Why I Paint.

Group Crit. And Oil Paint Workshop: These helped me kind of understand why I paint!
 

Last week I had my group crit with a few other fellow students and it went ok. I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it and to start off the day I stupidly sat at my desk in my space. Doesn’t sound so bad, does it? Well, it meant I had to go first, in hindsight it was good to get it out of the way, it meant I only had to listen to other people for the rest of the day and occasionally ask a question.

During my session, in between being asked questions I didn’t understand and trying to avoid answering them, I was given several ideas about where I could take my work and other ways to present it. There were suggestions from sculpture all the way to a large scale projection. There was even the mention of glitter from the tutor! Now, I will warn you, I am not to be held responsible if anything happens with this medium. I’ve been looking to buy some, I get so excited just thinking about using it, but I need to wait until my money situation is a bit better.

The tutor kept pushing the idea of screen printing and some sort of digitally created symbol based on my work. Sigh. As soon as she mentioned them, I knew that that’s not what I want to do with my work, I just couldn’t put my finger on the reason why...

Still being obsessed with the thoughts of glitter the next day came about and I found myself in an oil painting workshop. Admittedly, that would never have happened if Michael hadn’t have come and got me, because I had completely forgot about it. I found listening to Michael talk about the way he works really interesting. The way he talks about everything makes it sound better than it really is. He also has a habit of wandering off to random stories and you can't help but laugh.We ended up going through why he wears a hat, violet flowers in woods, bees and red trousers... I know, right? I can't really remember why to some of it, but it possibly made sense at the time. The stages he goes through and little tips he had were good, I just wish I could see some more of his work and what his studio is like. He's a very difficult man to find anything about on the internet! There are a couple of videos of him by students but that's about it... Hmmm, I may have to bug him to see some work somehow.

Anyway, watching Michaels process and listening to him talk about other painters, made me realise why I paint and I don't really attempt much else. It is because I like the hands on-ness about it. Adding splodges of paint, layers and layers, colours, shapes... The process from an idea to a finished piece, makes it all so enjoyable. That is why.

I hope all this makes sense, I haven't read throught it haha!

Courtyard Arts.

I think it's about time I shared this with you all seeing as it starts next week! You may remember that I blogged about an elephant painting last week and how it was going to go up in a show I was doing with fellow students? Well, this is that exhibition.

Things have been coming together over the past month or so, which is quite scary to think about, because it doesn't seem that long and it'll all be over before we know it. Being the lead contact, I've helped to converse between the gallery and the artists (students). Asking the questions that needed answering, organising meetings and just generally keeping everyone informed as best I can.

Honestly, it's been an experience, i've never had to do anything like this before. I now enjoy writing emails, I suppose they remind me of blogging, but are less... Public? I don't know. Working with 8 other people has been interesting, I've definitely learnt that making things happen by a certain time generally doesn't happen, I guess life just gets in the way. I also learnt that asking for help and giving out jobs is very helpful, especially if you end up forgetting a persons on the poster... (Shhh, we'll just brush that under the carpet). I did try and make it up to her by changing the poster the gallery made so it did have her name on it...

To put it bluntly, I don't reckon anyone would let me do it again, there were others in our group that would've been much better suited. It's been a learning experience to say the least and it'll carry on being so until our Private View is out the way. However, a couple of them said I've done well yesterday to the tutor. They had to be nice to me though... 1) I was there and 2) It was my birthday!

I'm sooo nervous about the PV! Never been to one before, let alone be the reason it's happening. Let's hope no one asks me about my work... Haha! I don't do too well in small spaces with people I don't know. I better get used to it, I do want my work out there! So wish me luck and I'll fill you all in about it next week. You know what I'm like with this blogging thing though. I'll either forget, be napping or watching Jurassic Park!

Oooo, I've just remembered we got a mention on our uni blog, so that was cool and exciting! See it here .

Elephantidae.

'Elephantidae'

I started creating this piece as a way to find out what I wanted to do last semester. Although, once I had completed it, I didn’t know what to do with myself… I got talked into entering for an Open Exhibtion in St. Albans, called ‘Eastern Approaches’ and decided to enter this piece. I also enter a study of a childs skull and video piece I made in my first year at university. This painting didn’t get accepted, but my video did, so that was good at least.

With this piece, I wanted to show what I see to be beautiful in something that has passed away and decayed, in other words, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. Elephants are magnificent creatures in life and to me, are equally so in death.

