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Feb 28, 2011

Birds, fish and dogs in the trees

When drawing the "View from window" (Assignment 2, Module 2) - I continued to look into the trees, naked trunks and branches outside my kitchen window - and also outside my working spot - kitchen table. I all of a sudden saw the contours of a bird - but being on the phone, I could not capture it that moment - and it was an obvious bird! Some ten minutes later - I tried to find it again - but it as gone. I found another geometrical structure - another bird - a hen in that same collection of branches - which I have drawn and will see if I can use. It is really fascinating - it changes all the time. I will spend some of my daily drawing on those trees.

Finding interesting line patterns in my work

I manage to find some time to spend on looking back into my previous work - as I knew I had during the process thought -- this is an interesting pattern - I will remember that for further development. There are three or four such small sections I would like to develop further.

One is the small "couple" that I already used in my stitched "Eye". That section I found by turning that first line drawing (Big Draw; module 1) upside down. It was imediately obvious and easily retraceable.
The second - that I already made use of in a subsequent collage, was the lines of legs - also in the line drawing upside down.

I did remember how to look for lines - and the third potential figureI found in the lines of my drawing of my stretch fabric - (Assignment 6, module 1)- from newsprint and turqoise ribbons. I did find fantastic lines which represented dancers for me. I have taken them out and will further process them!

Module 2; Assignment 2b; Own Series of Drawings



I have made a series of drawings using different techniques and I have tried to vary the style. Perhaps I have not quite succeeded in making a varied balance between tones and contrasts – and welcome views.


A Shoe – “My Party Shoe”
I started off with a shoe and picked deliberately out a “party-shoe” with an ovious bow and open toe and open heel. I decided to make this on an A3-format and to use black ink and a bit “flimsy” technique. I tried to draw with my whole arm and drew quite lightly. I was a bit inspired by the images of the ducks in the “task paper”.




I fee I managed to capture the character of the motif and was quite content with the way I varied different depictions from different perspectives. I also think the balance of the picture is OK with a few thicker lines and a few “flimsy”.

A Body part – “The Skull to be Dressed”
I decided to be a bit more elaborate than just drawing a part of my or somebody else’s body part and got the idea of “dressing a skull” – when looking closely springs can be visible between the mask and hair and the skull. I was also inspired by the diamond encrusted skulls by Damien Hirst but there are several artists doing skulls with a similar concept.




Dress the skull
 When inspecting the result – I think I should have made the contrasts much more visible. It is somewhat difficult to separate the skull and the face mask.

Something that grows – “Onions in the Net”

When selecting onions as “something that grows” I thought of different concepts – onions that really do grow – in the soil and under the ground – with long straight leaves above the ground – but also the fact that once they have left the ground they are dried and placed in a net – as in this case. Hence I made the lower right corner black. I glued black paper on to the drawing paper before starting to draw. Gradually when considering the composition I thought of Vasarely’s work and found out that onions are fairly typical and graphical in form and structure with “leaves” that constitute the body of the onion. I also wanted to depict the netting in one or another form – and ended up with the harlequin pattern filled out with different tones in order to create a balance in the picture but also areas of different tones and contrast.

Onions in a net

Onions in a net






I feel I succeeded to make a fairly exciting image of onions in net, and added some onion “flowers” on the leaves above ground as well as some roots below ground.


View from a window – “Tree house with tree on side”

I have for the four years living in our cottage style house looked upon the trees outside our kitchen glass doors. In particular in winter these trees –form a very interesting graphic picture with their trunks and branches. Funnily enough I have thought for a long time – “what can I make of this?” – then I got the task – and it was obvious what view I was going to explore and draw. I also for the first time decided to paint on fabric – medium-dark-grey acetate (or viscose?) lining fabric found in the depth of my basement boxes.

When I had made a line drawing of the main trunks and branches – I realized I had two choices. If turning the picture to landscape format there was a very obvious ship to develop. It did not even have to be developed – it was there.

However – in portrait format – it was a still more obvious house – an office building – a high-rise building with loads of people working there and a tree outside, oartly interfering with the building.

