For this I wanted to create a paint about my mental health and now I feel. I decided i wanted to do something that I don’t do often so I wanted to make an abstract piece of art.
For this I did think of Jackson Bullock. I have seen his art before but never truly looked into him. So this is some what inspired by his work, but also something I was thinking of doing anyway. (I have looked into Jackson Bullock more)
My Piece…..
i started by cutting a massive piece of paper that was bigger than a meter by meter as it was much bigger than me. Then I taped it on to the wall.
I started with adding black to the painting. For this I used left over black house paint. i used both a cup to hold the paint and mix it with water, and a spoon to mix it and splat it on the wall. I did also use the spoon so smudge the paint around on the paper.
At this point I completely forgot to take photos but it got very messy. i started getting different coloured paints to mix with water and start flicking it on the wall. Some of the colours I would just use the cup to splash the wall. other I could just throw the cup at the wall. this would give me different effects.
This is a photo of when I had finished throwing the paint onto the paper. I didn’t quick like it and I felt like there was something missing. so then I grabbed a big paintbrush and dragged the dry brush down the paper to create brush marks. This is how it looked afterwards.
I really like it now and I feel the brush marks make it looked more finished and put together. Rather than just painting splatted on the paper. I feel this does show of mental health and how it can be so simple to feel it but also so confusing to understand it.
This is not finished as I think I am going to add a two faces into this piece and it had also give me an idea to do another one and then draw some life drawing on to it.
While doing this piece I had an idea of putting paper on it and pulling it off to see what prints I could make from it. Right now I have no idea what i will do with these prints but i do like them so I decided to keep them.
These are some of the prints that I took of the painting. I might use some of them as practise to draw the life drawing and faces on.
I am going to post the finished pieces onto my blog when they are done but no one this post.
For painting this week I had to bring in a black tub of house paint and a white tub of house paint. I also needed a big paint brush and a squeegee. I didn’t have a squeegee so i used cardboard instead.
I cut out two piece of paper around 1 meter x 1.5 meters long. Then I tapped it to the floor. I had 30 mins to paint on both piece each. I had to pick a reference image to go off of. so I decided to use the drawing I did of the photo I found online.
(the photo and image is in one of my other posts (a man screaming in black and white)
So before the teacher could tell me to not draw on the paper I had already done this, so I just made sure I didn’t do it for the next piece. Due to having 30 mins I forgot to take photos, as I just wanted to get paint on the paper and fill the whole paper.
This is what I manged to get done within the time I had been given. i really love this piece and how it had turned out.
The Background…..
For the background I just painted around the person with black paint. I also painted the black into he bottom where I knew would be pure black. then I loaded up a big paint brush with white paint and i splatted it onto the paper. when the paint would not splat off the paint brush anymore I would make some brush marks onto the page.
The Mans Chest…..
For this i had already painted where the pure black marks are and then I used the cardboard to get both white and black on it and then I scrapped it against the paper so it would make a gradient from black – grey – white.
I really like the marks this has made on the paper and the look of how it had made the shading. This was one of my favourite bit of the paintings.
The Mans Face…..
I had not really done this bit as I ran out of time but I wanted to do the eyes so I quickly put them in. For this I put down some white paint and then used my figure to add some black on to the white to create a more grey shading for the eyes. Then I used my figure to add a black line for the eyelash line.
I really love the look of his eyes and how I have done them. due to this I decided to leave the rest of the face unfinished.
For his fair I just used a piece of cardboard that didn’t have much paint on and dragged it over the hair line this then left the print of the bumpy floor. This was a really good technique as it gave the texture and look if the hair.
All The Random Marks…..
For most of the marks I used paint that was loaded onto the paint brush to flick paint onto the paper and then dried brush to make the brush marks. Then I used a roll of masking tape top load up paint and then roll it over my painting.
I really like the technique of rolling over the paint as i used this to leave the painting white in-between the lines.
I was then asked to invert the paintings so the colour are the opposite way around. I don’t like this one as much as it too simple for what I like also I had to go do something do I didn’t have a lot of time.
