Art as a Message.

 

 

The artist of this painting has used realist colours to portray the focal point of this piece which I feel really grabs the viewers attention. I also like the use of bright colours used in the background of this as I feel it makes it look more like street art and graffiti instead of a piece portraying a message.

I like how the artist has used contrast between the street art and the internet pop up as I feel its feel thought of and clever and really makes the viewer think about the piece.

The shapes of the painting are typical street art/graffiti shapes, in which you would expect a piece of graffiti to look like.

I think this piece represents that the internet and the part it plays in society is becoming so large that it is starting to block out how people view the world, or in fact actually viewing it at all. I think that it is trying to show that people are so absorbed into their own phones/laptops/tablets or other forms of digital devices that we are missing out on viewing the world. Therefore the internet pop up is blocking us from seeing the full piece of art because we do not view the world fully.

I like this piece as I think it is clever how it is designed and that it is displayed on a public wall so people can view it and interpret it in their own way.

 

 

 

I feel this painting is a rebellious dig at the stereotypical view in society of homeless individuals. I feel when people see a homeless person asking for spare change they give a negative attitude towards them   

Feminist Art Critism.

Judy Chicago - July 20, 1939 in Chicago, Illinois

Judy Chicago is an American feminist artist, art educator, and writer known for her large collaborative art installation pieces which examine the role of women in history and culture. Born Judith Cohen, she changed her name after the death of her father and her first husband, choosing to disconnect from the idea of male dominated naming conventions. By the 1970s, Chicago had coined the term "feminist art" and had founded the first feminist art program in the United States. Chicago's work incorporates stereotypical women's artistic skills, such as needlework, counterbalanced with stereotypical male skills such as welding and pyrotechnics. Chicago's masterpiece is The Dinner Party, which is in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum.

Chicago's aim is to portray the power of women through her art and prove that in the art community, women can produce pieces of work of an extremely high quality. Chicago teaches women the skills needed to express the female perspective in their work and help develop feminist art.

Her iconic piece The Dinner Party, is an installation artwork. Widely regarded as the first epic feminist artwork, it functions as a symbolic history of women in Western civilization. There are 39 elaborate place settings arranged along a triangular table for 39 mythical and historical famous women such as Virginia Woolf, Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and Theodora of Byzantium.

Sol

8/12/15

Today I started target audience research. I started by looking at different styles of homes people in the age brief (25+) would live in and then considering the type of life style they live. I have also taken into consideration the price range our target audience would consider. As the target audience is fairly young, I believe the majority of them would prefer modern styles. Therefore I have researched modern architecture and architects that build modern style homes. 

Sketch book work

8/12/15

In today's lesson I continued to create different mood boards. For this mood board I incorporated different elements of the door including handles, Windows, colours and the look of contemporary doors. I used black paper for the back ground and colleged different photos on the top. 

As the theme of the doors is 'Let the Outside in' I created another mood board based on this brief. I found images of doors based in outside areas and that incorporate trees and nature. I also found images of Windows like this and that have large windows that let lots of natural light inside. Like the previous mood board I researched colours and door handles. For colours I used nature based colours such as green and blues, relating to grass and the sky. For handles I found images of nature based handles including animals, stones and leaves. My favourite is the tree branch handle. 

On the next page I started to design doors and keyholes. I drew these out and using a craft knife, cut them so they cut open and you could see through the keyholes. Behind these I will write annotations and insert images of gardens. 

Distinction Doors

3/12/15

Today we started our new brief 'Distincion Doors'. I started by making a mind map to plan everything out in which I needed to do to complete this unit to achieve a pass. 

After I made this plan I started to design a series of mood boards relating to different colours of doors. I printed the distinction doors colour swatches from there website and used these to find images of different doors. I based the colours on black and whites, greens, blues, pinks and purples, reds and oranges and yellows. I split each page into two and allowed each board half a page. 

Final studio practice.

Looking at architectural elements from Renaissance paintings, I have looked more closely at different styles of pillars. The pillar I have chosen to draw was a personal favourite as I liked how even though it was a plain and simple design, it was still effective. To make my design sheet more interesting I have chosen to photocopy the original drawing and colour them in bright colours, attempting to shade. I then placed them in a diagonal setting to fill out the page. 


