FROST ON GRASSES

Only a few days to go now before the end of this module and preparation is in full swing.  I'm rushing around trying to pull the collections together.     The frost looks amazing this morning and I took a so I decided to take some photographs for my primary research file but by the time I'd got the camera out  the wintery sun had been obscured by the mist.   I took the photos anyone but I intend to go out during the Christmas break and record the landscape in the changeable weather.

Grasses with Frost

Grasses

While I was scanning some images in yesterday an art student mentioned a landscape artist Peter Doig he is a Turner Prize winner.

White Canoe by Peter Doig

I love the reflective nature  of the painting.

It reminded me that Lowry sometimes used to paint his canvases black then paint over with white.  I've painted up a piece of paper with black and when its dry intend to paint some grasses through white paint scratching out the surface.

From Chinoiseries to Perspex

I have been thinking for a long time now that it would be nice to work with perspex and textiles.  I would like to encase my designs so they are like specimens, delicate objects 'preserved in aspic' so to speak.  I want to create a clean almost industrial feel to the objects (with steel and bolt fixing - possibly with antique hinges) that could be wall hanging or free standing screens.   I love Chinese antique folding screens and chinoiseries.  They are beautiful precious pieces.

Chineoserie Folding Screens

Black Lacquered Chinese Folding Screens

Coromandel screen

Coco Chanel loved to collect Coromandel Screens which consist of wooden folded panels coated in black or dark lacquer usually carved sometimes decorated with jade, semi-precious stones, shell, or porcelain.  She owned over 32 Coromandel screens and in some rooms applied them to the walls like wallpaper.

I would like to create obviously a more contemporary feel with perspex.  But I would like to create free standing or wall hanging panels, which will encase my textile designs.   I discussed this with Tom today,  our computer tutor, who is also a furniture designer, as I thought he may know where I could purchase perspex.  He was very helpful and gave me some companies to try. 

It's been a good day today very productive I just hope I can keep going till next Monday.

CARAVAN! DECAYED BEAUTY

Composed Caravan Composite

Today I decided to re-examine my original primary photographic research to spark off some inspiration.   I remembered this photograph of a derelict caravan we came across in North Wales while on holiday. I love the weathered decay, the moss, algae and rust, its like the forest is reclaiming it.  I had another photograph of some birch trees (I think taken from some National Trust Garden we visited) and some photographs of the viaduct and woods near our home which were taken on a misty wintery day. 

I started playing around with the images on photoshop by taking the colour out of the pictures and changing the threshold levels then add touches of colour and played around with the satiation and opacity.   The caravan and the birch trees worked very well I felt they had a mystical quality and decided to crop and combine the two photographs together to create a new composition.  I then built around the caravan cutting and pasting more trees.    You can see all the fine detail of the branches creating, texture and a painterly effect.        

I have printed the photograph off onto watercolour paper so that I can stitch into and collage over the top I'm looking forward to this and if it is successful I may create a collection moody woody forms.

Original photographs

Landscape Textile Artists

The last couple of days I have been researching other textile designers to inform my work.  Because I am interested in landscape in particular I was very interested in the work of Chloe Holt.

Chloe Holt 

Chloe Holt is an award winning textile artist who is very interested in landscape, erosion, and surface texture.

Dionne Swift 

This is a devore textile piece by Dionne Swift.   I love the way she has traced the landscape with colour and line cutting away the fabric with devore.

I have been working on my Journal and Essay most of this week -  the deadline is on Wednesday - and in writing the conclusion (it is on  Grayson Perry, Outsider Art and it's influence on contemporary practise) I realised what I had enjoyed about the work of the various artists I discussed.   It is the use of mixed media.  I like to combine ideas from all different sources and 'mash' them together.  This is how I want to move forward with my work.   I have enjoyed the printing, working with photographs, painting and stitching and combining them together.

