Creative Arts
Let’s get that out of the way to start with. If you’re following this blog because you’re a huge fan of the singer formerly known as Scary Spice I’m not her; we just happen to both be called Melanie Brown…and have the same middle initial, but that’s where the similarities end. I have started this blog to document my thoughts, feelings and work during my time as a student with The Open College of the Arts.
As usual my feedback took the form of a video discussion via google hangout with my tutor Bryan Eccleshall.
I felt much happier with this part of the course, mostly due to its relevance to the themes I’m exploring in the Parallel project. Whereas Part 4 seemed like a distraction from the work I was more pre-occupied with, this set of exercises complemented the other drawings I was making and opened up some new and interesting avenues to explore.
I have highlighted parts of the feedback that I found particularly useful and will keep this in mind.
Review against assessment criteria
Demonstration of Technical and Visual Skills
It’s good that I’m making decisions about my work and that I’m able to switch to different media if it doesn’t suit the drawing. Allowing work to feed into further work is a good thing and in this part of the course I was able to do this successfully. There was good evidence to show my work developing, not all of the areas I explore will result in further investigation but this process is a useful and important one.
Quality of Outcome
I was pleased with the outcome of most of the drawings, particularly the Assignment piece. The work I’ve been doing has started to come together to form a more cohesive body of work and I’m starting to see my personal voice in most of the drawings I’m making now.
Demonstration of Creativity
It was useful to look to Photoshop to adjust the images I worked with and then allow these to feed into further drawings. This is something I should continue to do. It is good to see the Parallel Project weaving its way through other work.
Context, research, reflective thinking, critical thinking, analysis
Research is relevant and I articulate my findings well. The Critical Review is coming together. There are a few parts that I need to work on further and I should look at the structure to make sure that the text flows and that what I include relates to the themes I am investigating.
Parallel Project
This is becoming a rich body of work. I should trust my instincts with regards to the work I’m making. I could think about creating a final piece to bring all of these together.
As usual my feedback took the form of a video discussion via google hangout with my tutor Bryan Eccleshall.
This was a set of projects that I found difficult to engage with due to lockdown restrictions. Despite this there were some nice pieces of work that could feed into future drawings. The next section of the course relates much more strongly to my Parallel Project which is becoming my focus.
I have highlighted parts of the feedback that I found particularly useful and will keep these in mind.
Melanie Brown – 516357 – D2 ID 4
Review against assessment criteria
Demonstration of Technical and Visual Skills
Some positive comments about the way in which I tackled the exercises and the use of distortion which links to my work on memory. The ideas behind my assignment piece worked well around the social distancing/ lockdown rules and met the brief.
Quality of Outcome
On the whole this was good. The adaptations I made to create site specific works around the restrictions seemed to work and there was an opportunity to merge both digital and analogue works. There were some limitations on what I could achieve given the circumstances.
Demonstration of Creativity
Although I felt disengaged from the exercises in this part of the course, I was encouraged by positive comments from my tutor. My focus is on the Parallel Project and this is driving my creativity at the moment. I felt that this body of work didn’t connect with the themes that I’m exploring for the Parallel Project and so it felt like a distraction from the ideas I have become interested in.
Context, research, reflective thinking, critical thinking, analysis
The contextual focus point was good and had relevant referencing. The artists researched will help with the work I’m doing in the Parallel Project. My learning log is progressing well. My critical review is taking shape but now I need to think about structure. I don’t need to focus on the artworks seen but can discuss my own thoughts on the exhibition and expand on some of the passages further.
Parallel Project
My work is coming together in an interesting and logical way. I could look at the idea of ‘archive’ of a subject if this is the direction I choose to take the work in. There are many different formats in which I could present this body of work. I need to make sure each piece is executed well.
Recently I became sidetracked by bananas. I’m not quite sure how it happened, but to me this view of my fruit bowl suggested that the two bananas on top had escaped from their wire prison and the apples still trapped inside were looking up enviously at them. I think working from home for 6 months may have impacted on my sanity.
