November Dusc (48)

November Dusc (48), a photo by SWJ-ART on Flickr.

November Dusc (48)

November Dusc (48), a photo by SWJ-ART on Flickr.

Creative Concepts-Typogrghy

I was asked to find a location and use it to create a piece of work using typography as a form of medium.  I chose the train as my location as I spend so much time on it a week.  This turn out to be a good venture for me.  I was able to collect a great amount of sensory material, which I could then go on to use in my project.

 I took many photographs the one above was incorporated into my final piece.  I have a whole collection photo's of the fabric and carpets on the trains I traveled, yes I was that weirdo on the train, snapping my camera left right and center.  Photographs were a huge help in my research side   of the   project.  Thankfully I      didn't get chucked off the train an my camera taken off me...

Using the railway sign I experimented with copies of the metro I had collected.  The Metro was another big part of being on the train.  

One paper lying on the table at the end of the day would be more interesting than a paper in the morning.  How many people from all walks of life had picked up this paper and read it?  As you can see above someone has done the puzzles on this on and left it sitting. 

I had collected snippets from the paper of the stories I had read, many horrifying, some of interest and at last  the train rag was riddled with adverts which is nothing unusual there.  

It is ridiculous the sheer amount of adverts we are bombarded with today.  

Playing with the signage I had seen around me I was able to create some experiments, which all helped me put together my final piece.

 Playing with stencils and pastels was interesting, creating silhouettes of words over other texts or shapes.  I also got a stamp kit and created my own stencils from the photo's of text I used.  
I like the idea of layering my stuff over itself.  I used the cut outs from my stencils to play about with them and this was put into the production of my final collage. 

I collected all my train tickets as I though that they would be a very useful medium to use also.  I cut them up and created a mosaic with them, then I used pastel over them.  This added a nice affect,  I chose not to do this in my final piece.  Instead I made stencils out of them which was much better for what I wanted to do.  

You could say I went stencil mad,  I enjoyed using them, I will use them again in the future, especially the hand made ones.  On top of collages it knitted together well.

I photographed as much of the texts I could see around me in a bid to use it in my experiments.  These were all used in some way or another in my sketch book work and my final collage.

 I liked the light up words,  they stand out over any other text here don't you think?  I had to use this in my project some where. In fact they were used in the finishing touches of my collage.

Above is a snippet of my final collage.  Unfortunately it is not the finished piece, as soon as I get it back from assessment I will rectify this and show off the finished piece.

Initially I wanted to create a video using I movie on a Mac as I really enjoyed creating short films with it during my HNC Contemporary Art.
  
I had to take a step back and think about the time scale I had to do this brief.  I would never have be able to put together a film of any decent quality in the time frame I had.  So I reverted to my old friend collage. 

Even though I am familiar with collage I still had good job experimenting and mixing media's with this.  Using inks, oil pastels, chalk pastels, stamps, stencil, collage and tippex.  

I feel the mixed media piece I put together was a fairly decent final piece that conveys many aspects of being on the train.

There was so much more I could of done to this, if had used my time more efficiently.  Much more experimentation could have been done on a larger scale and then my final piece would have been much more.  I will keep this in mind for my other projects and hopefully the difference will show in my work as time goes on.

Kirsty MacLauchlan: Week 4

Kirsty MacLauchlan: Week 4: This is not my final but a following idea from my development. As it is getting closer to the October break it is time to finalise...


Looking at a fellow class mate her life drawings are, really nice.  check em out :)...

My Critique Review...

Art is still very much alive

I am going to talk about article written by Camille Paglia, titled “How capitalism can save art”.  From the Wall Street Journal, dated Friday 5th of Oct 2012. This is from  a liberal  democrat point of view which the author clearly states.
The Author talks about how the visual arts are diminishing in a world dominated with design technology.  Artists cling onto shock factor ideas, with no depth.
Paglia has intended to make us aware of economic shifts of the past century and how this has disengaged students from learning practical trades.  She proposes a solution that artists evolve with business minded intentions.  Talking of design and how it has overshadowed the arts, with a world of commodity’s and shiny technology.
She then wraps this up with “Thus we live in a strange and contradictory culture”.  Stating that the younger generations are very materialistic minded rather than spiritually minded.

