New Blog for my Second Year work…
Posted: October 12, 2014 Filed under: Subject | Tags: Art, Art Student, art work, artist, Arts, Artwork, arty, blog, Drawing, follow, gemmaschiebefineart, journey, painting Leave a commentThank you to everyone who is following my creative journey and supporting my work… if you wish to continue doing so… I have created a new blog to document the second year of my fine art degree.. please feel free to follow:
http://www.gemmaschiebefineart2.wordpress.com
Thanks 🙂
Experimenting: Loneliness: Wearing Headphones in the City
Posted: March 16, 2014 Filed under: Documentation, Field | Tags: alone surrounded by people wearing headphones, Art, art experimentation, Art Student, art work, earphones, Experiment, Fine Art, headphone beings, headphones, lonely, lonely in the city, Mixed media, monochrome, music in your ears, One person in colour, painting, using headphones in a painting Leave a commentAfter undertaking the still life painting workshop, I was forced to think about an object that linked to my theme of the city. It took me a while, but I suddenly thought about how many people wear headphones when walking through the city. I started thinking about how if everyone around you in the city was wearing headphones to avoid its loneliness and to avoid facing the fact that you will interact with no one, then the people who don’t wear them must feel even more isolated.
I wanted to portray these ideas and experiment with firstly showing how common it is to see people wearing headphones in the city, and secondly how alone someone would feel in a city surrounded by “headphone beings”. I started sketching.
I was really happy with these quick sketches and felt as if they accurately portrayed a body wearing headphones that you do not interact with and just passes you by in the city. I wanted to work these beings into a piece and decided that using actual headphones within the work could be interesting
As an experiment, I think I have successfully explored the idea of being surrounded by people wearing headphones in the city. However, I think the concept of being surrounded by others but never conversing with them and the thought that they may as well just be silhouettes is more successful. I do not think this is a particularly successful piece and to me it looks quite amateur. I feel this might be too literal and is not an area that I am going to continue to experiment with. I am glad I experimented here however, I learnt that thinking about how people avoid loneliness makes others lonely is not a route that I want to take my project down. I will now start thinking about finalising final pieces and consolidating my project as a whole.
PAINTING: Working with Monochrome and Being More Gestural
Posted: March 15, 2014 Filed under: Documentation, Field | Tags: Art, Art Student, artist, Black and White, Brush, city loneliness, colour, experiments, Fine Art, gestural, lonely, monochrome, monochrome paintings, painting, Paintings, palette knife, singled out, surrounded by others but alone, tones of grey, white silhouettes 6 CommentsAfter attending a tutorial on Monday, I was glad that the tutor gave me some direction and new ideas and techniques to work with. After looking at my work, she suggested that I work with Monochrome and use the tones of grey to enhance the feeling of loneliness and make the individual coloured figure appear even more singled out and alone.
She also felt that my work was not really gelling as a whole and that I was working with three different realities and had to express the relationship between the figures, the single figure and the architecture. She said she thought the detailed buildings that were included in my work detracted from the figures and from the message within the pieces. She suggested that I experiment with contrasting colours, monochrome and full colour as well as contrasting languages, the gestural and the more realistic. I was encouraged to make marks and shapes that represent the buildings and to make them more gestural rather than focusing on every detail, window or door etc. I have experimented with making less detailed marks to create the city landscape with both brush and palette knife.
I feel that working with a palette knife definitely helped me be less controlled and more gestural but doesn’t really gel with the figures painted with a brush and therefore is unsuccessful so I have experimented with more gestural brush work.
I think this is far more successful and the monochrome definitely heightens the feeling of loneliness and the colours of the lone figure. After producing this piece, I decided to experiment with how much of the surrounding is seen within the painting, because even though the technique is successful, I feel that the buildings still are overwhelming the figures here.
This definitely puts emphasis on the lone figure and draws the viewer to wonder why they are the only one not painted as a white silhouette and consider their loneliness rather than being distracted by the buildings in the piece. These are highly valid experiments and have inspired me to create a final piece working with monochrome rather than the sepia alternative I have worked with previously. I feel this colour palette and deeper contrast portrays a more negative vibe and adds to the feeling of loneliness within the work.
Large Painting – Reflecting and Bringing Together my Findings so Far
Posted: March 12, 2014 Filed under: Documentation, Field | Tags: Acrylic Paint, alone amongst others, alone in the city, Art, art degree, Art Piece, Art Student, artist, charcoal, consolidating, dry brushing, gouache, hidden loneliness of the city, Ink, loneliness, Mixed media, painting, palette knife, reflecting, sepia, sepia tones, underpainting, urban loneliness Leave a commentI am very pleased with the body of work that I have been producing relating to the City. I feel like I have an interesting concept, exploring the Hidden Loneliness of the City and have experimented with this idea in depth. However, I felt like I needed to consolidate my findings and portray what I have learnt and think is working so far. I decided to make a piece reflecting on these findings.