After eventually consuming one of the escapees, I got on with some work leaving the banana skin on the window sill next to me. I noticed that it was changing really quickly which became a distraction. I decided to document this by taking a photo every day until its appearance stayed the same.
My first thoughts were to use the skin to create a cyanotype image. I tried this several times with no real success (I’ve had the paper a while so perhaps it’s past its best). Although I rather liked to way the water had left marks on the paper, it didn’t feel that this approach was what I wanted for this assignment, so I continued to work on other exercises while I considered how else I could achieve the right outcome for the drawing.
In the end, this assignment piece ended up being an extension of Project 3. Using the same technique I’d used in this exercise, I decided to draw the banana skin in its final stage using graphic pens. This was very time consuming and very different to the way that I‘d usually approach my work, but there was something I liked about this drawing. I think it appealed to my tendency toward the macabre – it had undertones of ‘death’ and looked slightly sinister (for a banana skin at least).
There was also the obvious connection to Andy Warhol’s famous drawing for the cover of The Velvet Underground’s debut album (The Velvet Underground & Nico, 1967) which connects to my work on the Parallel Project As he was one of the artists I saw at The Royal Academy, I decided this drawing was worth pursuing further.
Taking my tutor’s advice on using digital processes to feed into my analogue work, I used Photoshop to explore different colour options to create something more akin to a Pop Art piece.
I liked the addition of the vivid yellow and pink to the drawing, however, I didn’t want to just create a Warhol style copy. I wanted to incorporate the style of working that has evolved in my practice during Drawing 2, and has become my personal voice – especially as this is the last assignment.
I’d had this ancient framed picture stored in the shed for a while. The front had gone mouldy and wasn’t any good but I really liked the way the back of the canvas looked. I took the ideas from my digital images and thought about how I could make a drawing that was more ‘me’. I began by spreading yellow paint over the surface with a piece of wood. Once this was dry, I drew the banana skin, again with various size graphic pens.
Reflection against assessment criteria – Demonstration of Technical & Visual Skills, Quality of Outcome, Demonstration of Creativity, Context.
The final piece, now called ‘Anti-Warhol’ felt like a successful merging of both the detailed and digital images that I first drew, with the style of painting I’m currently pre-occupied with. I found drawing onto the canvas slightly harder than paper due to its texture (and that of the paint) and it pretty much destroyed all of my pens, but I like the end result. If Warhol’s image has phallic undertones (especially with its peel back sticker hiding the pink banana beneath) my drawing could be seen as a feminist alternative, demasculating the banana. This also linked to the themes I was exploring in the Sketchbook Project so I included an alternative version in my final drawings for the book.
I also thought about the juxtaposition of the comedy element of the banana skin – its association with slap stick – and the morbidity of the piece, which is another interpretation of the drawing that I find interesting. As Warhol’s work often involves themes of sex and death (particularly the Death and Disaster Series 1962-64) perhaps this version would fit quite well as a continuation of the original image.
More than at any point during Drawing 2, I have found a way of connecting and continuing ideas and themes throughout the exercises in part 5. This has enabled me to then feed these ideas in and out of projects and in doing so, the body of work that I’ve created seems to be much more cohesive. Because of this, I’ve been able to form more of a personal connection with my work which I felt was lacking in Part 4.
The theme of time fits in well with the concept of my Parallel Project and work that I’ve made in this part has given me additional ideas and resulted in further drawings that I was able to add to those I had already created. Because of the similarities in theme, I was much more able to run these exercises alongside my parallel project work and they didn’t seem a distraction from the kind of drawings that I wanted to make which was a difficulty in the previous part of the course.
Frank Auerbach was born in Berlin in 1931 and was sent to school in England to escape the Nazi occupation of Germany in 1939. Both of his parents were sent to concentration camps; Auerbach still does not know exactly where they were taken and when they were killed.