Paglia talks of how “industrial design has steadily gained on the fine arts and has now surpassed them in a cultural impact”.  This is very true all around us we are constantly “immersed in this hyper-technological environment”.  This is apparent of today’s world, at least the most part of it, where would humanity be without all of these objects?  We as a society very influenced in a methodological way.  Are we being diverted from our true intuitive energies?  Or are we evolving into a cyber human race?
“The spiritual Language even of major abstract artists like Piet Mondrian, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothgo have been suppressed”.
 We have artists out there that have captured the media, through their use of art as a public diary and their shock arts.  Unfortunately these have overshadowed artist with much more talent.
“Unfortunately to many artists have lost touch with the general audience and have retreated to an airless echo chamber”.
 Yes most of a mainstream audience don’t understand what contemporary art is.  Isn't that what art is supposed to do?  What would be the point of it if art didn't make it’s viewers think?  Each individual person has a separate perception, thus an individual experience also.  “Its high time for the art world to admit that the advant-garde is dead”. From the days of pop art, when Paglia’s hero Andy Warhol incorporated commercialism into art, followed on minimalism and postmodernism.  With that there was the birth of the celebrity Artist, entrepreneur artist.
This is where art seems to lose it’s value at a glance but if you look into it more that is not the case at all.  As I said before the people out there with real talent are overshadowed by those that have latched on to fame and riches. As a result of all this in the  90’s a new movement was created, “Stuckism” This movement was derived by group of artist’s, who broke away from the mainstream art scene in Britain. This movement is about getting back the integrity of Art.

Paglia’s article is very informative and it gets the reader thinking about the impact of capitalism, whether it is a good one or not.  Although she could have looked at the bigger picture instead of just at her students and not the veiw out her window.  Her proposal that all artist become entrepreneurs may be good from a commercial point of view but not from an artistic point of view.  As at the end of the day the visual arts are not about materialism but more about spiritualism, if you look all around you can see that the Avant Garde is still very much alive.


Refs:05/10/2012,Paglia Camille, “How Capitalism Can Save Art”. Wall Street Journal
 <http://www.stuckism.com/info.html>
<http://www.stuckism.com/#HirstStole>

Anatomy Abstracted continued......

After drawing out my knee in many colors and ways I came up with  idea's for my final piece.

I sectioned off parts of my drawings and blew them up into larger compositions.

After drawing up in thumbnails I then sectioned off an A2 sheet of card into 4 parts.

This is the outcome below....

For each section I prepared a surface to draw on, this one was crushed tissue paper painted with emulsion.

I used pro markers and oil pastels in this drawing.  The creases showing through the drawing from the surface is very effective.  I chose the color be mainly browns and greens giving it an organic feel.

This was my monochromatic drawing, my surface was newspaper print and emulsion.  This has a more mechanical feel to it, due to the color theme.

Some aspects of the surface has also shone through this which has added affect to the finish drawing. It was done with Charcoal, white chalk and pro markers.

For this composition I painted thick, emulsion, which has given it a different texture to draw on.  I chose to use ink and oil pastels which is a new one for me. Watering the ink down, painting it over oil pastels, scratching into it.  I also used a dud pencil to draw the initial lines and scribble over various areas.

I used these mediums in my A2 drawing as I liked the affect so much.

This Piece was Chalks, I applied pro marker to define some of my lines.  The surface I prepared was masking tape and emulsion.  I chose bright contrasting colors  and blended them together in some parts and kept other parts separated. 

The above is my A2 drawing which I drew using inks and oil pastels, I also prepared the surface with emulsion.  I feel I abstracted my anatomy drawings well.  Using techniques I'm comfortable with and also experimenting with things I hadn't used before.  If I wanted I could then go on to create prints or sculptures from these drawings.  Which I may do in my specialist at some point depending on where my research takes me.

2012-11-09 16.35.52-2

2012-11-09 16.35.52-2, a photo by SWJ-ART on Flickr.