This was the piece I’d been developing – A1, grand vision, waves and whales in ice cold blues. I liked it. I also liked the crops I’d used to help focus the energy of it and I’d put those into … Continue reading Rapidly updated final submission piece
This module has taken eighteen months, partly due to my taking too seriously tutor advice to slow down, thereby missing a deadline. It means I need to finish the next two modules in the same time. No pressure then. The Drawing unit sets out the basics of mark-making with reference to still life, landscape, the human form, and – in my case – whales. This is a detail from the larger A1 piece, made in acrylics on white cartridge selectively prepared with layers of black and white gesso for substance and texture. There are nods here to Hambling, Turner, Klee, and … Continue reading Final assignment for the Drawing module – in paint!
I have a free blog for my university course and it’s rapidly running out of space with a whole final project to go! My solution is to post some of the copied images here and link to them. Clever, huh? … Continue reading Copying for practice, posting for storage
‘Podcast’ review via collage. The internal geography of the Grand Parade campus has changed since I was last there (1967-68) and so, inevitably, has the premise upon which art is made. At that time we were being psychedelic, free spirited, and often quite intensively introspective but to little purpose. Politics didn’t enter into our thinking. But in this show, politics permeated everything that made its purpose clear; some of that personal, some social, and some encompassing global issues. Some gave us clues as to the raison d’etre of the work, the artist’s motivation or inspiration, their process and how it … Continue reading Review of Brighton university MA show: Fine Art, Inclusive Arts, & Digital Arts July 2019
I’m very much enjoying the Drawing course but it was good to be able to carve some acrylics onto a solid gesso base again. The task is to produce a painting of my choice on any support and in at least A3 size. Initially, I went back to my jug and onion combination – lovely bright colours and this time the jug actually looks to be the right sort of shape and proportion with itself! Happy? Course not – there was a seafront calling, based on a drawing that gave me enormous trouble with its perspectives. I’d liked the monochrome … Continue reading Painting – first assignment
There’s been a lot of experimenting going on with this assignment, which is new for me. At one time, sketches were drawings and had to be perfect, sketchbooks were tidy affairs, and anything loose was usually on a piece of … Continue reading Another outdoor landscape, another block of concrete
I’ve been working up to my third assignment in the Drawing module of my OCA course and, after going a few rounds with townscapes and statues, may have found a home under a flyover again. First there was this, albeit rather more painting than drawing although those seem now to be interchangeable, a scene I pass by quite often along the river bank. Then these A4 sketches (the first of these three is the monochrome photo – mine – I used to map out the shapes) And then, much larger A2 sized monochrome and full colour versions. You can … Continue reading Outdoor landscape
This is about perspective (angular) which, left to its own devices, seems to materialise without too much need for explicit attention. Unfortunately, these exercises require actual focus on actual lines which really throws me. My solution was to use photos to stabilise the scene (anyone else find those intuitive lines behave like a ball of string after a kitten’s been at it once you try to pin them down?), then mark out the lines in charcoal to get the feel of them. I did that with two versions of my photo of Brighton prom (aka vanishing railings), one monochrome, the … Continue reading Drawing – some exercises
Supposedly easier than the angular variety but oh no! I seriously needed to get the white crayon out to make those lines explicit so I could eventually come up with this. It’s oil crayon on A1 cartridge that I’d pre-prepped with acrylic gesso, using brush strokes that would create the textures of the objects in the picture. There’s also some ink, pastel, and a lot of blending, and scratching with a stylus. Quite a work out! Some of the prep images are below. Continue reading Parallel perspective
I sometimes think angular momentum might be easier and I don’t even know what that means – sling shots round the sun to blast through the Kuiper Belt? Anyway, whatever sort of perspective you need to deliver, it’s going to involve a vanishing point, lines that, at root, are parallel, and an eye that knows how to see things side on. I don’t do any of that naturally. Nor do I make easy sense of lots of lines. These tasks are a flippin’ nightmare! I’ve had to do two: parallel perspective which is the one that goes straight ahead and … Continue reading Angular perspective
