Painting Workshop//Finished Piece

This is the finished product of my 6 week painting workshop.
I am very pleased with the painting; I think the piece works well as a whole, and the colours I achieved were very successful.

Workshop//Painting

In this weeks workshop I worked over the original figure that I started last week, but in stronger colours, with stronger emphasis on the textures and effects made by the paint. I concentrated more on mixing the right colours that will show through on the final piece, and thought a lot about which colours worked best together. I also worked a lot with which textures I could make out of the oil paint and which ones would work best on which parts of the painting. Last week was about simply marking out the figure with colours as guidelines, but this week was much more about conscious decision making.

Savinder Bual//Gravity 19.2.15

One of our Gravity lectures this year, where the theme is 'Time', was given by Savinder Bual. Bual has exhibited her work internationally and has lived in the UK and China. She makes pieces of video art that play with the idea of making movement out of a still image; she will manipulate still images in various ways using technology and older, more hands-on techniques to create a moving image. For example, Bual talked about how she used the manipulation of the bellow of an old fashioned camera which she had cuts slits in and inserted drawing into and moved with her hands, to create the sense of movement.

                                          'Follis Nyctanthous' by Savinder Bual 2010

Bual also talked about the 'black space' she uses in her piece, for example in 'Flicker', 'Train' and 'Wing'. This black space is a result of placing a black frame, which films are made up of, between still image frames when edited her pieces. The result is a flickering image, switching between the still image and black space. The effect that this has on Bual's work is that it forces you to use your imagination and imagine what could be in those 'empty' spaces. Forcing the viewer to use their imagination is also why Savinder uses a black and white effect in her videos; an issue raised by a member of the audience in the question time. Our work is filled with films that use colour, opening up gaps and giving all the information to the viewer, however black and white closes those gaps and allows questions to be asked.

Having moved from the UK to China and back, Savinder felt like her location and how settled she felt at the time, was fully reflected in her work. Her video of paper birds (purchased from a street seller in China) being flown into a white wall in her studios represents the 'block' she felt when she first started working over there; trying to get inspiration and creating pieces but hitting a (metaphorical) brick wall. The birds in this video had been bought, taken apart and remade in order to gain a higher understanding of the object. This technique is used a lot by Bual, she often starts with objects for inspiration for her work, with her video pieces being focused usually on mundane or handmade objects. With this as a starting point, she manipulates them to become very interesting and to have greater meaning. For example, she used the Chinese paper birds in another piece, with one being attached to a spinning ceiling fan; representing the want in people to be free and 'fly away' but our minds are constantly going, not allowing us to do this, not allowing us to live in the present.

'Flight' by Savinder Bual

 When researching Savinder outside the lecture, I found on the 'About' section of her website that she had written about her work "By discovering low-fi ways to add movement to single images and commonplace objects/materials my intent is to ignite an element of wonder at the illusion of cinema, giving the everyday enough of a twist to allow the imagination to run free." This interested me because it describes well the final video pieces that she has produced. Her videos always focus on simple, sometimes handmade objects or mundane scenes that have been manipulated. Despite this simplicity, her video pieces are made with such thought and care that they become automatically thought provoking and beautiful. 

'Flying Work 1' by Savidner Bual 2010

Objects are almost always the focus of Savinder's pieces, with her main interest being how they are made and re-making them. An interesting thought is the juxtaposition of using simple materials, like paper, and the immateriality of film making. Paper is such a basic material that is so easy to get your hands on, and can be used in so many different ways, whereas film making is a digital process where the outcome is not a solid material that can be touched or held, only watched and edited on a computer with the right technology. This is linked to how paper disappearing from the modern world and being replaced with technology like the Kindle, mobile phones and hard drives. For example, we don't use paper to make notes or to-do lists, it's easier to do that on a phone or tablet that we will have on our person most of the time. 

Savinder Bual delivered an extremely interesting lecture very well. She was engaging and sure about her ideas, with the subject of her work fitting in very well to the theme of 'time'. 

Workshop//Painting

This week in my painting workshop I started on my large scale oil painting on canvas. It was a challenge, but I feel like it was successful as a starting point and will help me to achieve an interesting final piece.

I started off by marking out the basic shape of the figure and the background in a yellowy colour,
and then started blocking in the background.

After I had blocked in the background colour, I added the starting colours of the figure.
These aren't exactly the colours I wanted to achieve as we only had a limited range of colours, so
I will be working over/with these. 

