Research & ReflectionLeave a comment

Contemporary art

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Tom Deininger This is spectacular but also a little creepy if you have a horror perspective on dolls. https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2019/02/05/artwork-becomes-different-closer-get-just-amazing/?fbclid=IwAR1AHB_Q_eR7owNudCMOjMSRQaylNK39wlbhx5C13KX2Irm-YFEncjLe4kY I’m far less spooked by this one but it’s still a horror in that it’s salvaged plastic from the beach. Our mess, our pollution. We’re the teenage bedroom of the universe. http://www.projectvortex.org/tom-deininger.html# Continue reading Contemporary art

art course, work in progressLeave a comment

What’s happening on the art front?

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

This is sketchbook work towards a larger degree piece. I’ve been looking at Gustav Klimt and his mosaic style paintings (and discovering I’d never get that gold leaf look because he used actual gold leaf!). This is a fire screen in my house. It has candle holders fixed in rows to the back so the design is intended to flicker gentle light through to the observer, rather than to act as guard against a roaring fire. They’re both made on a layer of white gesso applied to black sugar paper; one with inks, the other watercolour pencils. Each has been … Continue reading What’s happening on the art front?

Research & Reflection4 Comments

Videos, TV docs, films

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

8th Feb 2019. This is likely to be a constantly updating page of listings and reviews. I’ve taken it from my Drawing blog and will probably run them in tandem. Abstract: the art of design. Abstract: the art of design. Netflix 2017. This is a documentary series featuring designers/architects/artists operating in different commercial arenas. It’s easy to imagine that slick, polished adverts, stark photographic portraits, or magazine front covers, just get there through some act of private genius. But even though extraordinary talent is clearly a factor, so also is a work ethic that requires constant exploration of what’s required, … Continue reading Videos, TV docs, films

Assignments1 Comment

Part 2, Assignment 2

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

 I am thinking of going for an interior again after what felt like quite a turning point with the previous exercise. This time more horizontals and with this ornamental firescreen that always reminds me of a Klimt painting. I took a series of photos to focus the letterbox idea in my head and pasted them onto a landscape orientation A4 sheet to use for reference and palette. Google sometimes stitches these together to form a panorama and I’m hopeful that it will, given time. Then I set about making a composition, moving some items around and foregrounding a couple of them, whereupon … Continue reading Part 2, Assignment 2

art course, work in progress4 Comments

Work in progress or am I done here?

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

This is a piece of course work. An exercise concerning materials, although I’m not completely sure whether that refers to materials in view or in use. I’ve covered both bases – wood, fabric, glass in the frame; oil crayons, charcoal, inks, and a variety of implements to scrape and scratch at the layers for texture, a bit like sgraffito. The base is cartridge paper prepared with a layer of gesso which I’ve textured to reflect the materials in view, and the colours come from layering the various media, blending, scratching, and generally shoving the media about. So, am I done? … Continue reading Work in progress or am I done here?

exercisesLeave a comment

Part 2, Project 4, exercise 3

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Material differences. This had me thinking of textures and also of one of the sketches I’d done earlier which features a series of door frames through from the kitchen to the front of the house. Based on this, I took an A3 sized cartridge sheet and sketched out the key vertical and horizontal lines associated with the doors, the lintels, the ceiling, a book case off in the distance, and reflections of a shelf in the kitchen via a long mirror. Only the sofa and chair are rounded and soft, the rest is wood, plaster, artex, and wallpaper. I’ve recently … Continue reading Part 2, Project 4, exercise 3

MiscellanyLeave a comment

Never mind your right brain, it’s your unconscious that needs letting loose

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

The old left brain/right brain chestnut keeps on popping up, especially in reference to creativity. Dead but it won’t lie down. It comes from some very old studies on people with severe epilepsy whose brain hemispheres were surgically separated to prevent seizures swamping the whole cortex, plus the observation that motor functions are generally right side dominant (governed by the left motor cortex), and that language tends to be located in the left temporal lobe. Early studies seemed to support a view that the left brain is logical, ordered, and language related while the right is more spatial and image-led. … Continue reading Never mind your right brain, it’s your unconscious that needs letting loose

UncategorizedLeave a comment

Left brain, right brain, or something else?

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

The old left brain/right brain chestnut keeps on popping up, especially in reference to creativity. Dead but it won’t lie down. It comes from some very old studies on people with severe epilepsy whose brain hemispheres were surgically separated to prevent seizures swamping the whole cortex, plus the observation that motor functions are generally right side dominant (governed by the left motor cortex), and that language tends to be located in the left temporal lobe. Early studies seemed to support a view that the left brain is logical, ordered, and language related while the right is more spatial and image-led. … Continue reading Left brain, right brain, or something else?

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Sketch book: Henry Moore’s sheep and Found Art

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

I’ve been seeing others on the course doing delightful scribble drawings and so I thought I’d give that a try. I have a copy of Henry Moore’s sketchbook of sheep and these are copied from that. The one on the left looks a little more woolly cow than sheep, and the other has a shade of dog in its face but on the whole I’m quite pleased with how they came out – especially as I’d become rather used to sketching (for exercise 2 of project 4) without my close vision glasses and forgot to put them on. Maybe this … Continue reading Sketch book: Henry Moore’s sheep and Found Art