the house was for it took look very Tim Burton esc or look like a house would be imagined in Salem. once the house was painted and the railings were added to it I was super happy with how it turned out. I think it looks exactly how I imagined it. For the picture I put some fairy lights into the house through the door which gives it a more livable feel.


Oct
2020

Environment- (Concertina)

categories: AAD009

I really love how these turned out, I think that the range of media and colour helps to make each building stand out from each other. I tried to get buildings that looked nothing alike to put together to make each side of the paper look as diverse as possible, for this same reason I also looked at each building from a different perspective and didn’t forger to include things such as people, cars and streetlights. I used medias such as markers, paint, pens, coloured pencil and ink to achieve a different look for each building, the buildings as unique as they are all seem to fit together in a nice way.

 


Oct
2020

Environment

categories: AAD009

 

for these 9 drawings I spent a few days in Belfast looking at buildings from different perspectives and gathering a feel for what the energy around the building felt like. I wanted the building to have a sense of place and time along with being recognizable. I tried to limit myself to half an hour on each a2 drawing as this felt like a suitable amount of time to achieve the appearance that I wanted to. I used a range of media and with the rain being unpredictable I needed to use wet on wet medias for some of the drawings as the page got super damp from the weather. I think this was more of a benefit to the drawing though. I tried out a range of medias from watercolour, gouache, acrylic paint, markers and pens, sewing and coloured pencils. I think that the medias used help give the pieces a busy and urban feel which is the look that I was trying to achieve.

 

Drawings From Majella’s Task

 

The first drawing we had to complete an A2 drawing filled with energy and showcasing the natural setting and atmosphere. I took my sketchbook into Belfast and drew Robinsons Bar. I really love how busy this street is in general and thought that drawing it in the rain would be a good idea. I drew it with a water soluble marker which began to spread through the damp paper as I was drawing. To add some colour into the building I used watercolour to create a damp and mirror like effect that the rain has on the tarmac.

The second drawing i focused on tone and shape. I sued the side of my charcoal and and a tilted perspective of the Crown bar to make an interesting tone rich drawing. The street looks glossy and wet giving the building a sense of place and atmosphere. I like the tonal look for this building and the tilted angle in my opinion helps to focus on more of the surrounding streets.

For the third drawing I went up to the Penthouse suit in the Fitzwilliam hotel. the whole room was glass and allowed me to use my viewfinder from a high up and new perspective of the surrounding streets of the city below. I drew one of the assembly buildings and focused on a small section of the clock tower. I used water soluble marker and biro pen to complete a study that lacked precise details yet has a feeling of being detailed and full of depth.


Oct
2020

Alt. Means- (Mark-making tools)

categories: AAD009

    

When creating my mark-making tools I had texture in mind, I wanted to create some diverse textures so I went to my garden where I knew the most natural textures would be found, then challenged the natural textures with that of the manmade things around my house. the marks made by the tools are really fun and they were enjoyable to make. I tried to make them look like a set by wrapping the yarn around the top and bottom both for aesthetic reasons and functionality. The brushes withstood a lot of abuse and worked really well. Getting the sticks for the handles was the hardest part as the tree I was cutting branches from evidently was surrounded with stinging nettles. However the practice marks I made with Indian ink look really effective and I think the brushes served their purpose.

materials used- toothbrush, sponge, dried grass, a piece of bush, lavender, ribbon, cotton buds, rosemary, strips of plastic, wire, tree bark and dried artichoke

 


Oct
2020

Alt. Means (one line portraits and wire sculptures)

categories: AAD009

On receiving the task of drawing 10 faces without looking at our paper I knew that it wasn’t going to be easy. I found it very interesting that our brain would open up to new and unused parts when doing this. It challenges your ability to know where your pen is, where the last line you drew was and where it needs to be next. As someone who really enjoys portraiture I think that these one line drawings will give me a new perspective of how a face doesn’t need to have an exact likeness to look like a person or evoke emotion. As I went on I found that I could do one face in pen between 10 and 30 seconds, and my confidence with placement got gradually better too. I began to understand where my pen was and where it needed to go next. I really like the look of the overlapped drawings, I think that the different flesh toned markers made it unique and stand out from one another.