I had been fascinated by the different textures of the skulls surface and the deep, dark crevasses discovered with each new glance. As well as how the wearing of the exterior could tell you about its movement and previous being.

From creating initial sketches of the object, I familiarised myself with its form and enabled myself to make this work with some ease. A limited colour palette was used, because I was still learning about the medium and I knew the possible colour range available from the paint I had.

At first, I had intended to leave it up to the viewer to form his or her own personal interpretation and they still can, however, the work was more about me showing the world how I see and feel.

Not having had this piece exhibited before, I’ve decided to put it up in a show I’m doing with some fellow students at Courtyard Art Gallery in Hertford. The show will be up in less than 2 weeks!

New Project: SEENK.

'A painting to show colours made from cobalt blue, yellow ochre, crimson and white.'

New project called 'SEENK'.

Last Thursday, we began our journeys in a new project. We had a list of themes we could choose and then pick a medium or an aspect of a medium that we are unfamiliar with. The word I chose was 'knees'; because in my work I tend to avoid anything that is figure/body related. My chosen medium is oil paints; simply because I have never used them before - ever! I am both extremely nervous and excited about it.

That Friday, I asked good ol' Uncle Clive to teach me the wonderful world of oil painting. He gave me a list of things I would need and off I popped to the art shop. Armed with oil paint, paper and an eagerness to get going (plus a few other bits that I got given or already had) we started. Clive said I should get to know what I can get out of the colouirs I had (cobalt blue, yellow ochre, crimson and white). So I did, I mixed colours together to get new colours and mixed them together to get more colours. It went on for a while with a lunch break in between. I also learnt that mixing all the colours I had made together would then make a shade of grey, depending on which starting colour was the more dominant.

After this I stapled paper to the wall and just went for it with palette knives. I didn't necessarily think too much about where to put the colour. I occassionally look at a reference photo of a 'dinosaur' skull, but it looks nothing like that. The painting isn't meant to look like anything, it's purpose is 'to show colours made from cobalt blue, yellow ochre, crimson and white.' Which is exactly what it does. I had a lot of fun making a mess and learning something new, I definitely enjoyed myself. The next stage is to work with brushes and see how that ends up.

On another note, today, I found out I have ugly knees...

Back In The Studios.

Back in the studios this week - how exciting! I have my studio space now so I am ok. We met some of the new people who are joining us for second year and got told by Michael that we should probably put some work up for our new tutors to see. I've put up plenty of references, did a couple of illustrations and started another two.

The first one completely threw me off, the shape of the paper confused me. I hadn't worked on a rectangle piece of paper for months! I'm so used to my little square sketchbook. It wasn't a great start, it was great to have space and talk to people though. The next one was better and I let myself loose with the scribbles (it made me feel good). I started a new elephant piece on a larger scale before the meeting. However, afterwards I decided to leave it and go home. The next drawing was from a photo Uncle Clive sent me of a dinosaur skull, which I absolutely fell in love with. This is the biggest one of them all, which meant I struggled on proportions, but it's fine, I'm allowed to make it up haha! They'll get finished little by little probably while I work on this new project.

New Baby.

Everyone, meet my new baby! (And yes, that is a dinosaur you can see).

Last night, I got home to find something very exciting waiting on my bed for me... My new camera!!! I felt like a little child at christmas. I dropped everything, sat on my bed and unpacked it all. Packaging was sprawled all over the place! It had to be charged straight away, of course, I was so happy!

It's my early birthday and christmas present and thankfully I got it in time before I go back to uni next week. I even got a tripod, which will be interesting, never used one before. I have it now, which means I must use it... Maybe it'll come in handy to take level pictures of work hanging in the studio. We shall see. I'm looking forward to having better quality photos because of the number of mega pixels (there's still doubt in my ability to take 'good' photos though), hopefully I'll get out more and capture the outside world. Admittedly, I mainly wanted it due to it being a lovely looking piece of equipment, but I was reassured that other aspects were good too haha!

Oooo, I'm unbelievably excited! Just looking at it makes me smile like a cheshire cat - you can tell not much happens in my life...

The Duck Race.