I painted with gouache colours on the fabric and that worked very well. The finishing touches – making windows on the building and a few office workers going up and down the stairs, as well as cars in the parking lot to the lower right of the picture – was made by ink pen and white masking fluid.
I was very content with this picture – I think there are interesting contrasts and forms as well as a harmonic mix of forms and tones. The stems and leaves on the tree on the side and in front of the building is the only motif that is still there – from the original photograph.



Tree - now an Office Building

Parking outside the building
 

Mechanical thing – “Farmer pushing cart into the big city”


I photographed the old antique kitchen scale (heritage from my grandmother – and still in use) from different angles. However when looking at it from behind – there was this obvious man or woman seen from the back pushing his cart with a load – of something. I happened to have photographed a stack of large plastic sacks of hay, outside a shop in town – and printed it and used it to load the cart. I had also found a fascinating picture of London by the photographic artist who is taking thousands of photos from above of ten big cities. I felt an interest to mix this vintage farmer on his way to the big city aspect with his cart – hence also adding some cars on their way in and out of the city. I also used newsprint (with deliberate mounting the “direction” of the print so as to achieve some perspective feeling) - as a backing for the coal drawing. Could perhaps have increased the white surfaces – perhaps not my best drawing in this assignment!
 

 

Feb 26, 2011

Module 2; Assignment 2a Artist's drawings

I started with the master of masters, Picasso – and whoever of the big major artists, I could have chosen pictures and drawings for hours. I have researched Picasso, Chagall, Miro; Matisse; Vasarely, Dali, Rodin, Tracey Emin, Henry Moore, but also made some research on Saatchi-on-line and found some artists (or wannabees) with further styles. I tried to pick out drawings with different styles and techniques.

I enclose a few of the drawings I have chosen – and what struck me was the very different styles that both Picasso and in particular Matisse were using and drawing. I tried to find some black and whites in Dalis’ work – but did not at this rather quick glance on internet – and found one snake made by Vasarely which was quite intriguing.

Vasarely has been at the forefront of popart and he has worked and produced the most fantastic optical and geometrical works. I have also visited his museum in Aix in France and seen these giant, giant geometrical and optical fantasies. Amazing. My drawing of the “Onions in the net” has to some extent been inspired by what I saw when researching Vasarely. However I have to admit that the zebra work is not a drawing – but I liked it!

Another artist – Escher – I found in a book I borrowed at the library – about drawing illusions. I think his hands that are drawing themselves is a genial concept and the next one – smaller and smaller is alsos quite interesting.

What can I say – the more I explore I can just say I am really amazed at what can be achieved by drawing. However – sitting down for one of my “everyday”-drawing exercises (which unfortunately is not everyday) after having researched the masters – I do lose confidence completely!

I found examples of Picasso’s light drawings – beautiful and intriguing as he is visible himself at the same time.

I feel the drawings presented represent a range of drawing techniques – everything from graphite to black ink. A range of “full drawing” with surfaces more or less covered by marks – to “one-line-drawings” enough to depict exactly what is supposed to be seen. There is also a wide choice of “range of contrasts” such as black on white – and grey on white – to maaibly grey.

My chosen drawings:
Bedrich Feuerstein

Chagall-Mother Eiffel


Escher

 Escher-Smaller and smaller

Matisse
Matisse

Matisse

Matisse

Matisse

Matisse

Picasso
Picasso

Picasso

Picasso
Vasarely

Feb 25, 2011

Module 2; Assignment 1; Contrast

1: I did put together newspaper clippings in black and white. I had happened to read a story in a Times magazine about Rudolph Valentino who was born Italian, was a criminal who escaped and then made it as an actor. He became madly in love with a lady who had shot her husband, and after she was acquitted she also left Valentino. (She can be seen to the right of the buddies kissing) and to the right of her, Valentino on his death bed. This is an abstract from a short memory – however I experienced  the pictures very beautiful.

As a contrast to these lovely, romantic old fashioned pictures, I could not resist to use a couple of clippings on “General Gaddafi” and Mr Berlusconi displaying cameraderi and public “love”. Considering their reputation I have added a couple of images of a feather dancer with a half nude seen in a hole. I have printed the texts and I feel that the contrast between these buddies – and the romantic beautiful passionate picture of Valentino and his lover kind of “make” the basic picture.