I did 3 wire faces with the drawings that I had completed. Two of these faces are 2 dimensional and one is 3 dimensional. The first one that you can see focuses on the morphing of two faces and I think that this was quite a nice approach, I found that taping the wire to the paper as I was going allowed me to get a flat sculpture of the drawing that I had done. The sculp on the far right is my least favourite, it is the 3d sculp and it focuses on one face being slightly offset from the one in front, they are connected at the chin and slowly spread out towards the top, making them look like they are being peeled apart. The middle sculpt was my first and favourite, I really like how simple it is and the inclusion of the mask really helps to simplify the face further. I enjoyed doing these small sculptures and they took 3-5 minutes each.


Oct
2020

Photo- Found Type

categories: AAD009

we were tasked with creating an alphabet out of nothing but found objects around our house. This was a lot harder than I thought it would be initially. It took me quite a while to gather enough objects that fit together to create something that looked like a letter. This task provided me with a newfound outlook on the objects around me, it reminded me of being a child and seeing faces, numbers and letters in so many objects that I would simply overlook now. I tried to use as many different objects as possible when completing my alphabet, this way when creating phrases the letters would look unique and no two would be made from the same objects, this also made the task more challenging. I like some of the letters more than others such as the J which was made from the jawbone of a fox and the cap from an inhaler, I also really like the F made from a tattoo machine and a broken pencil.

I took the image into a drawing application and carefully drew the shape of each letter with a solid black fill to make it stand out from the stark white background as much as possible. I really enjoy how this turned out, I think that it makes the letters super clear and crisp. I particularly like how the C turned out when I did this.

 

Our second task was to create short phrases or words from the alphabet that we made, however due to the repetition of some letters I needed to repurpose some of the objects to make some more letters, but due to the diverse range of objects that I used to make the alphabet all the letters looked different enough. For the first saying I did “Seven Wonders” which is not only the name of a Fleetwood Mac song but it also refers to magical forces often practiced in witchcraft, this is something that I’m quite interested in therefore this seemed like a perfect phrase. I also incorporated the word “Lisztomania” which refers to an obsessive and or compelling nature of music. Due to the meaning I created a heart out of a pair of headphones which I think was a fun complement to the word. The last phrase is a reflection on the victimization of society and a quote I love by Marilyn Manson “We live in a society of victimization, where people are much more comfortable being victimized than actually standing up for themselves.” I have always found this to be quite a shocking quote yet one that contains so much truth and I wanted to share it though my found type.

I took one of the phrases into a drawing program and did the same thing I previously did with the alphabet, I thought that it worked well with the alphabet so I did it once again. I also did two diverse drawings, one coloured pencil and the other biro pen. These were my two favourite letters and therefore i wanted to draw them. I spent about an hour on the F as I wanted to capture the shine of the metal and the matte contrast of the pencil. with the J I spent a few minutes shading the areas that had more depth and adding some shadows to make it look like the object rather than capturing a realistic rendering.


Oct
2020

Alt. Means (artist research & creative writing prompt)

categories: AAD009

Creative Writing

A box of sheer creativity and wonder, a carnival of colour, shimmer, and glow. Forward thinking and innovation, shapeshift and hide.  I am consumed by all yet no two will see me the same. No matter how strong I am I always seem to break and when broken I am always forgotten and replaced. I can provide endless confidence but don’t get too consumed or all I will deliver is endless self-hate.

We were tasked with beginning the process of writing with this prompt. I have always found creative writing difficult and putting yourself into the mindset of an inanimate object was quite challenging. However, with this came a flow of writing that would prove useful for the research that we were given to do. I chose the thing that was right in front of me, a makeup palette and focused primarily on the positives and negatives of makeup in general to try and make the object distinguishable.

Betty Tompkins- Feminist Art

     

The works of Betty Tompkins are heavily inspired by her abusive past relationship with her misogynistic ex-husband. Her work features the extreme contrast between the “idealistic” domestic scene and images heavily laced with profanity, pornographic images from her husband’s collection of magazines and graphic depictions of sexual acts. Her work has a soft focus with a hyper-realistic style to create her depictions of both male and female genitalia, contrasting with her type heavy style which covers most of her work. Tompkins often crops out faces and other identifying anatomy in order to remove the presence of race, time, identity and humanity. In my opinion this creates a much-needed depiction of the absent mindedness of abusive relationships and rape that victims often describe. Her work is often known to spread across walls and have a large expansion in order to incapsulate the audience and transport them into the mindset of those that she paints.

