3d Project

To follow on from the 2d fine art element, we moved into 3d fine art, with the same theme of 'The Medium is the Message'. I felt very inspired by the artist Jospeh Cornell, who was interested in space and created these amazing little boxes of objects. He was also very influenced by the circus, feeling that the performers demonstrated laws of physics. This led to my Celestial Circus!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My first celestial circus!

A Joseph Cornell inspired box, using the constellations - Ursa Major and Minor, Pisces and the sun.

The front of my Joseph Cornell box.

I then decided that I wanted to make a big circus using the constellations as the performers. I made a wooden board as a base, with six sections for my performers. I discovered that I really enjoy working with wire, so I made a wire big top with acrobats for the top of the circus.

Base board with six sections

Wire big top with some of my performers

Top view of my circus

Painted circus. I chose these colours because my family has connections with Pinders Circus and these are their colours.

Wire Pegasus and rider, inspired by my great-great aunt who was a bareback rider in the circus.

Ursa Major and Minor - this counts as a ready made, using ready made objects in your art work.

I wanted a traditional circus poster to advertise my celestial circus.

I tried making an automaton. It worked, just! I was inspired by Alexander Calder's circus.

Hercules and Leo the lion

Venus and her love potions

Wire big top complete with acrobats, I chose to name them after stars, and where there are two acrobats I called them after twin stars.

The nearly finished circus. I added some little battery powered fairy lights. Ideally I would love to have this on a rotating stand with appropriate circus music.

 

The Big Collage part 2

Having just reminded myself of where I'd got to in the last post, I'm going to explain the next steps I took in creating one of the biggest pieces of art work I've yet attempted. As a side note on that, the canvas I worked on was a present from Matt and Fran and it had been sitting in my cupboard, intimidating me forover a year. It looked HUGE! However, after being on the Foundation course for nearly three terms, and getting used to working on A1 (shock, horror!) size paper, the canvas almost (almost!) seemed to small! Anyway, here's the next step.

I had to work from the back forwards for the next part. These flowers are photographs taken by me and Adrian at different times. I didn't worry about scale, but did try to get a balance of colours. The shape was also important.

To make the tree trunk look textured I started with corregated card, but I didn't want straight lines. I used gardening string to create the bark including a knot hole!

Next step was to add the photographs that I wanted appearing from with the foliage. I also added another secret message, which I will not reveal even now.

I sketched out the extent of the leaves using white pastel as it could easily be removed from the painted surface.

The trunk of the tree was painted with acrylic paint.

I then started to add the leaves, which are made from screwed up tissue paper in two shades of green.

The finished leaf canopy. I left the gaps to make it seem a little more realistic and less like a lollipop.

The flower beds seemed odd. There was no demarcation between them and the lawn, so I decided to add some stones.

Keen to use what ever was to hand I used a cereal packet to create stones in a range of different sizes.

I then painted to stones with acrylic paint. I tried not to mix the colours too much, so I could get a stone effect.

The picnic table was created using fabric and wire that came from a wine bottle. I twisted three strands of the very thin wire and then made the legs. I tried to get a sense of perspective but realised I should have made the table top more rounded.

The table was positioned on the lawn.

The tree trunk looked too unifrom in colour so I used oil pastels over the paint. This helped create a real depth to the trunk.

My favourite of the ten abstract collages I had done at the beginning of this project included lots of little pockets. I wanted to use the same here, but it just looked like someone had dropped a load of litter in the garden. Time to think again.

I decided to use stones around the tree trunk.

I also decided that instead of packets I would make some evnvelopes. I found a net on the web and made green envelopes in 3 different sizes.

Although the envelopes originally had flaps I cut those off as they seemd to be intrusive. I wrote little nots to put in the envelopes which included the date of my marriage, the first paragraph from The Wind in the Willows, Bible verses and some thoughts of my own.

This is the nearly finished piece! It is awaiting photos of a teapot and our favourite cups to go on the table.

 I was so pleased with this collage. It is colourful, romantic, whimsical - things I have always longed to have in my art work. I love that there are hidden messages which can never be seen again, other than in photos. I love that there are messages which the viewer is invited to read, and which can be changed. It is a very personal piece and I feel that it has helped me develop greatly as an artist. I would definitely work in this way again.

A big collage part 1

 This collage took several days, and is really the culmination of what I had been exploring in the 2D fine art project to this point. When I had finished it I heaved a sigh of relief but actually there is so much further I could go, even just within this project. However we are on to 3D fine art from next week, so my mind has moved on! However here is part 1 of the big collage!

These first few pictures show writing which I intended to be covered up with paint. I have realised how much I love to have a story to my work, but as my tutor pointed out to me, it doesn't need to be obvious to everyone.

Bible verses are the foundation of my life so they are the foundation of this art work

.

Painting over the verses was easy!

 Inspired by the work of Alan Bean - an Apollo astronaut turned artist who uses his moon bookts and tools to create texture in his paintings, I used pallette knives and my and Adrian's wedding rings in the acrylic paint. I mixed the paint with gel medium to allow it to hold the texture.

Grass created with pallette knife

I hoped this purple would show through where the wedding rings lifted the paint.

I rubbed in other shades of green acrylic and gold paint to highlight the texture.

Wedding rings created the sky texture - they look like planets or moons.

To create stars I used a spattering technique, making sure I masked off the grass.

 

I wanted to add a moon and a galaxy to my painting but I know I couldn't paint to the same standard as a photograph. However when I put the printed off galaxy on the piece it didn't work because printer black is too different from acrylic paint black. So it was bye-bye galaxy. The moon looked ace though!

My beautiful full moon

My awful galaxies!

More Printing

I really love printing and it's been great so far in this project to really be able to experiment with some new techniques and ideas. In my last post I talked about feeling inspired by space themes, so I've done some more printing on a space theme.

I used a roller to create this Martian landscape, blending 3 inks - yellow, red and cerise

Using the same inks I rollered onto textured paper.

I used the blended plate as a basis for adirect trace. It wasn't great so I rollered over it with black and then added some direct trace labels.

After exploring the Martian colours I decided to explore the earth from space idea and did the following pieces.

Using a blue-green blend I made a mask and created a circle of ink using the roller. I then added white acrylic clouds and a label using direct trace. "Like a blue-green marble floating in space. And life continues on that blue-green marble though I am out here."

I used the mask from the print above to create this print. It was inspired by the story that if there are male and female astronauts on the space station they argue about the heating levels! The direct trace writing says "Strange to think that above our heads an arguement may be raging about the heating."

 These prints were produced at home but we've also been in the print room some more. I had my first attempt at drypoint etching, which I loved. Unfortunately the ink didn't really agree with me and I had an almighty sinus headache the next day! A shame because I think the results are great!

Drypoint etching - a silver teapot. I am so thrilled with this!

Chine colle - applying tissue paper to the etching plate before printing.

After attempting these we moved onto linocuts. Again I loved using this technique and have been pretty thrilled with the results. I love the folky feel to them.

First try - a small coffee cup. I was trying out different lines here.

Tea in the garden. I am thrilled with this too, even though the teapot doesn't have a lid! Oops!

The same linocut on gingham paper. It works well.

With a collage base, which I tried to match to the elements of the linocut, with some success.

 I really do love printing. I like the techniques, the waiting to see what the result is. There is a kind of magic to printing, an element of surprise that is so much fun. This is definitely something I want to come back to!