In this piece, I have incorporated a variety of different medias including paint, ink, charcoal and gouache. I have portrayed the sepia tone influence that I have been working with inspired by an artist I came across in Berlin and user Shoe 18 on the deviantart forum. I started off with a dark brown ground here, influenced by my experimentation after undertaking the grounds workshop, I also painted an underpainting using a palette knife and worked on top of this employing Dry Brushing techniques that I learnt from attending the paint workshop sessions with James Green. I have worked with the concept of all of the people around you being insignificant and portrayed that they are just bodies and may as well just be white silhouettes because I believe it is particularly successful and left one person in colour to show they are lonely and singled out among all the others that they do not interact with.
I wanted to formulate a piece that includes all the experimentation and things that I have learnt that I believe have been positive and successful within this project. I believe this is an accurate reflection of this and a successful piece of work in itself. Now that I have consolidated and reflected, I feel that I can move on in my project with confidence and continue my experimentation.
After my tutorial on Monday, I realised that I haven’t experimented with monochrome because I was so inspired by the influences of the artists I mentioned, but this is what I will be working with next, I believe that the loneliness may be heightened by an empty monochrome background and the colours of the one person will appear more vibrant and therefore the person will stand out more. This seems like it will progress my work further and add to the portrayal of the Hidden Loneliness of Cities.
PAINT WORKSHOP: Working on top of Green Underpainting
Posted: March 10, 2014 Filed under: Documentation, Field | Tags: Acrylic Paint, Art, Art Student, art workshop, Black and White, board, dimension, dry brushing, Fine Art, George Ayers, green underpainting, grey, monochrome, painting, shaped painting, tonal variation, tone, tones of grey, working on top of green underpainting, Workshop Leave a commentToday, I attended the paint workshop, where I started working on top of the Green underpainting that I have been working on this week. Prior to this workshop, I had a tutorial with one of our tutors – Susan Adams, who suggested that I worked in monochrome to highlight the one person that is in colour within my work. I think this is a great suggestion and I will experiment with this technique throughout the further stages of my project. In this session, based on the feedback I have been given, I decided to work with a monochrome layer on top of the Green underpainting, and I was interested to see how the green would shine through the greys.
I started to realise that I had already done a lot of the work by putting detail into the underpainting and that I could use it as a guide to work on top of. I focused on creating dimension and tone in the underlay and this definitely helped the success of the paint I was applying on top because I could follow the tones I have considered and thought out previously. I have employed dry brushing techniques here so that the glow of the green underlay is allowed to come through. I have been researching artists that use these techniques within their work and I came across the YouTube video’s of George Ayers, who incorporates much of the detail into a green underpainting and like me uses it more as a guide to work on top of.
I am really pleased with how this piece is turning out. Before these sessions, I never realised quite how useful an underpainting could be and how it really does inform the outcome. It is definitely something I will be condsidering a lot more in my future as an art student and an artist.
I will continue to work on this piece this week and finish it ready for next monday’s session where we will be exhibiting what we have created and presenting what we have learnt.
SHAPED PAINTING: Finished Green Underpainting
Posted: March 7, 2014 Filed under: Documentation, Field | Tags: Acrylic Paint, Art, Art Student, artist, cut out shaped piece, green, green ground, green underpainting, paint, painting, shaped painting, tonal variation, tone, underlay, workshop work Leave a commentI have now finished the green under-painting I have been working on this week, ready to paint the shaped painting on Monday afternoon in the paint workshop.
I have linked my shaped painting into my Hidden loneliness project and painted all the people as white silhouettes apart from one, to show that the one person may as well be alone because there is no interaction with any of the other people around them, they may as well not exist. I feel this heightens loneliness, but this green under-painting has proved to me that colour is very important when portraying loneliness, because I would say this figure looks lonely than in the pieces I have painted in dark and sepia tones.
I am really pleased with the result, I focused on creating tone and highlights and shadows and I feel as if this is definitely evident and I am confident that this underlay with inform the final outcome greatly.
SHAPED PAINTING: Working on Green Under-Painting
Posted: March 4, 2014 Filed under: Documentation, Field | Tags: Acrylic Paint, Art, Art Student, artist, city loneliness, city scape, experimentation, Fine Art, green, green ground, green underpainting, highlights, loneliness, paint, painting, shadows, tonal variation, tone, tones of green, underpainting, workshop work Leave a commentI have started working on the green under-painting of my shaped piece that I started in Mondays paint workshop. When I previously produced a green under-painting of a still life, I found that the tones I had worked with in the green underlay really informed the shadows and highlights that I painted when rendering the top coat. I found that I produced a far more three-dimensional and tonal outcome and that it was easier and quicker to do as I had already thought about tonal variation in the under-painting.