As you know (or may not know haha), I came home from uni for the weekend and this is the reason. The Duck Race (held at Stowmarket, Suffolk). I’ve been the past couple of years with my boyfriend and his family, and I love it. Main thing being: DUCKS! I love ducks (hint hint - anyone feel free to buy me a pet one). It’s always great to see some real ones get in the way. This time it was a mummy duck and her babies. There was a girl shouting extremely loudly, “THERE’S REAL DUCKS! THERE’S REAL ONES!” Bless her, she was even more excited then I was. She reminded of the little girl from ‘Despicable Me’, when she gets the cuddly toy unicorn and says “It’s so fluffy!” I know what I mean haha. The weather wasn’t the best, it was probably because I had my legs out and the sun would rather hide from their whiteness, but people were smiling and enjoying themselves. I’m already looking forward to next years one and of course I had to have souvenirs. I got a stegosaurus dinosaur ducky and argh! A pirate one to go with my collection.

Befriend A Whale.

“This is where I reblog things that inspire me and anything that puts a smile on my face.”

That sentence is literally what it is. I finally decided to create another Tumblr blog called 'Befriend A Whale' (I like whales), so I could put the things that I like, make me smile, are just plain awesome etc there. It will contain art, but there is a high chance that there will be cats, lots of cats too and just animals in general. I haven’t decided if I will post anything up myself as yet, could I count as my own inspiration? I suppose when I work, I tend to use what I have created to then learn from it and move on to make something else, for example, what did or didn't work well. I am now able to reblog things and show people what I like. Just thinking about it makes me grin. Before, in my art work Tumblr, I would occasionally put up things and talk about them a bit, but that has slowly died out. Anyway, it’s still early days and looking very bare, even so, I am quite excited about it!

Feel free to check it out: www.befriendingwhale.tumblr.com

Getting On With It.

Tutorial, brushing, gluing and painting. We had our group tutorial today, it’s not the worst it has been, but when she said she preferred my first two paintings, I felt like it might has well have been said that I started off good but went downhill from there. I understand where she came from, I know my work doesn’t tend to stem from anything, other than the fact I like colour and shape, and I need to create things that enter my mind, either for them to be a success or just to get them out of my system. Any who, I had marshmallows and I was happy.

Oh, I bought some gold paint, this also excited me greatly! (Small things amuse small minds, hey?) I then proceeded to get a brush and brushed all of the loose sand an

d grit from my larger sculptures. Doing this my favourite part, if I could do that forever, I would! Due to my (more) sandy sculpture still crumbling, I decided to make up a water/glue solution (mostly glue) and coat that in it. I was planning to work on it somemore, however it took longer than I expected to dry properly.

Then I moved on to the most recent sculpture I created. With this I wanted to experiment with combining the colours, so as to maybe in a way, represent the project coming to an end and bringing all the work together. This was possibly a mistake, but again, I had to see whether it worked or not, so I wasn’t left wondering. I quite like keeping different shades of colour together, this probably, in my eyes, looks better than he mixture of colours. Ah well, at least I learnt.

You may be surprised to know that I shall be entering the territory of the studios tomorrow, on a Satuday! Crazy or what? A few of us will be clearing our spaces and painting the walls in preparation for the hand in.

Painting Sand.

Painting the sand valleys. Sounds interesting yes, but probably not as interesting as you may think, I hope I didn’t get your hopes up. Today I finally got round to painting the lines I carved out in my sculptures, these ones names are ‘Red Sand’, ‘Orange Sand’ and ‘Purple Sand’. Original, hey? You will have noticed I am not the best one for naming my art work. These names may not stick, but they’ll do for now. I had a really good, I don’t want it to all end next week. There’s still so much I want to do, but I know it won’t happen. I’m trying not to panic.

I started off the day by acquiring pva, a brush to put it on with and a brush now named ‘Sand Brush’ (it’s for brushing off sand - sculptors need these things haha). It felt good to buy something and not have to worry about if I can afford it or not for once. I mixed up a water/pva solution and gave my sculptures a couple of coatings of it, in the hope that it will stop the sand from crumbling much more (I found at the end that this did not help as much as I wanted it to). Then taking a colour at a time and adding a little pva to it, I painted in the carved lines. I took photos of the stages for each sculpture, you can see these on my Facebook page. It was very enjoyable to do and Clive helped with more options for my work set up to hand in.

I have discovered how nice it is to work without my shoes on in the studio (and no, my feet did not stink). I had to do this because I have blisters on my feet from walking loads in London yesterday. I shall hopefully explain more about that at the weekend. Tomorrow I plan to buy some gold paint. I am so excited about it! As well as that, I shall be working on my plaster sculpture I made on Tuesday, maybe it will be another good day.