Elizabeth Barnett

Elizabeth Barnett depicts intimate domestic scenes and still lifes with a wide range of plants, colour, personal objects, and furnishings. Her work revolves around motherhood, living off the land and her connection to nature.

Nature Table is a still life that connects nature and her domestic world. This is done by her depiction of everyday objects along side an array of plants . This artwork exists to connect humanity and nature.

Herbal Medicine is a series inspired by natural remedies, joining motherhood and Barnett’s connection to nature. Here she works on a larger scale larger scale, making compositions looser and more welcoming. The size of the canvas gives the feeling that one could walk into the artwork.

date I visited sites: 19/08/2019

https://elizabethbarnett.com/2019-Nature-Table

https://elizabethbarnett.com/2017-Herbal-Medicine-TDF-Collect

TDF Collect · ‘Herbal Medicine’ by Elizabeth Barnett

Matthias Weischer

Matthias Weischer’s paintings incorporate both reality and imagination. He is interested in the historical medium, perspective and representation while making it his own by adding collage-like elements. He builds the artwork up by using many payers of paint, adding to the three -dimensionality of his work. His work strives to find the balance between chaos and harmony.

Date I visited sites: 19/08/2019

https://grimmgallery.com/artists/matthies-weischer/

https://www.artsy.net/artist/matthies-weischer

Jonas Wood

Jona Wood is well known for his depictions of everyday scenes and objects. He was inspired by the disconnected angles and planes of cubism and so uses odd views for his artwork. He starts off with photographic bases and then goes on to layer different perspectives into the artwork giving an almost abstract atmosphere to his work.

Date I visited site: 19/08/2019

https://www.sothebys.com/en/artists/jonas-wood

Phillip Geiger

Phillip Geiger depicts scenes of everyday life with his family. His use of loose brushwork and colour give a calm and peaceful effect on the viewer. His work tells us focus on and appreciate the calm and mundane moments and events in life. His work is simplistic yet says a lot about peoples misplaced priorities. The simple and seamingly unimportant moments in life are the ones we look back on when remembering loved ones and so must be treasured. Geiger immortalizes these moments in his artwork

I decided to change from ink to pencil so that I can erase mistakes and spend more time on the drawing. At first I used coal but felt that I could not get the tonal range I wanted, This could be in part that I am not very experienced with the medium.

For my second drawing I just redrew the scene and shaded with pencil. I found this gave better mark making and tone.

I went and drew all my favorite scenes in the house until I came to one that I liked enough to use for Exercise 3. In hindsight I think I should ave chosen the scene bellow because it is busier and more interesting, it is also a more personal and intimate space. I am still happy with the scene I ended up choosing though.

I chose this scene because I like the light and dark contrasts. There is also nice colour contrast with the warm brow of steps and the cool gray of the beams and railing. I also like the the straight and uniform lines broken only by the balls on the railing and the jacket hanging from the rails. This scene has a strong vertical plane. There is also a good sense of depth with the stairs and the hallway.

This is the rough colorization of the chosen scene.

Exercise 3: Material Differences

I decided to combine these two exercises into one post, I feel it’s easier that way.

I was glad that I could add a lot of detail working on this size paper but it is not fit to be used for watercolour. As you can see the paper warped dramatically. However, I still enjoyed doing it.

All other comentry on the scene was done on my prep drawings and I don’t feel the need to repeat it since it it has been done all in one post.

;:;

With all the media I used I struggled to get the soft pink tone of the cup.

I decided to start off with a medium that I was used to and so chose watercolour. The paper I used with the watercolour was also not watercolour paper so the colour became distorted as the paper got wet so I just had to wait for my layers to dry before carrying on. Making the shadows was also a bit difficult because I felt I would either change the colour completely or it would end up becoming rather muddy.

The oil pastel was fun to work with and I liked the rich colours it made. It is the complete oposite of working with watercolour. Working in the tight spaces of the flowers was a bit difficult but I managed. It was also difficult to get a soft tone for the background since the oil pastels have such strong colours and I couldn’t find a close enough shade.

The first non traditional media I used was markers. I’d scribble woth my desired colours and then I went over with alcohol and that’s how I got the washed out effects. I layered the markers alcohol until I was happy with the result. For the cup I used a pink highlighter but it had no reaction to the alcohol. I then tried water to see if it would maybe react to that but I had to suck luck.

I liked how the borders of the objects seeped into one another, although it was not initially my intention. once everything was dry I decided to go over with a black pen and make rough outlines of the objects just to make them a bit more distinguishable. Creating shadows was also a bit difficult because it would just blend in to much. I also outlined he shadows but I now thing I perhaps should have not done so.

The last media I used was wax crayons. At first I didn’t really want to because I thought it would be a bit too similar to the oil pastels but then had the wonderful idea of melting the crayons. After colouring in an area I held it under my hairdryer but that didn’t really do much. I then started smudging it about with my fingers and liked the smooth texture it made so I carried on with that. I burned my finger but really enjoyed the outcome. I’m also happy with the veriety of colours i could make because I had very limited pallet.

I started off by doing life size sketch of my rock then made a larger scaled one and tested out possible colouring.

One main focus was to find a way to portray the colour and texture of the rock. I was also a bit nervous about adding colour since the exercise never exactly said we could use colour. In the end I felt that the tone in the small crystals would be portrayed better if done in colour and so I decided to continue with that while keeping the rock in fairly muted tones of black and white with small hits of its natural brown colour.

Sketch 1: here I made a larger scaled sketch of the life sized sketch. At the time I had thought of making the sketches by measuring dimensions from life and converting it according to scale but this turned out to be too much of a mission and so decided to free hand the rest. I coloured the rock with a mixture of oil pastels and wax crayons. I did the crystals with wax crayons because they had soft tones but in the end the lack hues and rough texture was what made me decide not to use them.