Reading about Frank Auerbach’s portraits, I can’t help but think that this experience motivates at least part of the way he approaches his work. He repeatedly paints close friends and family stating that “I find myself simply more engaged when I know the people. They get older and change; there is something touching about that, about recording something that’s getting on.” (tate.org.uk, n.d.)
If I put my counselling head on, I could suggest that the need to continuously record the important people in his life stems from losing both parents at such a young age and his experience of being alone in a foreign country. It could be interpreted as a need to feel a connection to the sitter and a way of reinforcing the relationship he has with them. This in turn leads to the style of portraits that Auerbach paints – they don’t rely on a physical likeness, but rather the essence of the person beneath.
Auerbach works 365 days a year, often sleeping in his studio. The technique he has employed since the 1960s involves applying think layers of paint to the canvas, which if he isn’t happy with at the end of the sitting, he scrapes off and starts again the next day. It can take hundreds of versions before Auerbach is satisfied with the end result. His drive to try and capture what he sees in his sitter seems relentless.
I feel that I need to see Frank Auerbach’s work before I decide whether I like it or not, I don’t think I can get a real sense of it from books or a computer screen. However, what I have seen seems to have a real sense of energy to it; I like art that conveys emotion and his work certainly does that. I’m more drawn to his self-portraits than his other work, I can’t quite put my finger on why that is. Perhaps because I have some sense of who he is as a person and can see the reflection of that in the way he has drawn himself.
Looking back at this painting from 1965 Auerbach commented to Catherine Lampert:
“Like time travel, these things unlock memories for me, sometimes more, sometimes less. It certainly takes me back to a time which, after all, is 50 years ago. It does that thing that painting is supposed to do, that is to drag the past into the present and reanimate it.” (Lampert, C. 2018)
This resonates with me as it could describe the experience I’m having at the moment in recreating the Artists in the 20th Century exhibition that I visited in 1993. My own recollections are very hit and miss, some things are very vivid and others are vague, in recording these memories, I am re-remembering and re-animating a series of events that I feel a strong emotional connection to. I think that Frank Auerbach’s technique and his method of painting the same people over and over again has a similar resonance to it and perhaps ultimately this is what drives him to create the style of work that he does.
References
Artsy.net (n.d.) Frank Auerbach [online] Available from: https://www.artsy.net/artwork/frank-auerbach-self-portrait-ii [accessed 12.09.20]
Jones, J. (2014) Frank Auerbach: a painter’s painter of horrors and joy [online] Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/aug/29/frank-auerbach-painters-painter-freud-tate-retrospective [accessed 12.09.20]
Lampert, C. (2018) To drag the past into the present and re-animate it [online] Available from: https://www.tate.org.uk/tate-etc/issue-35-autumn-2015/drag-past-present-and-re-animate-it [accessed 12.09.20]
Tate.org.uk (n.d.) Who is Frank Auerbach? [online] Available from: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/frank-auerbach/auerbach-introduction [accessed 12.09.20]
Rothschild, H. (2013) Frank Auerbach: An interview with one of our greatest living painters [online] Available from: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-features/10336972/Frank-Auerbach-An-interview-with-one-of-our-greatest-living-painters.html [accessed 12.09.20]
The drawings for this project actually started in part 3 when I was looking at site-specific artworks. I began to draw chalk out outlines of the shadows around the objects on my patio and recorded their movements every hour. However, I felt that it didn’t fit well with the brief for that project so I kept the photographs as a reminder to come back to this idea if I could in the future.
The brief for this exercise lent itself to making a drawing that elapsed over time and I began the process again, this time using a fuschia plant as it created some unusual shapes on the paving slabs beneath. I didn’t change colour each time I updated the position of the shadows – as I had with my earlier attempt – as I felt that the marks I made needed to feel more connected to one another.
As I was concerned about losing my work to the weather, I decided to work from photographs, unfortunately these didn’t show the chalk lines up particularly well so I adjusted the curves of the images in Photoshop so that I could pick out some of the lighter chalk marks. I also liked the effect that this gave to the fuchsia bush itself which appeared more abstract.