2: Graphics:
This collage consists mainly of rectangular clippings, and the colour contrasts are not very sharp. I decided to emphasize the curved forms in order to create contrasts, mainly using acrylic white as the contrast colour. I did add a few black lines as well, but decided to stay to some extent with the pictures instead of contorting too much, as I wanted the original pictures still to be visible in some way.


The little picture is a miniature of the passionate lovers, a miniature used in several further pieces of work, eg the prints in Assignment 5 and 6
 3: The second picture was a collection of pictures found in popular science magazines. I did a collage with two dominating white half circle forms, with a large number of very small drawings of everyday items. I mixed these “scientific” images with a fantastic picture of a small boy whose father is putting on a hat on his son. Overall I think this collage is quite interesting both in contrasts of black and white but also in the mix of smallish patterns “en masse”, and large surfaces of more or less monochromatic images. 


 
I decided to change this collage fairly radically and to change the balance and possibly make it a bit more unbalanced. I cut a piece of half transparent pattern tissue paper and glued it onto the upper half. Then I covered the lower half circle with white shiny plastic. In addition I added a couple of rectangles with “bubble plastic” to make the surface more interesting.I then painted with acrylic colours, developed the baby theme and therebye I feel I emphasized the human softness in the form of the baby. I also feel the colour composition became quite changed and I really liked the new picture as it somehow is more harmonic.
I did play aa bit with the “Eureka” letters, and emphasized rectangular forms on the upper half, (except for the half circle) whereas I underlined and created curved forms in the lower half.

Feb 23, 2011

Ultramodern sculptures

Just watched one of the BBC4 programmes about British sculpture. I have seen a presentation of Marc Quinn who has been pretty extreme, such as produced models of his head, made from his own frosen blood. He has produced several sculptures with years in  between to expose and explore his gradual ageing. He used to be a serious drinker but came clean many years ago. His blood sculptures were kept on expo in a freezer glass box. His blood sculptures were pretty dramatic. Another much debated sculpture was the naked body of a pregnant severely disabled woman artist, Alison Lapper. It won a competetion to be exposed on the fourth plint at Trafalgar Square and was produced in Italian marble. It was deveiled in 2005 and evoked enormous debate, love and horror. I do think that particular sculpture is quite beautiful, and a few other work of Marc Quinn I like a lot!

Visit to exhibition of Gabriel Orozco at Tate Modern

I did visit Tate Modern, to have a look at Gabriel Orozco, being recommended by a friend to see the "crazy" installations this artist had made. He was born in Mexico in 1962 and became known as an artis in the nineties. He is travelling the world, he paints, draws, scultures and makes installations. On display there were drawings that he had intiated by spitting on to the paper, and subsequently devloped the drawing from there. He displayed a photographic series of a fairly large number of photos: He had been in Amsterdam at the time and had a yellow bike, s cooter. He had been going around in the city and looked for similar or near similar scooters and whenever he found one, he parked his own beside the found - and took a picture. It was a quite fun approach! There wass a large installation on the floor of bits and pieces of found tyres on roads. I was not particularly fond of that installation. He had placed an empty, simple paper shoebox in the middle of the floor - as one piece of art. The most significant was a car, a Citroen car that he had sawed into three "slices" - removed the middle one including the motor and assembled the two outer ones into a much smaller and narrower car. That was a fun piece!

London Fashion week

Just looked at catwalk pictures from Londodn Fashion week - and found Pilotti who had made black and white clothes "within" clothes. This concept I had planned for silk chiffon - to print bodies or limiting pictures. Further designers I have been looking at - Basso and Brooke - who obviously pioneered digital prints on clothes. Spme of them quite beautiful. It coincides with my thoughts of pictures of "screen" texts onto fabric. Had not thought yet of clothes.Burberry - quite a few black and white checks and stripes - suits fine during the black and white module. I liked them.

Feb 17, 2011

Module 1; Assignment 6; Make and construct



Cloth is really used in many ways – and not the least fashion/art/high street fashion make use of very diverse techniques for changing existing clothes/cloth (holes, rips, “ageing” denim etc)as well as new technology is applied (sparkling prints on eg T-shirts; neon colours, holograms and similar techniques; textile research is rapidly developing “smart” textiles – very interesting indeed!)