I then went and made sketches of one small area of the rock at a time instead of doing the entire thing.

Sketch 2: Here for the crystal areas I decided to use soft pastels. I also tested out using colours or shades of grey but preferred the effect of the colour and so stuck with that. For the rock I decided to try the oil pastels again but try to use colour instead. I did not like the outcome of using colour colour and so decided to rather stick to Black and while. However I was still not quite happy with the texture of the rock and so decided to carry on with the sketches.

Sketch 3: here I added a cooler brown to the crystals which I feel gave it more translucent depth. I tried shading the rock with a ball point pen although I still felt it did not portray the texture correctly. I then tried shading over it with a pencil but that made no improvement.

I felt that ink would be my pest bet still so I did one last ink test but this time with my dip pen. In the test however it still wasn’t the correct texture but i knew that my dip pen and ink would give me the best results so I carried on with it in my final peace anyway.

After finding an angle I liked, I took a photo reference and then picked one area of the rock to focus on and zoomed into that area of the picture.

I am very happy with the outcome of the rock texture in my final piece. I went in with my finest dip pen nib and so could make very delicate lines. I struggled on fulling the darkest shadows though so I went in the a cool dark brown powder pastel and then tent over with a wet brush. I also lightened areas by going over with the wet brush and then dabbing tissue paper. I then went over the rest of the are with the wet brush to create my more mid ones and left clean white patches for highlight.

In my final piece the crystals are a lot lighter than those in the sketches but I felt the lighter crystals looked closer to the actual reference object I had although they appear darker in the reference pictures. I felt it to be challenging to define the corners of the crystals but I think I did a good job at it. Blending the stone into the crystals was also difficult. Overall I’m happy with the results.

In my practice sketches I neglected to take in account of the shadow and so it was very poorly done, with powder pastel, in my final piece.

Unfortunately part of my paper was eaten by my rabbit and instead of redoing the entire drawing I decided to try and incorporate it into the drawing and added another piece of paper behind it so i could full in the shadow.

Gary Hume’s work is influenced by many different art movements and his work can be described as Post-modern. His simplistic subject matter and large flat planes of colour are influence from Minimalism and Pop Art. Other influences come from OP-Art and Neo-Geo

Hume states, “I used to think of the areas of color as tectonic plates meeting, so in the paintings it’s like there are these molten plates that would hit each other and dry. I wanted one of those plates to be higher than the other, and I wanted the hit to be more abrupt.” This can especially be seen in the images bellow. He uses cool colours for the faces and warm colours for the background. This use of colour makes it appear that the background is coming forward while the subject moves back. The use of complimentary colours also cause the flat planes to clash and stand out even more.

In “love loves unlovable” the subjects are black silhouettes framed by flowers. It is as though the light it coming off of the colourful flowers. The subjects are made from negative space yet it is clear that they are the main focal points of the artwork.

The silhouettes mirror themselves yet it is unclear which is the reflection. This artwork symbolizes a period in Hume’s life of self-evaluation and growth as to the type of artist he wished to be.

Bellow are photographs taken by artist Amil Jadhav. the purpose of these pictures was to inspire people to adopt animals from shelters. Jadhav’s amazing use of positive and negative space creates impressive optical illusions. When I first saw the pictures I immediately saw the white silhouettes of the animals and assumed that as the positive space. Upon a closer look I realized that the darker areas consisted of people and what I had mistaken as negative space was really the positive space. Although I’d say that the positive and negative spaces are interchangeable.

Sources

http://www.artnet.com/artists/gary-hume/

read: 22/06/2019

https://www.theartstory.org/artist-hume-gary.htm

read: 22/06/2019

by: Stephen Messenger. posted: 17/04/2017

Image sources

za.pinterest.com/pin/466544842644678746/?lp=true

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hume-cerith-p78688

http://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/artpages/gary_hume_10.htm

http://www.thedodo.com/optical-illusions-pet-adoption-2365410802.html

I love Redon’s artwork, both early and late. I feel that they are very emotive, he is able to take mere ideas and turn them into expressive works of art.

Redon’s earlier work consisted of black and white drawings, known as his “noir” work, as he describes it. These pieces are very detailed and realistic (e.g. Two trees) . However he did not feel that these pieces were emotive enough and so turned to more abstract and dream inspired work. (e.g. The crying spider)

While sticking to his new style, he stared using more and more colour in his work. He would start with a black and white under drawing and then go over in colour.

He used a verity of mediums and would layer them in order to create his desired effect. He was very experimental with his techniques. I too enjoy experimenting with mediums and techniques and so this draws me toward his work. (e.g. Buddha in His Youth)

Redon does not outline his work and merely uses shadows to create substance and depth. The artwork bellow has a busy yet calm feel to it. He has used cross hatching on the main trunk of the tree which makes it seem rough and sturdy and tells the viewer that these trees/ this forest is old and holds many stories. the smaller branches are smooth and light. The leaves in the top left corner look so small and delicate in comparison to the trees.

The dark shadows behind the trees and in the hole of the center tree creates a feeling of depth. It creates a stark contrast and gives the trees substance. I feel as though if I were to go beyond the trees I would fall into nothingness.

Sources :

• https://www.odilon-redon.org/biography.html
• http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/90316
• https://cool.conservation-us.org/coolaic/sg/bpg/annual/v14/bp14-08.html
• https://www.odilon-redon.org/I-Plunged-Into-Solitude.-I-Dwelt-In-The-Tree-Behind-Me.-Plate-9.html
• https://www.wikiart.org/en/odilon-redon/two-trees-1875
• https://steemit.com/art/@fineartnow/to-honor-old-masters-odilon-redon