Taking these as my starting point, I then drew the shapes of the chalk lines, trying out different media and colour combinations. These were an attempt to try and convey the movement of the shadows rather than what I’d actually seen but I wasn’t overly happy with the results.
Although I quite liked the abstract look of these drawings, I felt they needed to more resemble the way that I had made the chalk marks, so I switched to using a continuous line technique with graphic pen.
I’m much happier with these outcomes. I feel that the simpler line drawings are more successful than those that I’ve begun to add more background detail into though; there’s something quite organic about the shapes that have been formed and leaving the shadow out of them, gives the drawings a different feeling.
This exercise could be seen as a record of time passing but I also think it requires time on the part of the viewer to make sense of the work – I’m not sure that I would be able to work out what the drawings were of if I wasn’t told.
There is something I like about them though; there’s a juxtaposition between the simplicity and the complexity of the lines. It reminds me of some of the work I made in the drawing machine exercise in part 3. There’s a randomness to the marks which feels quite exciting; I wasn’t in control of where the chalk lines went, it was dependent on where the shadows fell but in re-drawing them I gained some form of control back. I think this is an idea that appears throughout a lot of my more successful work – an opportunity to let go of some form of control and then allow this inform or feed into the drawings I then create.
Research
Hans-Peter Feldmann (b.1941)
Hans-Peter Feldmann describes himself as a collector rather than an artist. His work includes collections of everyday objects such as shoes and clothes as well as found and appropriated images, often using humour to change the meaning of well-known images.
In the late 1960s, he began creating artists books which he titled ‘Bilde’ (Picture). Feldmann’s books have the appearance of a catalogue or brochure, which adds to the feeling of the work inside as being of the mundane or every day. I think this is part of the reason that he leaves his work untitled and unsigned – the images involved are familiar objects that we don’t often give a second thought to. However, I also read that he wants the images to be free from ownership by one person and sees the personal experience of the viewer as what gives them value (simonleegallery.com, n.d.). so this could be another reason for not ‘claiming’ them as his.
Ed Ruscha (b.1937)
I have previously researched Ed Ruscha‘s Twenty Six Gasoline Stations (1963) as part of the Creative Arts Today course but thought his work was worth a mention as I feel it links with the way Hans-Peter Feldmann collects and organises his images in a very methodical way. In Ruscha’s book, he documents the journey between his home in Los Angeles and his parent’s house in Oklahoma along Route 66, by photographing the petrol stations along the way.
Route 66 itself has significance due to its links to popular culture and envokes a sense of nostalgia of an America long since gone. Ruscha’s photographs, none of which include people, suggests a consumer society that has become detached from human connection, In this way it differs from Hand-Peter Feldmann’s work, which has a more personal feel to it.
The uniform layout of the the black and white photographs seems to reflect the repetitive nature of his journey along the road. I was interested to discover that the title came before the photos, in Rusha’s words, ‘I like the word gasoline and I like the specific quality of twenty-six’ (tate.org.uk). Much like a lot of his other work, the significance of words seems to play an important part in the making of Ruscha’s artist’s books.
Sol LeWitt (1928-2007)
I really like the order and simplicity of Sol LeWitt‘s artist’s books. The idea of taking a universally recognised shape or object and exploring it over and over in different ways is a process that I really enjoy. There is a graphic element to LeWitt’s work which I think reflects his background as a designer, as does his methodical way of sequencing and ordering each image.
His work reminded me of Hayley Field’s Across the River in the Tress (2017-present), an artist that I saw as part of the Women100 exhibition at Ipswich Art Gallery back in 2019. In this ongoing series, she makes ‘colour maps’ of the landscape around her at that particular moment, each has a small pencil note underneath with the date and a description of the pigments used. Field documents her view vertically, either from sky to river or vice versa.
This research has inspired me to try and incorporate this way of working into my work on memory. It also ties in somewhat with the final two paintings at the end of Project 1, where I recorded the memory of my bike ride. I could use this idea of making a sequential record of my memories. It could be in an abstract way along the lines of Field or LeWitt‘s work as this would reflect the fragmented nature of my memories, or perhaps in a more literal way by ordering each image by the time of day that the memory was made.
