For our final project in FIN210 – we have a blank canvas – a Tabula Rasa as the Romans would say. Very few rules apart from it must be essentially a drawing . We needed to consider three different ideas and work them up into one final hurrah. Being impetuous I tend to grab an idea and want to run with it – so the two other options felt a bit of a distraction – but it ultimately turns out that there are merits in all sorts of different processes. Linda did ask for 10 pages in the sketchbook but the sketchbook isnt my favorite way of working so this wordpress site will be the substitute.
My first thought was to go back to the very first classes and the work we did on perspective.
I had a few ideas about that and I had already considered this for the mid term
I was pretty struck with this idea straight from the get go – but we needed to also consider two other concepts. The first one was working up the drawing that I have been using for the light studies – which has been a location in kin beach which i like a lot. Perhaps try to do a really good job of working up the image – a challenge to my limited skills…The other was going back to the dreaded vases. Perhaps even making a bisque vase, drawing on it and then breaking it – perhaps more of a performance than a drawing though
The vase idea did however make me think about the multiple concept – which I was keen on
In our in class discussions the germ of an idea was generated about possibly incorporating all theree concepts in some way. Multiple cubes similar to the vases and some link with kin beach. Perhaps a wash of colour with the same sort of pallette as kin beach with some cubes??
apart from the background the park also has primary colored elements in the playground equipment. First lets try some multiples
Then what about colors and materials for the cubes? – loads of different options to test
Linda and I discussed cutting cubes from one of the kin beach color washes – which I liked the idea of. Unfortunately the watercolor wash on that particular paper didn’t work at all well for cutting the shapes out which left the multiples. I was looking at using the prinary colors of the playground equipment as the kin beach element . I started with the red
But that then created a bit of a quandry – the red elements took me back to the beardsley art projcet and I wondered whether red black and white might be a better combination??
ultimately I went with the three colors – red a yellow went well, but the first blue I selected i felt was too dark and i switched to a lightere more “playground” blue. How to deal with the dark blue?? I considered cutting a light blue shape and collaging it over the dark blue, but decided that having one cube that was slightly different – like having one red vase in that drawing was better – so here we have the final project
I chose the work of Beardsley as I have always liked the style of the work and producing the PowerPoint was relatively straightforward. Creating art in his style however is a different thing. The style is quite unique and his subject matter is quite racy, but I have looked at going back to his roots and influence by Japanese wood block printing.
next issue is to choose the media and also the imagery. The red orb is evocative of Japanese woodcuts (though some of Beardsley’s influences may well have been more figurative and less abstract, so starting there seems a good idea. First effort was to use conte as its a medium i am comfortable with, and should produce a fairly uniform color. of course the usual problems come to light with smudging using conte – though i should hopefully be able to address them or switch to wax pastel,,,,
Next option was wax conte – not happy at all with how that was looking and wondered if I could get a richer red – so decided to have a go with red food coloring
am happy with the mask imagery as it is consistent with Beardsley’s style but want to have several different images and therefore took a look at using watercolor
quite like the watercolor but don’t feel it goes well in combination with the food coloring
so have decided to overpaint the pastel which hopefully means i will be able to place another image on top without smudging, plus another watercolor sphere, planning on using the mask imagery on one and a raven on another, even though the raven doesn’t feature much in Beardsley’s work, that gothic feel i think is consistent with some of his images. then am planning on adding some sweeping ink lines in the style of the peacock skirt
In the end I chose a triptych – the mask image on a revised watercolor background the hairstyle from the peacock skirt and a raven – the raven is not a symbol you specifically see in Beardsley’s work but it has a similar gothic feel tome of the symbols he uses
also added some ink lines riffing off the flow in many of his drawings
and here the same with the images swapped
Unit 2 – reflection. This project was quite a learning process. Taking a research project and seeing it through to my own artwork. I am happy with my choice of artist, as Beardsley’s work was quite nostalgic for me, and i like his edgy style. As I mentioned in the presentation I first saw his work 50 years ago, and for a while had a couple of art books of his work, which disappeared many years ago. I enjoyed the presentation. Over the years I have spoken at many venues on a whole range of topics and I try hard to engage my audience. I feel a number of my classmates could benefit with some help and suggestions about presenting – particularly if using media such as PowerPoint. It’s really important not to crowd the slides or notes with massive amounts of information – just use the images as a prompt, and also reading verbatim isn’t great – its not possible to engage an audience when reading from a script or a phone. Creating the piece presented several challenges. I knew i didn’t have the skills necessary to create drawings with Beardsley’s finesse so i looked for images emblems and motifs which might at least capture some of his essence. The use of materials was also a challenge. The red circle was going to be a core element and my first shot used chalk pastel as I felt I could get an even coloration using that media. Pastel however is so sensitive to smudging and it became clear I was going to need something different/. Had a shot with red food color, but found it too garish, so settled on watercolor. I hadn’t realized you could get watercolor paints in tubes – which are a lot handier than tablets – so that really helped for this and for future work. The mask, hair and raven emblems were reasonably straightforward, and I feel they had a connection to the artist even if i didn’t see the raven in any of his drawings, it had that gothic type of vibe. but the big move was trying to get his defining sweeping lines with a brush and ink. I did a couple of practice runs which were OK, but there’s no going back once you start applying ink to the work which you have already spent a lot of time on. I was not entirely happy with all the marks but felt they at least had some sense of the artist. I enjoyed the positive comments during critique, but sometimes in this class full of such talented people i wonder if I’m the village idiot that people are just humoring….I do know however that my confidence has grown during the class and there are a few marks and processes which I am beginning to feel are my own style which I’m looking forward to carrying forward.
so this is the start of FIN210. A course I had originally entered with fear and trepidation – but reassurances from Linda and other faculty have put some of my fears to rest. First class was some plein aire work. I have a real struggle converting the 3D images that I observe into a 2D representation. The first studies are from the pottery studio. It was sad seeing the studio lying idle when there is normally so much activity going on.
Here are the sketches made in the pottery studio. I wasn’t particularly pleased with anu of them – the pencil sketches through the window are a bit finnicky. I was quite keen on the drawing of Nim’s barbies but in the end we settled on the vases to be the one to work up for homework. The concept was to get some impression of light dark and shade
I wasn’t at all confident that I would be able to do this – but I had quite a good photo which gave me a few clues about how to go about it. After drawing the vase outlines lightly with graphite I tried various media to see how they responded
And the finally the finished item – I was quite surprised that it seems to have turned out OK..