 

For my Frank Stella artist research page, I wanted to attempt to recreate one of his pieces, or one that would be similar. To do this I cut out similar shapes from one of his pieces and painted them in similar colours. To create the marbled effect he has on se shapes, I used a wooden ball that was dipped in paint and rolled it around the page because I cut the shapes out. I tried to make a pop up piece by cutting a spiral out of the sheet, however if it was stuck to the opposite side and opened the spiral drooped so I left it as it was. For the background I mixed paint to make a lighter blue and yellow, painting the paper blue and scraping the yellow across the page using a piece of card. Originally, I was going to use a sponge to dap the paint across the page but I didn't like the effect it created. I then stuck each shape onto the page overlapping/interlocking some and high wrong others using fixtures on the page. As I wanted this as a pop up page, even though it didn't work out as well as I hoped, for the cover, I wanted it to be a simple title page showing his name and some other examples of his work. To do this I drew two different painting and painted them in similar colours to his work. I then used a font I found on 'da font.com' for his name. 


 

My final artist research page is Peter Dahman. For the background of these pages I used black brusho ink as when he photographs his work he always uses a black background. Because his art is paper sculptures I wanted to create my own. This became more difficult then it appeared to be. It took many trial and errors to figure out how to create a template for this design. My first attempt consisted of a paper made fan that would open when the page was turned but this meant it would be in a straight line, I wanted it to go from corner to corner of the double spread page. Looking more closely at Peter Dahmans work, I experimented with cutting into the paper instead of just folding it. Using the fan template I used before I cut out strips but left a rulers width at the top and half way down the sheet. This templates works how I wanted it to go. Therefore I replicated it two extra times. I then faced the problem it would not stick to the page. I tried to glue it but it kept lifting and pulling away from the page so I used double sided tape instead. This worked. I am extremely proud of this sculpture I have created and I feel it really pushed me into challenging myself in using different medians of materials. 

For the book of images of Peter Dahmans work, I simply printed off images of different sculptures he has created and stuck them onto black paper, again for the same reason as he uses black backgrounds. I then tied them together using string and stuck the bottom image to the page. 

Woodwork workshop.

1/12/15

In today's workshop I began to sculpt the back base, frame and final arch for my sculpture. I started by getting all the measurements for each piece of wood I needed. My instructor, Brad, then cut out a piece of wood for the back base and arch as my measurements were two big for the band saw. 

For the arch I used the clay arches I had made in the ceramics workshop as a stencil so that I knew the pieces would match up because they would be the same size. I then cut out the arch using the band saw and the bobbin sander to sand it down. Doing this I accidentally cut over the markings using the saw and then when sanding to make it even again, I in fact made it worse. To solve this I simply drew a more even arch and used that mark to sand it evenly. 

For the frame I used two long pieces of wood and a router to make a rebate at the edge of them for the back base to sit onto. Using this machine I had to higher the drill bit every time I made a groove until the right height for it was achieved, this was so the machine was not over stressed by taking large chunks of wood out at a time. As the wood became to splinter because it caught onto the fence. Brad coated the fence in three layers of masking tape to stop the wood from catching, on the last run through on the machine the masking tape was removed so the drill could remove the small amount of wood remaining because of the distance between the tape and fence. 

Measuring the pieces of wood to the back base I marked out the length of wood I needed and used a mitre saw to cut out a 45 degree angle into the wood. To ensure that both side of the frame were the same size, I set up a piece of wood to rest the frame piece against to ensure it wouldn't move. I did this for all four piece. I then used a frame clamp to clamp all the pieces together and slotted the back base in to ensure the frame was the right size. As it was slightly big I used the mitre saw again to cut down each frame piece until the base slotted in perfectly. After that I glued each piece together wiping away all excess glue and placing the back base back in again while it was still clamped to prevent the frame warping and becoming a rhombus shape instead of a rectangle. 

Printmaking Workshop.

24/11/15

For today's workshop we started with printmaking with Jess. For this we etched a pattern onto Perspex and using oil paints, printed the design onto wood, cotton and paper. 

During the studio practise I had already design a few patterns to which i could use for the printmaking workshop. The design I chose to use was a Julie Mahetru inspired design. I began to etch this onto an A5 sized sheet of Perspex using different lines and ways to etch such as crossetching. Then using different coloured oil paints,I coated the Perspex in paint using a small piece of card to push the paint into the etched lines and a separate piece of paper to buff off excess paint. I then placed a damp sheet of paper on the Perspex and put it through a roller to press the design onto the paper.  I also tried to print the pattern onto wood but this failed

Transcribing Caro evaluation.

Collecting primary research whilst on the trip to the Yorkshire sculpture park and the Hepworth was useful and valuable to an extent. I found that I only used these photographs within my sketchbook and to a limited number of pages, they did not influence my design process towards creating my final sculpture. However, using primary photos instead of secondary photos found from the Internet and books was considerably more helpful and get a stronger feel for the scale and materials that Caro works with within his sculptures.