I have chosen three very different concepts for constructing my three textiles.

  1. Friends and family fabric/armour
I do feel that apart from the body’s inner fabric necessities the next most important fabric of your life is family and friends. I would like to think of this as a hard and very protective shield protecting you from all evils. At the same time it should be warming and feel sparkling with joy!
I chose to make strips from pictures of faces and human beings fixed and strengthened by heat fixed “vlieselin”. I made a weave but felt there were holes in it so I made a further armour from lids from Al-foil boxes. 



Drawing - Impression of Friend's Armour
 

Conclusions and thoughts: The resulting armour and fairly flexible and sturdy cloth became exactly what I had in my thought process. It can actually be used to construct an armour and it looks warm and friendly and has a strong symbolism in it. It is a weave of friends, intermixed with “metal” plates giving it the “bullet prrof” protection. This metal plates can be removed and put back when needed. The structure is quite bold and checked and creates an interesting structure in particular when the “metal” armour is inserted.

This can be developed into a “proper” shield and still further – arm caps, belt and still could be made look quite attractive. I have not used photos of family and friends but that could actullay be done. Thinking of it, such photos can be printed onto cloth and complement the armour!
 Drawing: I feel I did develop the concept onto a black background and continued with the “metal” plate patterj to make it more interesting.


2. .Elastic, stretched fabric from newsprint with some inherent decoration

    I had become fascinated by a book about paper. I found, or rather rediscovered (from my youth) different techniques to plaay with paper structure.
    I started with newsprint backed by heat fixed “vlieselin”. I continued to make a repeated and highly structured pattern of cuts, which meant it could be stretched fairly well.  Actually I had to keep my head cool – as it is ery important not to make any single cutting mistake. I managed almost without mistakes, but the few I made could be mended by adhesive tape. Otherwise there were no problems except from having to fix the blue and silver plastic strips in the end of each row with adhesive tape.
    I added some blue plastic strips into the “weave” as well as some strips made from crisp bags, with a silver appeal. I think it became a very different fabric and surprisingly flexible to stretch.




    Drawing on newsprint - to symbolize the newsprint used for producing the stretch fabric - the resulting light figures have been used in the prints and further work in module 2.    






    Conclusions and thoughts: I was intitially most fascinated by the technique, but realized how interesting the resulting fabric became. A fabric of importance to you, usually needs to be strectched at some occasion – and here we are! It did become a three-dimensional structure and further interesting features are actually the holes created. The holes that can be opened and closed when the stretch is released--- I feel the concept can be used for interesting thoughts – something to hide? Something you only want to display at certain moments etc.

    The drawing is made by a combination of charcoal and acrylic paint on newspaint. I chose deliberately news from the recent upheaval in north Africa – perhaps something one might want to see and be touched by in a strectch weave. Initially I was not very content with that drawing – but when now looking at it it becomes quite interesting and hat you can see in it. I see dancers, swinging turquoise bands when they are dancing – perhaps the joy of the Egyptians or the Tunisians?


    3 The decorative, exciting frayed holes?

      I did choose three different silk fabrics – I cannot claim this is everyday waste materials – but they are remnants buried in my boxes to be used for something and what could be better than creating a new cloth structure? Two of them, dupion silk, have a dual colour which really was what I wanted to use. I added a third colour, a bright yellow thai silk which I thought could add an interesting component to the colour mix.

      I chose to make a pattern of triangular holes, and then fray the bits of fabric. I realized that by making the triangles in different directions, different colour combinations appeared – quite interesting and something I had not thought of.

      It did become a tedious task – the fraying was far more difficult to carry out and very time consuming – but once started I had to finish!




      Drawing - combinaation of pastels and acrylic paint


      Conclusions and thoughts: I feel this became a very lovely but also interesting concept. I realized I might again have been inspired by Tony Cragg’s stacking and possibilities arising from such a concept nd technique. My mind wandered off into cartoons – “darling –please close now…” or “what do you see darling? – Marilyn Monroe “ Th concept can be developed both as a fashion concept, but also as a “wall hanging” with different pictures underneath the feathery “doors”. One can use all sorts of materials for fraying  - one does not have to fray – it could just be openings in the structure with interesting features behind.