My artist’s book
This exercise came about while I was already in the process of starting an artist’s book for the Brooklyn Art Gallery’s The Sketchbook Project https://www.sketchbookproject.com. The idea behind this is that once each sketchbook is completed, it is sent to their library, catalogued and then is available to view much like a regular library book. The collection also travels around various sites in the USA on their Bookmobile. I thought this would be a fun project to undertake as it is a way of connecting with people from all over the world and having my work stored in a library means that it’s a little bit of a legacy, perhaps my children or grandchildren will look it up one day.
The sketchbook turned out to be quite a personal project; I didn’t intend it to be when I started out, but there was something about the idea that future generations might flick through it, that lent to a theme of self and the people (or personal heroes I guess) and ideas that have been important in forming who I am.
In a lot of these drawings, I built on the process that I had tried out with the mark-making exercise in part 2 – cutting out images from old comic books and putting them alongside text which changed their meaning. I combined these with pencil drawings and other mixed media pieces. The repeating circle pattern was a motif that I wanted to follow through the book as a reference to the links between myself and its contents, and also as an idea that history (or herstory in this case) seems to have a habit of repeating itself. A version of the drawing I produced for assignment 5 currently titled Anti-Warhol also made an appearance as this was an image that I was pre-occupied with at the time, and I felt it fitted with the theme of the book.
I was fairly pleased with the outcome of the sketchbook. Admittedly, I didn’t spend a huge amount of time perfecting the drawings as it didn’t seem appropriate or necessary. I think I achieved what I set out to do in as far as the message I wanted to convey in this work.
What I think is important is that I allowed this exercise to feed into my work on the parallel project, using this as a starting point to create a hand made artist’s book as part of the work for my exhibition case. This enabled me to expand on ideas of how I could incorporate my ideas around memory into the same type of sketchbook that we were given on the trip to the Royal Academy. The final version can be seen here https://notscaryspice.wordpress.com/2020/05/13/parallel-project/
Update and Further Research
Although I haven’t yet tackled the whole of Jacques Derrida’s Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression (1995) what I have read has made me reflect further on my interest in creating this sketchbook. He begins by discussing the entomology of the word archive by looking at a literal interpretation of its Greek origin arkheion, meaning a house, a domicile, an address, the residence of the superior magistrates (Derrida, J. 1995). He goes on to explain that official documents were kept in the homes of the politically powerful and that only they had the right to interpret these, in doing so making the archive something they controlled.
What strikes me about the most about this, is how far we have come from this idea of an archive as a closely guarded document. The internet and social media in particular have given us the ability to show anything we consider important to the entire world. The archive has become a very public affair (perhaps too public). The work I’ve been making around memory during Drawing 2 isn’t really significant to anyone but myself, yet I have made it accessible to anyone who wants to look at it through this learning log and through The Sketchbook Project. Instead of it being a private collection that can only be viewed and explained by a chosen few, it feels like I have given up my right to control the meaning of this body of work by sharing it so freely. I don’t dislike this idea – in fact I’m considering starting another sketchbook to submit to the gallery. I’m interested in the idea of forming a continuing archive that I create and then effectively give away, it seems the opposite of what was originally meant by the term ’archive’ and that in itself is attractive to me.
On reflection, what this exercise did for me was to open a few more doors and another way of thinking about my work. The quality of the outcome of the original sketchbook, which to begin with troubled me, no longer seems to matter because I now have another avenue to explore. I envision this as a possible direction that the themes in the parallel project and my work beyond Drawing 2 could develop in to in the future.
References
Derrida, J., 1996. Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression, University of Chigaco Press.