For this I just painted on the black where I had pure white on the last picture. Then I used the card board to create a gradient of the black to white again. I then decided to add in thick white to where the shading would have been on the forehead and eyes. By this time I had ran out of time.
I really done like this painting but I do like the idea of it and having to think of how to invert the painting. because I am not keen on this painting but i really liked my first one I want to make this one in to the collage.
Collaring them…..
(I ran out of time to do this so I am going to do this on Monday so I will up date this when I have finished it)
One idea I have had for this piece is the ides of Immortality. For this i have had more of the idea of generations and how someone can live on through others, rather than one single person.
This can be like how my grandma had my mum, this means that a part of her will always be within my mum weather than genetically but also habits and little things to do with my grandmas personality. Then my mum had me so not only will i have some of my mum in me but I will also have some things from my grandma, this is then how my grandma lice both though her self but also through the lower generations of the family.
so for this I am going to do a painting looking into families and also generations but also add in a Egyptian aspect to it.
cant find a link to this photo. it is off the internet.
One thing I have noticed about the way that Egyptians paint is in a story board way this then gives the look of a story I really like this idea as I could use it to show the development of the family and show that person can live on.
This could be a good way to present my work as this does have a good look of passing through time. So from this I am going to be looking in to using this positing to present my work. but I don’t think I am going to use their painting style. For the style I am going to look into abstract painters as this will develop my work with the massive black and white paintings.
Symbolisms within nature to represent Egyptian belief…..
One thing I know about the religion is there beliefs around the Nymphaea Caerulea ( the blue water lily) this lily has a very big meaning and also is link into a story behind one of their gods. the flower has a very big link to both creation and the idea of re-birth. the story of the flower is:
At the very beginning there was murky dirty water and nothing else. within this water a lotus flower grew about the water to then bloom. As the flower bloom the beautiful colours of the blue turning in to the golden yellow was said to release the God Ra (the sun god). Ra also created two Gods that swam away into the waters and this upset Ra, after a while the two gods Shu and Tefnut (Tefnut is the god of rain and moisture while Shu (Tefnut’s sister) is the god of air) came back and this feel Ra with joy. This made Ra cry and these tears became humans.
So the lotus flower looked like the sun coming out when it blooms so the lotus flower created the sun gods bringing life and light to the world through Ra.
Story of Ra…..
Ra is the god of sun within their beliefs, time has worn him down from being the greatest god at one point. As the sun god he would have to cash away the darkness and bring light. the god is a man with a falcons head. on top of his head is the sun disk. to make this better he would cross the skies and take away the darkness on his sun boat. in turn this would then light up the whole world. As everyday would pass their would always be nightfall and this is where Ra would sail into the waters and have to pass through the 12 gates of the underworld. The nights are made up of 12 hours so it was believed it would take Ra an hour to get through each of the 12 gates.
There was not only gates but their was mainly two other things he would always do one of which was seeing Osiris (the god of the underworld(he would decided if your heart was full of sin or not). Ra would visits Osiris and pay him respects. Another thing the god Ra had to do was fight Apophis (a snake god who is the god of evil and darkness). every night when Ra would make this journey Apophis would become a little closer to destroying Ra’s sun boat. One night the god manged to swallow the sun boat causing a solar eclipse. This is due to the snake not being able to hold the sun boat within her stomach so Ra got free.
There was another god called Set (God of destruction). Set was condemned to travel with Ra on the sun boat to help him defeat Apophis and travel through the underworld. The reason he has to do this is because he was lost the extreme thrown to Horus.
so I could use this within my work to show how parts of someone can be re-born within a younger generations and also how over times things can get better.(e.g how the world was just dirty dark water but over time something small grew and then changed the world for the best).
For this I want to look both into colour and how we use it to express ourselves, and also start working on ideas I have with this and how I could do them and present them.
Colour Theory…..
This is a mind map I made to show what each colour means both within emotions and also within cancer. I decided to add cancer into this as I am really interested in it( I knew that basically every colours has a connection into caner). I don’t know if I’m going to use the idea of cancer but I do want to look into it for the idea of physical health over time.