Paintings//Sheffield Cityscape

During my assessment in January, I had very positive feedback about this painting. It isn't in a style I would usually use, and it is done in acrylic paints, using biro, so I didn't feel too great about it; it felt very much like the kind of work I would have produced at A-Level. However my assessment tutors told me that I should continue experimenting with this style and keep producing this kind of work, because it felt more like the kind of atmosphere of Sheffield than my other paintings did. 

I have continued to produce this kind of work, using acrylic paints and pen, of photos I have taken from Park Hill of Sheffield's cityscape. I am still not feeling that comfortable with painting in this style, it is a much longer process than other paintings I have produced, but the colours and style achieved portray a better sense of Sheffield as a city.

I have also tried using just blacks, whites and greys, and continuing to use pen.

I have also started to do pencil drawings in a similar style to the paintings, still using pen to add more detail and defined lines.

Workshop//Painting

In our second painting workshop last week, we took the collages and paintings on top of magazine pages we had made in the first week, and cut them up to create new images. We then created paintings based on the new images we made, using simple watercolour paint colours.

The next stage of the workshop will be creating large scale oil paintings based on the paintings from last week. Dale has provided us with 5 foot canvases, which we primed and prepared this week, ready to start on next week. I have never worked as large scale as this, or painted anything like this before, but I am excited to experiment, especially with oil paints.

Lens Workshop//Filming

On Sunday, I took my DSLR camera with me on a walk around Sheffield. I had no plans of a route, I just wanted to walk and not really know where I was going, my only aim was to film short clips of parts of the walk as I was walking. With the footage I took, I then wanted to put all the footage together and speed it up to show the journey all together. However when I got back and looked at the footage, it was very blurry and jumpy from where it had captured my movements. I was very disappointed with the result, but on Monday we had our last workshop, the lens workshop. In this, I was able to find out what would be a better way to capture the footage I wanted to, in a smoother way without capturing too much of my walking movements. I have borrowed a G16 Canon digital camera from the university Creative Media Centre, so today I went on another walk around the city and this time used this to record my journey. This footage has turned out a lot better than before, as the camera is a lot more lightweight and easier to handle, it has captured the walk a lot more smoothly and in the way I wanted it to. I plan on editing the footage together very soon, and taking a lot more journeys around different parts of Sheffield and creating maps to go with each one.

On my first journey, I did however get to take some pictures of the city, as the sky was very crisp and blue that day, making very good lighting conditions.

Gravity//Thomas Yeomans

This Thursdays Gravity lecture was given by a young artist called Thomas Yeomans. Having previously studied an undergraduate degree at Slade and an Ma in painting at the Royal College of Art, Yeomans now creates video pieces using preexisting footage found on the internet. Despite his current practice, he still considers himself a painter, but prefers the process of finding appropriate footage and editing it all together to become a piece of his own. During the lecture he spoke about authorship and referencing the original pieces of video he had used in his own work, he said that he didn't reference because original footage had been created into something else and was now his own. He also spoke a lot about using pre-existing footage to create his video pieces; he uses this partly because of the visual affect that can be achieved but also because he doubts his own technical ability to create something that looks good and has authenticity.

Yeomans showed a number of clips of some of his work, most of which I didn't particularly engage with, but there was one clip that was part of a longer piece that did interest me. It played wit the idea that as a society, we are far too engaged with social media and the internet; so engaged that it takes over reality and we would rather be connected with the fast moving world around us than involved simply in our own lives and what is happening in them. The next part of the clip was shots of TV advertisements from fashion, electronic and internet companies, which links with the previous idea that technology is taking over. The idea behind the video piece was extremely thought provoking and the preexisting footage that was used fit very well and looked stunning as part of the piece.

Gravity//David Clegg

David Clegg is an artist who visits care homes collecting life stories from dementia patients. His project, The Trebus Project, was named after Polish war veteran, Edmund Trebus, who fills his house with artefacts that have been deemed 'rubbish'. In a way Clegg does the same thing, making his work out of the stories of dementia patients that have been forgotten about and misunderstood because of their condition. The project started when Clegg decided after his degree and a life of wanting to be an artist, that he no longer wanted to be one ("I don't like artists"), so decided to work in a care home. He gradually started working with dementia patients and building up life stories from their confused and jumbled memories; some of which turned out to be quite amazing.

The Gravity lecture David Clegg gave us turned out to be my favourite of the lectures we have had so far, as Clegg was a brilliant speaker, who spoke to his audience with great confidence rather than from a script as many of the other visiting artists have. He had some beautiful stories and ideas that he shared very well. With the theme of Gravity this year being 'Time', Clegg's subject matter fitted in brilliantly, with his work being based of time, memories and loss.