Taking primary research from the gallery and sculpture park again was good to an extent. The images I have taken have been the best out of the research conducted, they are clear and show a wide variety of work that clearly display the different medians and scales that Caro experiments with. However, the drawings I have taken from the trip do the complete opposite. As they are a series of quick sketches they do not do the sculptures justice and in my opinion are very messy, even though they are meant to be to some extent. I did not take away any information about the sculptures from either places visited. 

In my sketchbook, I feel my artist research has been my best work, in which I am very proud of. I feel that the research conducted has shown a very good understanding of the work each artist I have studied has produced. My favourites being Frank Stella and Peter Dahman. 

For the artist research pages of Caro, I feel the work I have produced has shown a good understanding of the different styles of sculpture Caro builds, these being proved through the paper sculpture page, contrasting with the page based on his larger metal sculptures. I think the first collaged page also shows good understanding of the different ways Caro likes to express his work. I feel this goes for the Alexander Calder research pages too, showing his different sculptures through wire and a basic drawing of his larger scructal sculptures. 

For Frank Stella I think my attempted replica of his work shows a good understanding of how his work is produced. Designing and painting the different shapes within this piece I feel shows that a basic understanding how his work is produced was gained. However, i do not think that the work went as well as I had planned and hoped it would and I think it has a childlike look towards it. This again goes for the Peter Dahman double spread, that I feel a very good understanding of how his work is designed and produced was gained. Attempting to duplicate his work and definitely given me an understanding of how hard the work is even though it seems very simple. I am most proud of these pages in my sketchbook and I am proud that I have accomplished my own paper sculpture. 

At the beginning of this project I was very unorganised about which designs I wanted to choose to do. Originally I wanted to build a large scale sculpture that was mounted onto a table top. I found designing these by drawing very difficult therefore I cut out random arches to see if I could design a sculpture that way. Doing this I designed my first two designs. However after designing a few sculptures and attempting at making different maquettes for them, I changed my mind to a wall mounted, two dimensional relief. I did this because I felt my design was better once a small maquette was made, I also felt this would be easier and quicker to make within the workshops and initially fixing together at the end of the project. 

 

In making my final design I feel I used very little skills within the printing and ceramics workshops as all I did was cut into different materials, I did not mould or sculpt anything within them. However I feel a lot of skills were used within the wood workshop as I have never used the equipment in there before and had not worked with wood in a long time. The machinery that I used within this workshop was not shown within the induction as they are the more dangerous machines to uses and require an instructor to be present while you use it. I did not make a Calder kinetic sculpture or use the workshops to design my maquette. 

As my sculpture is quite a basic design there has been very little that has needed to be changed. In ceramics I had planned to mould one full arch for my sculpture, but as the clay can become very fragile once in the kiln, and my arch would have a weak point, my instructor, Deborah advised me to make two half arches and glue them together when fixing all the pieces of my sculpture together. 

The wood workshop seamed the most difficult, as I wanted to make a lot of pieces from wood different things became difficult. For one, when making the arch i accidentally cut over the line and then sanded down too far creating a oddly shaped arch. This was very difficult to fix as I simply redrew a better shapes arch into the already cut wood and sanded down to that line instead. Another thing that was difficult was when making the grooves for my frame, the wood began catching on the fence and started splintering the wood. To fix this week placed a few layers of masking tape along the fence to stop it catching, then removing it at the end to sand down the small amounts that was left because of the tape. 

I feel overall I have managed time quite well throughout this project. At the beginning I did leave things to do later which led me to rush during the first couple of weeks to catch up, but I did complete the work I had put off and to a good standard I feel. Compared to the previous project 'Hands On', I have not been rushing around at the end of the project and stressing to get everything completed before the deadline. Every major piece of work has been completed and it has only been a couple of things such as sticking a few annotions into my sketchbook and completing the end of this evaluation at the end of that has led me to run over the 1:00pm deadline. 

Part B

When constructing my final piece I had a major problem of my ceramic arches not fitting into the frame because they had shrunk in the kiln. To solve this I was initially going to remove the ceramic arches from my final sculpture and replace it with a wooden arch, however after numerous people saying it looked intentional; I decided to cut the wooden arch so it mirrored the ceramics. So instead of two large arches at each end of the frame, I now have four, one in each corner. 

After this problem was overcome, assembling my final piece was easy. Using a glue stick I stuck tissue paper and the cardboard building onto the backboard which was then stuck to the frame using pva glue. The wooden arches were also stuck to the back board using pva glue. The ceramic arches were stuck using a special glue which caused difficultly as I was not strong enough to pump the glue out of the tube. Therefore Adam, the 3D workshop instructor dos it for me. 

Overall I am very happy with my final outcome as it turned out as I hoped it would even after the dilemma with the arches not fitting. If I had to change anything, I would change the material I used for the cardboard building as I feel it does look slightly boring, or I would have painted the cardboard before sticking it onto the back board.