I did find doing this mind map interesting as, it showed how even thought colours can be very different they can also mean the same thing. (e.g. brown and blue can both be seen as loneliness even thought I would never see that in blue).
From this I am going to make lots of different abstract drip works to be able to express different emotions using the mind map, I have just made and then ill use this to see what I like. The last painting I am going to do with be involving loads of different emotions all in one to see how they work all together. I am going to do:
Calm
Loneliness
Tranquillity
Anger
Nothingness
Joy
Down to earth, love, loneliness and nothingness
My Plan…..
For this I’m am going to do a painting on 7 different A4 sheets to create each emotion ( I will be using my mind map of colours to create each piece). Then I am going to look what I like about them and what I don’t.
I am going to lay a sheet in A4 paper into a box and then poor watered down acrylic onto the paper. Then move the box around to add different textures and effects. ill partly dry it with a hair drier and then move it out to dry more.
Photos of making the pieces…..
Making the watered down acrylic
poring it onto the paper
Poring orange on the paper trying to make different patterns
What the blue looked like when all paint was pored on and also the box was moved around.
My A4 Abstract Art Works For The Experiments…..
These are the final out comes that I have made. I am going to look into the colours and what I like, but I will also look into if I think it conveys the meaning it is ament to and if not what I could do to help that.
Calm (Brown And Green)…..
like: I actually really like this one. I did not think I would due to the colours but I love the way the move together. This was from having the paint really watered down and then tipping the whole box. This meant I had control over the direction of the paint but not over the pattern it would make.
Meaning: This piece is ament to be calming and in a weird way this does make me more calm, as it remind me about nature and being outside. This is a peaceful place for me. I can also see how the colours mixed might not be calming.
Loneliness ( Blues)…..
Like: I really love the patterns on this piece and how they look more water like. I think the colours work very well together and move around each other.
Meaning: the meaning behind these colours is ament to be loneliness and in a way I understand how it can show loneliness but I feel that to make it better I could have made it more simple so it would be more lonely. I feel how busy and the amount of movement within it takes away from the meaning of loneliness
Tranquillity(Brown, Orange and green)…..
like: I am not keen on this one as I feel like the colours are a very weird mix, and I don’t really like the patterns as you can see where I started to move it. This did teach me to use the side of the brush to push and drag the paint around, instead of the end of it to make scratches.
Meaning: I do not think this conveys the idea of being tranquil . I feel if anything it just makes me confessed as the brown colour throws me off and I don’t think this would make people have the thoughts of down to earth and calming feelings. I defiantly don’t think I would use these colours in this way but I do feel I could change it and make it look better with other colours added to it.
Anger (red)…..
like: This really shows how I have used the said of the paintbrush to move the paint around. I feel you can see the anger through these movements and how the red in the background can be shows as normal anger and then the black I have moved on top is the anger that explodes. I feel this shows it very well.
Meaning: I think this piece really shows anger very well, I really love this piece and how I have used the black to show the explosive anger that we show unlike the underlaying anger we can hide (the red)
Nothingness (black and grey and white)…..
like: I really like this piece from both the colours and the marks behind it. i feel with this one I was a lot more expressive and experimental with using the paintbrush to make patterns.
meaning: the point of this painting is to express nothingness. I feel this does have this meaning but also I do feel it doesn’t as there is a lot going on in this piece. i feel it conveys more of being sad. I would not change it thought as i do also think it conveys nothingness,
Joy (Orange And Yellow)…..
like: I don’t like this one as I feel its two simple and for it I could have used the colours a lot more to convey its idea. I defiantly think I could have played more with yellow and making it a lot more happy by having a lot more yellow or a yellow base to make it a much brighter work
Meaning: joy is the meaning behind these colours, I defiantly think I could have used the colours a lot more to show this. I could have use a lot more orange then I have yellow and I feel thing makes the piece a lot more darker than what it should be showing. I think if I had sued a lot more yellow and had a yellow base with orange mixed in then it would be a lot better to the meaning.
down to earth, love, loneliness and nothingness (pink, grey, black, green and blue)…..
like: I think I don’t like this one because for me it is way to messy and I don’t like the colours together. this is just a personal opinion of mine though I do like how some of the colours have made patterns though. i really like the dots of yellow within the green.
meaning: This was ament to show how someone can fill loads of different emotions at once. This piece does have the look of being confusing and a little bit overwhelming with the amount of different colours and this is good as it shows how that person can feel overwhelmed. so for me I like the meaning ad how it shows it but I don’t like the colours put together.