David Clegg made the point many times throughout the lecture that he is not an art therapist. He is however an artist that uses patients' stories to make art rather than using therapy to help his patients. Clegg has worked with so many patients and has gained so many skills and so much knowledge concerned with dementia, that he now teaches nurses and care workers how to communicate with and listen to people with dementia. He has worked with a huge variety of patients, some with extraordinary stories, and some who have lived average lives as housewives or handymen. Clegg has also happened to record the last words of elderly patients and has been with them right up until their death. A great interest of his is language and how language changes with the condition, and how this affects their ability to make sense of memories and put the fragmented parts of memory together.

A discussion in one of my groups that was raised by this subject was the question of whether Clegg publishing life stories of ill elderly people is ethically correct, considering the condition of the patients he was working with. Some students believed that because the patients may not have been aware of what they would have been consenting to at the time. So is it right that he published their stories if they are unable to consent? This also leads to the question of the boundaries in art. A lot of artists make art to shock and go to extreme lengths to capture a shocking subject that may push and question boundaries, something I don't think David Clegg does.

I think Clegg's work is beautiful and genius in it's own way; it raises intellectual questions and reveals extraordinary stories. He doesn't push ridiculous questions and lets the work be understood by the less creative public; something I believe to be very important.

Back to business//Blogging

It's been a while since I posted my last blog post, since I finished my Art Foundation I have been busy catching up with friends who have been away at uni, trying to get fit and get a job, and going on holidays. But most of all I have felt pretty uninspired. Whilst I was at art school there was inspiration all around me. I was constantly surrounded by fascinating people who had the same interests as me and thought provoking art work that would spark questions and conversations that I could spend hours dwelling on. I am still surrounded by brilliant people, but not all have the same interests and thoughts as me when it comes to art and creativity, so it has been hard to find inspiration and ideas. Despite this, I am determined to get back into blogging as much as I can, and very soon I am going to set myself a summer art project to work on so that I don't get out of practice before I go to Uni September!

I had the most amazing time on the Art Foundation and made some friends I will always treasure, so leaving left me on a bit of a low, I just felt deflated and didn't really know what to do with myself. I went from being busy 24/7 and the weeks before the final exhibition being completely hectic, to then having all the time in the world with no deadlines and nothing to work for. So when I went back into college for the first time since finishing to find out that I had achieved a Distinction grade (the highest grade) I was absolutely over the moon and felt like nothing else mattered in the world. I was so uplifted, and all the hard work had paid off. I got some amazing feedback from my tutors, they were both so supportive and proud of the level of work I had put in over the year. They invited me and my group of friends in a few weeks after to say our final goodbyes, where we gave them gifts that we have bought, and they presented us with tea and cake. It really was a lovely way to say goodbye, and I definitely won't forget all their wacky words of wisdom and the support they gave me on the course, I couldn't have done it without them!

Foundation in Art and Design

My love of art and creating art started at GCSE and A Level when I chose to do Fine Art. I enjoyed all four years, but most work was so skills building and artist based, focusing a lot on links and copies of work. Most sketchbook pieces I completed during A Level were very finished pieces without actual thinking and experimentation. Because of this, when it came to year 13 and deciding what the next step in my life was, I decided that I wasn’t ready for university and that the best thing for my creative career would be to apply for Art Foundation degrees. I applied to DMU, Loughborough University and Leicester College.

I feel that accepting an offer from Leicester College was the best decision I have ever made. I have met amazing people and I have two tutors that have helped me learn creatively and grow as a person. They are both so inspirational and without them I wouldn’t be the artist or person I am today.

Without them, I also wouldn’t have a place at the university I have dreamed of going to since I was 14, Sheffield Hallam, on an amazing course, BA Creative Art Practice. At the beginning of 2014 I had three interviews at three universities, Leeds Metropolitan, Birmingham City and Manchester Metropolitan, for Fine Art degrees, and Sheffield Hallam for Creative Art Practice. I got offers from all of these universities, apart from Manchester Met. I was absolutely over the moon with these offers, and even happier that I was able to accept an Unconditional Offer from Sheffield Hallam.

I started the Foundation in Art and Design at the end of August 2013 and am now a matter of weeks away from the end of the course. It has been a life changing experience so I will of course be very sad to see it end, however I am very excited about exhibiting my Final Major Project in our end of year exhibition, and finally starting my new life at Sheffield Hallam.