Grayson Perry for instance uses collage in his work and mixed media and is also not afraid to place his work on various surfaces, from tapestries to ceramics.

Grayson Perry and his tapestry Class

Vertical/Abstract Landscape

This collection of Vertical Landscapes has been evolving.   I have been using heavy, painterly effects on this and strong colour combined with some print.

Wheat Landscape

Here I've scratched back against a vibrant yellow acrylic.   I've done a few of these compositions and also gone back to an early abstract landscape I posted earlier of red rock and have played around with the image on photoshop.  I know this is a big weakness in my lack of skills with the computer which frustrates me because I know it can produce some amazing things.   I tend to shy away from using it and so have been forcing myself to use the elements of it that I feel confident with.

Vertical rocks and birds

Close up detail of birds which have been stitched into.

I need to work on these and try to paint some more of the larger scale paintings which inspired this painting.

Rocks, Reflections and Crags

Rocks, Reflections and Crags is a collection I have been developing using watercolour (wet on wet), bleeding colours together and also adding Brusho in powered form and liquid.   I painted the horizontal landscapes below first and added machine stitch to certain areas.

Horizontal Watercolour Landscapes

I decided to rip apart pieces of a landscape I wasn't happy with I with then stitched and collaged together an abstract reflective horizontal image which I quite like but  which needs more of a focal point   and detail.

Abstracted Reflections and Crags

For my Essay and Journal I have been studying Outsider Art and in particular Grayson Perry and Henry Dargar who both use collage in their work, in particular photographic images.  It occurred to me that it would be interesting to add my own photographs of landscape and detailed texture to these water colour images.   I may not have time to do this by the end of this sampling module but will pursue this next term.

I have also been researching painters and in particular those who work on cloth.  I particularly love Carole Waller.   She creates wearable art and wall pieces in site specific areas, often large scale and multilayered.

Carole Waller Clothes Collection

I love the vibrant colour and translucent nature of the the clothes.

From Sampling to Composition

Macro-Micro

Its been a couple of weeks since I last blogged because its been hectic, what with the essay to finish and the journal, but mainly more researching and experimenting with work so it seems there is loads to catch up on and discuss.

I have decided to split my work up into three collections:

                        .                           Macro-Micro  ( which I mentioned in an earlier blog)

                        .                           Rocks Reflections and Crags

                        .                           Abstract Landscape

These titles are fluid at the moment but it helps me to clarify in my own mind where I am going with each collection.

The Macro-Micro theme is developing an individual shape, style colour and mood.  I like the vertical narrow shapes and envisage enormous long panels of artwork that would be suited to loft-style living or large community areas.  I have been limiting myself to using blues and touches of pink and white to create an atmospheric almost stormy or threatening mood.  

I have been spending time experimenting with printing trying to develop the gum-arabic method (not easy) and also mono printing.  I loved the quality of the mono printing and used a thick pliable print paper that is easy to stitch into.  Below is one of the mono prints before I stitched into it.  I want to develop this technique to help me create the micro/abstract element of the vertical prints.  

 Abstract Monoprint

 I experimented in the print room with devore fabrics and screen printing as below and now want to add these processes to the digitally printed mono print above on a devore fabric.  Here I have screen printed twice onto the same fabric once to burn away fabric secondly, to add a raised surface.  I want to work with this idea creating complicated  multi-layered designs.

Devore sample

Composition and focal points are a stumbling block for me.  I get absorbed in texture  and shape so I have been trying to think more about the placement of my work more.

Landscape and Abstract Composition

Here I have combined four pieces of work (two mono prints and two gum arabic) then I have stitched them together.    There have been many failures over the last two weeks in print methods etc., but some of these have proved to be successes.   I hate starting on a plain piece of paper and a friend of mine said that the Shakers always put a mark on whatever they make because they believe only God can achieve perfection.  I quite like that idea and by ripping up these failures and stitching them together it has proved a less scary prospect than starting on a fresh canvas.