Next Steps: I am going to do some big scales experiments in the studio with all colours and emotions I feel that day.
Jackson Pollock was an expressionist artists who lived in America. within this movement he worked very closely to abstract. (1912-1956)
These works are very colourful with burst of different vibrant colours. This really gives off the idea of how emotionally he could feel. For example the one of the left could be seen as more happy due to the idea of the yellow being a prime colour within this piece and on the other side you have a more dull and black and white look. This gives me the feeling that he was more natural and now really happy.
These are some of the images that really do inspire me. Within the drawing class, doing the massive paintings (I did a person in black and white) i really likes letting go and wanting to work in a loser style that was also a lot bigger than my comfort zone of A4.
From this i am going to use his style of dripping dragging and splashing paint on to the paper and see what I can make from this. I want to make a lot more than one so i can experiment with them
by painting objects onto them where i think they would fit.
collaging them
moving the paint to make an image with on it.
using the splatted paint to create an image.
This is some of the things that I want to try out within this part of the project. I want to see what works best and what I like.
As part of my painting project I wanted to look into time and see how we as people feel about time. Within this I want to look into decay and how much time we think we have and how this can effect our mental health.
I have been looking on the internet, for some references to see if I could find some influence on how I could present my idea. As I want to look into a mental health aspect to this as well. I wanted to look into chains and also human expression and anxiety.
Images I have found…..
These are some images I came across and decided I really liked. I wanted to bring in some kind of of way to show how we are trapped by time. The reason we are tapped by time is because, as humans we never think about it but the only thing we rely on is time. Some of us are lucky and will have years of time but other will only be given a small time here. Some miracle cases will mange to get more time but this is only borrowed time. At the end of this we have time given to us and we never know when we will run out. So we are trapped in a prison that we cant see.
key image…..
This is my key image because this represents how humans feel when someone they love is dying and there is nothing we can do. we see this a lot within medical issue and sometimes even mental health. One of the hardest thing to experience is watching someone you love go and there is nothing you can do. This can be within just watching someone die or even being told how much time they get to live.
How I Could Use This…..
One) I was thinking that I could pull real chain through the canvas or what ever I decide to paint on. This means I would have the painting behind and the real chain draped across the painting and in it and could also be hanging onto the floor.
Two) I could paint on the chains around the image I paint and make it look 3D but just paint it wrapped around the images on the canvas or the material that I use to paint onto.
A lot of my work is based on how I feel and also what is happening in my life. If I have something in my head ill do a project on it as its a good way to get it out without talking about it.
today I decided I wanted some time alone so I went to the studio and started drawing. I decided to draw how I felt and I found an image i really liked to I used it as my reference ( it is not my photo).
Reference link – https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/358810295306342981/
My Process of making the drawing…..
For this I used a Derwent Academy pencils (B) to mark out how big and where I wanted everything to give me a base and marking to go off of. First thing i did was mark out where the very dark black is and put it in just to get something on the paper to start.
I used inscribe soft Greystone pastels to do this, I started with a grey and used this as a base on the forehead. for lighter patches I would put less down but the darker areas i would layer it until I needed to start adding a lighter black.
Then I decided to go into the left eye. this was hard but then kind of easy to do. I started with doing the grey and then started adding black to the inner bit of the eye. To be able to get the wrinkles within the skin and the lash line I used a charcoal pencil to get very thin lines.
I carried on with this technique while doing the whole thing. when it came to the hair I put a thin layer of a lighter black down and then went over and picked up the marking off the floor with the side of the charcoal and this worked really well. For the bread I put down a light layer of black and then used the charcoal pencil to add in the hair details.