Guggenheim.org (n.d.) Collection Online: Hans-Peter Feldmann [accessed 02 September 2020] Available from: https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/hans-peter-feldmann [accessed 02.09.20]
Hayleyfield.com, 2018. Hayley Field artist [online] [accessed 02 September 2020] Available from https://www.hayleyfield.com/
Liberty, M. 2019. Sol LeWitt’s Conceptual Book Art [online] [accessed 02 September 2020] Available from: https://hyperallergic.com/517744/sol-lewitts-conceptual-book-art/
Printedmatter.org, 2020. Book as System: The Artists’ Books of Sol LeWitt [online] [accessed 02 September 2020] Available from: https://www.printedmatter.org/programs/events/877
Simonleegallery.com, n.d.. Hans-Peter Feldmann [online] [accessed 02 September 2020] Available from: https://www.simonleegallery.com/artists/hans-peter-feldmann/
Sketchbookproject.com, 2020. The Sketchbook Project [online] [accessed 02 September 2020] Available from: https://www.sketchbookproject.com/
White, M. 2013. Edward Ruscha ‘Twentysix Gasoline Stations’ 1963 [online] [accessed 02 September 2020] Available from: https://www.tate.org.uk/about-us/projects/transforming-artist-books/summaries/edward-ruscha-twentysix-gasoline-stations-1963
Research
Gwen Hardie
Gwen Hardie is a Scottish artist who makes intricate drawings of her own skin. At first glance these look very abstract; I’m not sure I would have known what the paintings were of without reading about them first.
There is a feeling of scientific analysis to the work, it seems that she is as interested in what lies beneath the skin as what’s on the surface. The use of a round support exacerbates this feeling – suggesting that the viewer is looking down a microscope. Hardie comments on this choice stating that she feels ‘very energised by this curvilinear format.’ (Hardie, G. 2012) and discusses the association we have with circular images, linking to optical lenses, both those of scientific instruments and the ones we have in our own eyes.
This idea of connecting the way we see with what we see is an interesting one. Hardie works from observations of her own skin, not from photographs and I think this approach is reflected in the way she paints. I was also interested to read that each painting is produced in a limited amount of time. Hardie spends around 5 hours on each painting, capturing a moment in time. If the resulting painting isn’t up to scratch, it is disposed of and she starts again.
Jenya Uzhegova, James Jean & Paul Heaston
I discovered these artists when looking for ideas for the sketchbook project. They all make detailed, extended drawings which look like they must have taken hours to create. I particularly like Uzhegova’s drawing of China Town – the chaos and hustle and bustle of the place has been transported on the page of her sketchbook by the use of meticulous detail, capturing every tiny part of the scene.
Paul Heaston is a similar artist. He draws his surroundings in amazing detail. I particularly like the way he seems to have distorted the image above, which makes it feel even more full, even including his own hands and sketchbook in the image. James Jean on the other hand creates illustrations based on fantasy. His work is quite surreal and I like that I’m not sure what’s really going on in his drawings. They remind me a little of those of Arthur Rackham, having a slightly sinister quality about them.
Exercise
I was initially confused as to what was being asked of me in this exercise, thinking that the end result needed to be some sort of hyper-realistic drawing. After a few read-throughs, I interpreted the brief to mean merely a drawing that needed to be focused and contained a lot of detail.
To begin with, I drew what was close to hand; the first drawings were of my eye as I found the intricate parts of the iris a good starting point. I have to admit, I found drawing in this way a challenge, I normally approach work in a more expressive, less controlled manner and forcing myself to slow down and draw what felt like every minute detail was very difficult.
I was at a bit of a loss at what direction to go in as I didn’t really like anything about the eye drawings. When I flicked through my sketchbooks for inspiration, I noticed that during the many online meetings about risk assessments that I’ve had to sit through recently, I had gotten into a habit of passing the time by drawing geometric patterns. These could be interpreted to fit the brief of an extended doodle or complex drawing? I’m still not really sure.
I decided not to think too hard about what was being asked of me and to just go with making some drawings that I felt appropriate to the title ‘A finer focus.’ My first idea was to draw continuously while watching a film, layering images over one another as the action progressed. This drawing was a response to Jaws.