In this shaped piece, I am taking more time on the under-painting and focusing on achieving dimension and tone within it. Also, I was really surprised by how well the green showed through my work when applying the top layer with a method of dry brushing and so this is something I will be working with again. I will document the progress of this painting and work hard to create a highly successful outcome portraying the hidden loneliness of the city. I will incorporate the white silhouette imagery I have been working with into this piece and work at creating a visually successful piece. I have never made a shaped painting, but I can see how it is going to make for an interesting outcome already. I am really enjoying the paint sessions and have already learnt many valuable skills that I have already started applying in my project work.
Painting Workshop: Creating a Shaped Painting
Posted: March 3, 2014 Filed under: Documentation, Field | Tags: anthony green, Art, Art Student, art work, artist, Arts, Artwork, band saw, board, cutting out shape, David Hockney, documentation, field, Fine Art, hardboard, irregular shape, paint, painting, patrick hughes, primed, shape, shaped art, shaped painting, white emulsion Leave a commentToday, in the Monday paint workshop I have been attending, we started thinking about creating a shaped painting. We looked at artists to influence our pieces and to gain an idea of what a shaped painting was and how it might look. We looked at the works of Anthony Green mainly, David Hockney and loosely touched upon the work of Patrick Hughes.
Anthony Green
I was highly drawn to the work of Anthony Green. I find it highly interesting that he uses shaped paintings to play with perspectives. He inspired me to think about creating an irregular shaped piece rather than a generic one like a circle or oval. He inspired me to think of a scene to do with my city project and map out an interesting outline of how it looked to cut out of board to create the canvas for my shaped painting. His work is incredibly clever and really made me want to work with an irregular shaped painting as I wasn’t really able to visualize what I might achieve before.
David Hockney (Tea Painting)
We looked at David Hockney’s shaped painting – “Tea painting in an illusionist way” as an idea of a more geometric shaped piece. The picture employed a shaped canvas, the first work by a Royal College student in which the stretcher departed from the traditional rectangle. Hockney made the stretcher himself. His intention was that, if the blank canvas was already illusionistic, he ‘could ignore the concept of illusionistic space and paint merrily in a flat style – people were always talking about flatness in painting in those days’ (Stangos, p.64).
Patrick Hughes
Patrick Hughes’ work looks simply rectangular but when you look at it from a side view, it is actually incredibly shaped and 3D, his work inspired me to think about creating a relief effect within a shaped painting and maybe building more shapes on top of a shaped piece to create dimension, this is something I could certainly look into in the future.
We started by drawing out the shapes that we had decided to cut and went down to the woodwork area to cut out the pieces using a band-saw. I decided to paint a city scene from Cardiff with a view to painting loneliness within it and silhouettes of figures. I chose St Mary’s street with the castle at the back as I felt the turrets would make for an interesting shaped painting to be cut out. Then, I just started cutting. I am very happy with the shape I created and look forward to painting it very much. I started priming the surface of the shape today also, ready to produce an underpainting on top.
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I have never done this kind of thing before, and tend to always paint on rectangular or square shapes, so I feel I will be learning a lot when producing this work. I spent the evening in the studio, drawing out my piece ready to paint it. I am keen to get stuck in and start painting my shaped piece. I will be working in the studio this week creating a green underpainting just like I did when creating my still life piece ready for next monday’s session.
Finished Painting: Underpainting, Pattern and Dry Brushing
Posted: February 27, 2014 Filed under: Documentation, Field | Tags: Acrylic Paint, acrylic painting, Art Student, art techniques, artist, Artwork, depth, dry brushing, Fine Art, finished painting, painting, sketchbook, Still life, successful outcome, three dimensional, underpainting, working on top of green underpainting 1 CommentI have spending my evenings working in the studio, I have now finished my still life painting that I have been producing in and outside of a paint workshop I have been attending every Monday and I highly pleased and proud of the result. At first, I was unsure of the benefits of underpainting, especially using green tones but I have been pleasantly surprised. The green tones coming through under the colour I have dry brushed over the top has definitely helped add depth to my painting. It has also changed the colours on top and undoubtedly helped inform my decisions when painting in shadows and highlights.
In my opinion, this is an incredibly successful outcome and I have learnt so much about painting that I didn’t know before. I think the depth in the work and the three-dimensional quality it has is one of the most successful elements. The addition of a dotted pattern in the chair and thin line work on the book edges has shown me how to create subtle detail and add texture to my work when working on a flat surface. This has been such a valuable exercise for me and I will definitely be using underpainting and techniques such as dry brushing within my work in the future and within this project.
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