Painting Elective

We began the painting elective by researching some images which we personally liked and may influence our work. I chose some sculptural work instead of 2D. I think there is more of a feeling of touch and textural to 3D and I thought this might help me build a stronger installation.

These are some pieces belonging to Jen Stark. She is an American contemporary artist. She works with both wood and paper. I was really attracted to these because of the bright, vibrancy of colours.

These paper sculptures are by Richard Sweeney. They interested me because of their delicate nature and decorative style.

This sculpture is by Beatriz Milhazes. Again, she uses vibrant colours inspired by her native country, Brazil. Her interest in geometrical shapes is clear by this decorative sculpture. This intertwined well with the installations we made because we were thought to paint by looking at shape.

We created an installation of tables and easels to paint and to look at line. We did blind paintings, negative and positive paintings. We also painted with different items such as a credit card and kept in mind painting through erasure as well as composition and the layout of the page. 

We also learned about mixing colour. The three primary colours, red, blue and yellow make brown. For the palette knife painting on Friday, we made three shades of black so I mixed white to two of the shades. It was my first time palette knife painting and I was determined to get used of the new environment.

I did thumbnail sketches to determine size, layout and composition. These are small, square paintings on card because a lot of paint is used for the palette knives.

The Installation:

It was made from random objects of different size, shape and surface material.

Lucian Freud Project.

I painted my impression on his work, 'Her Majesty, The Queen'. It was very interesting to look at the colours he mixed and the brushstrokes he used and trying to copy them.

Fashion - Materials and final line-ups!

We worked with a combination of material, light weight, medium weight and heavy weight. On the stand work photographed above, there is a heavy weight twill material. I found its substance similar to using the brown paper. I was able to create a voluminous amount of shapes from it and it was probably the most enjoyable.

I was surprised by how many shapes I was able to make from the medium and light weight materials. However, what surprised me the most was the complete different looks each material produced. I liked the softness of the chiffon and I found the more I engaged with pinning the material the more I enjoyed my work.  

This is how some of the shapes trasnslated onto my sketchbook. I used collage in some instances as opposed to drawing. I improved my drawing during this elective. I learned to conoinuously look at the lines to translate the shape correctly. My work was far looser at the start because I was interpreting both shadow lines as well as the clothes folds.

This is an example of scaling the clothes. I found this fun because it felt like clothes were actually being created and not just floating shapes on the body.

Final Collection No. 1:

Final Collection No. 2:

I liked the two weeks of fasion. This is only a few examples of my work as it just wasn't necessary to blog two sketchbooks!! I learned about fashion designers which I would only ever have heard of before such as Pierre Cardin, Marc Jacobs and Gabrielle Chanel. The Fashion elective gave me a great experience and and an insight into the fashion world. My next elective is painting so I will create firther blogs for that soon!!

Life Drawing

 We frew different positions in life drawing class. Giordana thought us different styles. This one was a combination of pencil and quick water paints also.

This was my first life drawing using paint. I foundt the medium harder to control but I was getting to grips with the paint by the second painting (below), mixing colours and introducing water to make the medium more accessible.

 I loved using the charcoal because it allowed a fast, free-flowing movement. Giordana gave the models some very creative positions. Although sometimes embarrassing for the girls, it made it far mor interesting and exciting to draw them.

We also used pencil to begin the life drawing. 

 Giordana put a jacket on a mannequin and I positioned it onto a body and also gave it emphasis by using colour. I really enjoyed life drawing. It gave me a chance to practice my drawing skills.

Fashion Elective

I selected the wording LIQUID/WOBBLY/RUNNY from the two week fashion brief. In the main, it is all about shapes and how they work differently when they are positioned on different places on the body. I brainstormed the various options at the beginning of the week and came up with the idea of studying jellyfish for my analytical studies.

I became really attracted to the jellyfish because there was so many types and each one was individual. This one fascinated me because it had a lace texture quality in the middle of the body.

 I had to be careful of my drawings however, because the focus was on shape not texture.

 I was able to pull a large variety of shapes from the jellyfish and I was delighted with all my primary research.

Some of the drawings were more accessible to pull shapes than others. This particular image enabled me to pull many shapes! Here are a selection of my favourite shapes...

 This was the first shape which I worked with on the mannequin. I got lots of different styles from it and surprised myself. These are some other shapes which I liked but may have had too much texture to use for this project.

This was my second shape. I was disappointed first with the shapes I was getting from it on the mannequin but when I returned to it again, I found it much more successful, soooooo... try and try again!!
I enlarged the shapes and cut them out of brown paper. Here are some of my preferred shapes...

 We were encouraged to think of fashion in a 360 degrees manner so that is why the front, back and sides were photographed.

 I love the drama attached to the above shape!

 This was an accumulation of both shapes.

 I tried the shapes on as many points on the body as I could...

 Frills reflected my chosen theme well because I thought it captured the idea of LIQUID WOBBLY RUNNY well.

The next step was to photocopy the shape, cut it out and stick it on a croquis as a floating shape. I also tried to develop it in a 360 degrees form but I am worried I lost the shape as I tried to revolve it. Pamela, my tutor, suggested that I use collage and it may help me to hold the shape better.

 This, again, is only a selection of my sketch book work because the start of it is especially tedious but I got more into the process as it went along, learned about reducing and enlarging the size of the shape and collage. This made it far more interesting and enjoyable!

Croquis...

I tried making a more up right croquis today and realised that it is important that it suits someone's way of drawing. Tomorrow, Friday, we are doing life drawing with Giordana and next week, we are working with materials!