Tag-Archive for » Painting to a theme «

Nov

I had my first sculpture class yesterday, and I loved it. Although, I don’t get to prepare my sculpture as yet. At the moment I am researching the brief of face manipulation. Next week I’ll start to make a cast of the face.

Face Manipulation

The aim of this part is to select a word from:

Devoid

Dismantle

Distort

I chose the word Dismantle then did a mind map of all the connotations of the word. I ended up with gears, cogs, alternator belt, zips and a whole heap of mechanical words. There were others, but these words stood out the most. So, I’ve decided to do a face sculpture akin to a doll from Toy Story – you know, full of machinery, has been butchered, and stuck back together badly – a kind of Frankenstein’s monster.

I’ve no idea what it’s going to look like, but it looks fantastic in my head!

Analytical Drawing

Oh, and going back to analytical drawing, I’ve scrapped the pieces I was originally working on and am going to base it on Painting To A Theme from last term. I hunted the city to try and find pieces of sculpture similar to the style of my paintings but came up with nothing. I was exasperated trying to find something, then on the way home, it hit me. Create my own sculptures! So, today I headed back into town, got some clay, came home and set to it. Well, easier said than done! What a nightmare it was. I had to create 3 pieces, and I spent about 3 hours trying to make them. It was frustrating the life out of me. I mean, it’s not as if I was trying to create anything detailed. Just something abstract. I thought it would be easy. Well, I got that one wrong. Anyway, they’re done now, and they’re totally pants, but I need something to draw for class on Tuesday, so they’ll need to do.

Category: Abstract, Project, Visual Arts Tags: analytical drawing, Art & Design, Painting to a theme, sculpture 3 Comments

Oct

Out with the old, in with the new

Heather

I had my assessment for my Painting To A Theme project today, and it has been decided that I should go with developing my more abstract, but representative, figure paintings. So it’s out with the Mona Lisa and the Ruben’s portraits, and in with the George Frederic Watt and Toulouse Lautrec paintings. (Please follow the above links to see the images I’m talking about).

The problem was that I seemed to be going off in two different directions, even though there was the unified theme of re-working famous works of art. The styles were different, and my tutor seems to think that there is more scope with the abstract and rounded figures I was creating. I think her words were, ‘there’s only so much you can do with the Mona Lisa’, and she is correct. Other than making it more expressive and applying on thick impasto layers of paint, there’s not much else you can do. I mean, I can really abstract her in the same way as I’ve done with the other images, as the painting is mostly of her face. Whereas, with the full figure images, I can play about with shape and form and really push it.

So I’m going with the two images I mentioned earlier, and which I’ve already shown here, to an extent. So now I need to come up with a couple of other images to abstract. I had already printed out a few images, mostly Pre-Raphaelite, and which I had kept in store. I picked these images because of the interesting shape of the central figures, and I already had abstract images in mind when I printed them out. So all I need do now is put my ideas into my sketchbook and play about with the colour schemes I’ve been working on. I’ll post images tomorrow of which stage I’m at now.

Category: Abstract, Art, Figure Drawing, Oil Painting, Painting, Portrait, Project, Sketchbook Development, Visual Arts Tags: Art & Design, Painting to a theme 2 Comments

Sep

What a non-starter today has been!

Heather

I think maybe I’ve just been overworked and have no oomph today. I’ve wasted a lot of time online, chatting with friends and playing with toys! I’ve not been entirely unproductive though.

I’ve been working on the next section of my Coast project. Basically I am at the development stage of my ideas. I have to take 4 images from the ones I’ve created in my sketchbook and then for each image we have to develop it further. Here are some of the things I’ve to do.

1st Image

Take one quarter of the image;

Try creating it in a different colour; or

Make it translucent; or

Work it in pastels; or

Work in line only; or

Try a limited palette i.e. create it in black and white or yellow and blue.

2nd Image

Enlarge a section and paint the surface of it and try printmaking on top of it.

3rd Image

Merge a quarter piece from one image with a quarter piece from another image.

4th Image

Take 4 quarters and create 4 different surfaces i.e tissue, quink and bleach, glue; or

Try 4 different applications i.e. Translucent, pastels; or

Try a warm or cool colour scheme, or work with a limited palette on each quarter.

My first image is done, but the photo is terrible because of the stupid light bulbs we have to use in this country! You can’t get decent lighting with them, and it’s horrendous trying to work in these lighting conditions. That’s the EU Directive for you! Nevermind.

I have uploaded my rough sketches and colour studies that I did 2 days ago for my Painting To A Theme class. I don’t need to explain them as there are notes all over the pages. Hopefully you can see my thinking and where I’m going with them.