Between 1969 and 1974, a series of eight ‘Fuck Paintings’ were created using an airbrush, building upon layers of black and white acrylic paint to depict close-up shots of penetration. Monochromatic and striking, her paintings were used to delve into the sexualisation of women in her era and how they were desired only in a “trophy” sort of way. She reopened her galleries in 2002 and asked women of a new era to send words that were often used to describe women in a derogatory fashion, thus her type ridden work was created; showcasing the remaining issue of misogyny in a modern world.

In my opinion her work is important to showcase the remaining fear and threat that women still feel in a progressive society. Women are still seen as inferior to men in many ways, thus making the works of feminist artists who take back the sexualisation of their bodies and make it into a celebration and symbol of female oppression so paramount for youth of today’s generation. Feminism is of upmost importance in contemporary art and the use of simplistic font covering traditional roles of females is something that anyone could understand and relate to. This is why Tompkins work can reach the masses, her simplistic and shocking value to her art employs the viewer to consider the harsh and very real issues that she puts across in her works.

 

Paula Rego- Abortion Rights

Rego’s work reflects  a referendum to legalise abortion in Portugal, which was very narrowly defeated. In her response the the works she created in this series she states that her work “highlights the fear and pain and danger of an illegal abortion, which is what desperate women have always resorted to. It’s very wrong to criminalize women on top of everything else. Making abortions illegal is forcing women to the backstreet solution. I’m doing what I can with my work but both men and women need to stand up to this. It affects men too. You don’t get pregnant on your own do you?” Each piece depicts the disturbing scene of a young woman going through the life altering process of an illegal or “backstreet” abortion. It is in her view that the topic of abortion needs to be normalized for the safety of women in both a physical and mental state.

Rego recalls when opening her gallery to the masses she heard the whispers of women discussing her work. It is her belief as a feminist that these issues need to reach the wider world in order to destigmatize abortion and protect the lives of vulnerable women. Her works have a large reachability due to the controversial topics of her paintings and with the feminist movement being at an all time large they are the topic for discussion among many.

As a woman I think that she raises important issues in her work and drives the harsh and shocking reality of the dangers women in a society where abortion is frowned upon and still up for debate. The simplicity of her style allows for the message to be effectively delivered to any critic of her works. This is why the effect of her work is so instantly shocking, this is the type of artwork that helps to drive the feminist movement forward.


Oct
2020

Alt. Means (digital resources)- Monograms

categories: AAD009

                                                                       

 

I really like the monograms that I made with my initials, I made a rough sketch of them first to see how the letters K and B would interlock and fit together in the most pleasing way. I was looking at brand logos such as Vera Wang as inspiration for my designs. I used a drawing application to get the designs looking as graphic and bold as possible, I knew from the off that I wanted to use bold black and stark white (the two most contrasting shades) for my designs as it would look the most realistic for a company logo. I tried to make each design look as unique and diverse as possible, however the first design (evidently the most simplistic) is my favourite. I really like how the letters interlocked and overlapped, I think that this is the most realistic for a company logo.

This is my developed monogram, I spent a long time getting the shape of the letter the way that I wanted it. I love the roughness of it, even though it’s not the most professional looking of the designs I have done it is the one that I think represents me the best. I think that the letters appear to have a piece of my art style behind them and they look quite edgy or alternative, this is perhaps why I like them so much. I put them in a black background of the white would stand out as much as possible. The K and B are connected yet they look like two different letters at the same time, I thought that this would be the best since the style of font is quite ornate and could be confusing if the slight space wasn’t there.

I also took my most art deco looking design and decided to fill it in to make it took a little better. I think that this helped the design a lot and overall made it a much stronger and more visually striking image.

 

Initial Sketches-


Oct
2020

Alt. Means (Digital Processes)- portrait

categories: AAD009

       

I used a range of media to complete this portrait of one of my classmates. I knew with the time restrictions that acrylic paint would provide me with a fast way of layering colours to achieve an emotive appearance to the picture he provided me with. I really enjoy the outcome as in my opinion it has a melancholy appearance. I used roses over the parts of the face I knew would take the longest for me to draw, such as the mouth, this way it would cut down on the amount of time spent on the drawing process. I also enjoy incorporating “feminine” imagery with male anatomy to oppose the masculinity in the face… this is just one of my preferences as I much prefer a feminine appearance to my paintings. I also used chalk and charcoal to add some highlights and shadows to the face in the fastest way possible, I enjoy combining these medias as I think it complements the contemporary style of my paintings. I used a range of different brushwork and utilised palette knives to give the most expressive and emotive interpretation of the face that I possibly could.

I have also provided some close-up images of the painting, particularly the parts of the face that I found  interesting and expressive.

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