Although technically it’s not great (trying to draw at speed before the next scene started was hard) I like that as the tension mounted, my response seems to have become more animated and the lines I’ve made darker and less controlled. There’s an awful lot going on in this image and it’s perhaps difficult to see that the film inspired the drawings. However, the more I look at it the more I see, especially the larger figures, which seem more prominent when viewed from a distance. Although, up close it does look like a jumbled mess in my opinion.
This led to a larger drawing (going slightly off on a tangent from my original idea) of one of my favourite scenes from the movie. This was much more intuitive and based a lot more on my memory of the image than anything concrete. Again, this doesn’t really relate to the brief but it evolved from my previous work. I think it was at this point I realised that I was trying to work in a way that didn’t feel natural and that these further drawings were a reaction to a need to express myself in a much freer way.
I decided to have one last try at making a detailed drawing. For whatever reason, I started looking at the bananas in my fruit bowl. Noticing the oddness of these fruits when viewed up close led to the final two drawings. I was particularly interested in the bit at the end of the banana which appears to be really coarse and fibrous, and that there were lots of different textures that seemed at odds with each other. I also liked the bruised side of one of the bananas which, when seen in landscape, looked like the surface of a planet, so I drew this in the most detailed, meticulous way that I could muster.
What I’ve learnt from this exercise is that my relationship with the subject is affected by working in this style, but not necessarily in a positive way. The process was painstaking; I became bored halfway through if I’m honest. Once I’d lost interest I just wanted to get the drawing over and done with which took all the enjoyment out of the process, and because of this, I lost any kind of connection with the subject.
What did happen was a feeling that I needed to get to the bottom of what had caught my interest with the banana. This then began my work on assignment 5 which is very much a progression of these first 2 drawings. The ideas I was having for the work I wanted to make for the assignment took precedence over pursuing this exercise any further. At least I can now say that I don’t like working in this way and that I feel that it doesn’t really fit with my ‘personal voice.’
Stephen Walter
Stephen Walter‘s work is so incredibly intricate, I can’t imagine spending years on one drawing as Walter does to create his large scape maps. Looking at them, I feel slightly overwhelmed – there’s so much to take in.
I read that Walter’s work links to the history and identity of place (Walter n.d.) and this is an idea that interests me. My work on the parallel project focuses on my experience of visiting the Royal Academy but my response seems very different in it’s execution to Walter’s. My work feels much more impulsive – as a reaction to memories which link to emotions and feelings of that time.
Stephen Walter’s maps appear more restrained, much more like a historical recording of the history of a place, even though the landmarks and notes he makes are often based on signs, symbols and his own experiences. His work looks at our connection with place and our connection to the world around us.
Update
I’ve come back to this exercise as I wasn’t happy with any of the drawings that I’d produced. I think I was pre-occupied with my work on assignment 5 and wasn’t really able to focus on anything else at the time. I’ve thought more about Paul Heaston and Stephen Walter’s work, and the idea of place, and decided to draw my coffee table as its been my view from where I’ve been sat while writing my blog. At the time that I drew it, it was very messy but I thought the clutter made for a more interesting composition. I think this fits the brief better than my previous attempts.
References
artnet.com, n.d. Stephen Walter, [online] Available from: http://www.artnet.com/artists/stephen-walter/ accessed 02.09.20
Black, C. (2012) Gwen Hardie: A New Body of Work [online] Available from: https://gwenhardie.com/a-new-body-of-work/ accessed 02.09.20
Lexington, T. (2017) Artist’s Sketchbooks That Will Change Your Life [online] Available from: https://thebluereview.net/artist-sketchbooks-that-will-change-your-life-or-at-least-inspire-you-to-start-drawing-6ae04103838c accessed 02.09.20
stephenwalter.org, n.d., Stephen Walter [online] Available from: https://stephenwalter.org/ accessed 02.09.20
TAG Fine Arts (n.d.) Stephen Walter [online] Available from: https://www.tagfinearts.com/artists/stephen-walter/ accessed 09.09.20
My office at home is on the third floor of the house so I often get distracted by birds on the roof tops below. I decided to try to sketch them in flight to work out what I could see and how to show the movements that they were making.
My first ideas revolved around repetition – trying to draw the way that the bird’s wings moved – but in reality these movements were too fast to capture. Instead I started to think about using a different media to give a sense of the action of the wings rather than trying to draw everything.
Using ink and a collection of different tools, I next played around with the way I could make marks that suggested the bird was in flight. As I drew I realised that the images were becoming more and more abstract so that the focus of them changed from the shape of the bird to just the movement it was making. This felt more successful than my previous attempts.
I also have a great view of the Orwell Bridge from up here. Because of the barriers either side I can’t really make out smaller vehicles like cars but I can see lots of lorries heading for the port. I drew this series on a rainy, overcast day, again trying to capture the sense of movement rather than any accurate representation of the scene. I like the spontaneity of these drawings, the movement of the ink reflects the speed of the passing vehicles and the smudginess of the marks replicate my blurry view of the bridge on the day.
I was enjoying this way of working and the different results I was achieving with ink, so after my bike ride the next day I tried to draw some of the things I remembered riding past. I wondered whether making myself the moving object would change the outcome of my drawings. I was also interested in the fact that these had to be drawn from memory and how this way of approaching the work would differ to my previous attempts to capture movement.
Both drawings below are from my bike ride in the park – the first is of the long grass that runs alongside the footpath and the second is the river with rain drops falling into it. Again these are quite abstract but there’s something I like about them. I think it relates to the small fragments of information that they ‘give up’ to the viewer. It seems just enough to give a clue as to what the images are about without ever really telling them.
There is also a link to my work on memory and how we sometimes think that we remember something well, when in reality we often just recall a small moment of the event which we then fill in with details later so that it feels complete. The way in which I saw the environment around me while cycling was similar. I saw in small glimpses; parts of objects, scraps of this and that which were recognisable, but because I was moving at speed the majority was a blur.
Overall, I was happier once I moved away from my preconceptions about what this exercise was asking for. I think I’ve come up with a few drawings that have the potential to lead into another way of working, so from a technical perspective this has been a useful task. I still feel more interested in the experimental stage of drawing than in the idea of producing one final piece, and the different marks I was able to make with the ink and tools are what really captured my imagination.
As usual my feedback took the form of a video discussion via google hangout with my tutor Bryan Eccleshall.
This was an exciting set of projects that I felt engaged with. I feel that I am suited to this exploratory way of working and have begun to find my personal voice in part 3.
I have highlighted parts of the feedback that I found particularly useful and will keep this in mind.
Melanie Brown – 516357 – D2 ID 3
Review against assessment criteria
Demonstration of Technical and Visual Skills
I received many positive comments with regards to all of the exercises particularly with regard to the assignment piece. I now need to think about how I can incorporate these skills and this way of working into future work and how to allow these ideas to feed into further drawings.
Quality of Outcome
Again some very encouraging comments with regards to the approaches I took, especially in the drawing machine exercise. I could look at how varying the thickness of lines affects my work and how I can use Photoshop as a way to link back into my drawings.
Demonstration of Creativity
I feel that this part of the course has been the one that I have most engaged with due to its exploratory nature. My tutor commented it on being an important moment in finding my personal voice and I need to remember the feelings I had when creating the assignment piece and try to incorporate it into my work
Context, research, reflective thinking, critical thinking, analysis
The Erased de Kooning research point was successful and this is how I should approach the critical review. I should back up my opinions with quotes and make sure I cite these. Keep adding reflective comments to projects to show what has/ hasn’t worked and why. For the critical review I should pare back ideas and look at the possibility of including Proust’s madeleine as a reference to memory.
Parallel Project
We discussed how I could use my memories of the American Art in the 20th Century exhibition to form a body of work. There are a lot of different avenues I could explore here, I should keep investigating these. The concept of failure of memory and the term ‘Einmal ist Keinmal could also feed into these ideas.
Melanie Brown: OCA Learning Log 