From the mind map on my last post I have come up with a few idea that I could use. As by the end of this I have to create a series of paintings, I really want to do a painting on each subject within time. This could be words and ideas for example;
Physical Decay
Mental health Decay
Time
Change
Old and New
With this I could use each word to be a painting. So each painting could be looking into another aspect of time. This would make it easier to have a bigger over look of the subject time, without making one painting with way to much happening.
My First Idea…..
This idea is what I have just touched on. For this idea I would chose about 3-4 different words (possibly questions) to do a painting about. This would lead to having a series of paintings that are all different but they would all relate to the same subject, This would hopefully make an interesting visual galleries when they are all together.
To do this I would need to do a lot of research into different subject, but at the same time keep it light so that I don’t give myself to much work and then run out of time. One thing i have looked into before and want to bring into this project is Egyptian religion. Due to their belief within the afterlife. I want to use this because a lot of people believe we only have the time we physically do on this earth, but Egyptians believe that we have an afterlife. This would be a good subject to have on all of my paintings to have a visual link to all the paintings.
This is one of my favourite ideas and something I really want to look into more. I feel this idea will be the best to present the subject of time and be the more visually pleasing when put up.
Another idea I have had is looking in to painting over time. This would involve looking into what is paint?, or what is a painting?. This idea I would have to so a lot of research for because it would involve looking so far back into time. One time that I really do want to look into for this idea is cave paintings.
I want to look into this because I think it is really interesting how we have developed painting over years even before we knew what it is (e.g cave paintings) I want to look into how paintings have changed materials wise and developed from cave painting to communicate to making religious art to show what we believe in.
I really like this idea as I feel there is a lot to look into and its looking in to what I’m doing not just painting. I feel this could be really interesting but its not my favourite idea, so I don’t know if this is one i would carry on with.
For this we where given a time slot to be able to go down to the wood work shop and make a canvas. I made one canvas on this day but I also made about 2-3 more the next week.
Explanting How to make it…..
The first thing we needed to do was have someone to explain to us how to make the canvas. I have made a canvas before but it was in morocco, but this was just with very thin wood. So we listened to how to do it and then i started first.
First thing…..
First thing we did was get given soft wood. They where already pre cut to, two small pieces(41 cm) and two longer pieces(59cm). Then I checked over them for notes and also any dents or breaks, as this could effect the outcome of the canvas.
Next I had to mark out where I will be drilling to add the screws within the frame, so I used two Draper to measure out on lines on this wood. This would tell me where I would put the screws into the frame.
The first line was made by the first draper and that was set for around 10-11mm, and the two other lines where made from the second draper which was set to about 5-6mm . I then used a pencil to make these out as they where a little hard to see.
I then grabbed 4 corner clamps, then I put it in the clamps with the bevelled side up. Tightening them up is a little bit hard as each corner clamp had to be tighten bit by bit to make sure each 45 degree angle is right and they do all fit together.
When they where in and fitted together properly, i then used a drill and a countersink drill bit. For this I need to pick one line cross on each of the joins to drill 1 cm polite hole into and then use the countersink bit to drill so the screw would sit flush to the wood. we did tis a total of 8 times and this would be twice on each joint (photo explains it better).
I have never really had the opportunity to use drills before, I was trying to figure out how to use them. Once I had done the first hole I got the hang on it and I did all the polite holes and the countersink wholes.
Then I took the two shortest bit out of the clamps so I could put glue onto the ends. This would helped hold them.
Once they where back in to the clamps and tighten it, I started to drill the screws into the frame. As this was basically my first time using the drills I decided to take it slow when putting the the screws so that I wouldn’t make the screw stick out of the woods and also so I wouldn’t crack the wood.
After this I took the frame out of the clamps and made sure it was flat by putting it on the table, I also then sanded down the sides and corners so that it wouldn’t ripe the canvas.
Then I started to staple the canvas on to the frame, for this I had to put a staple in each side of the frame. Making sure that I had pulled it tight then I would do each side of the frame making sure they are all pulled tight as I could. Also at the convers making sure you pull it in a 45 degree angle to get it pulled for each direction.
Doing the pleating on the corner wasn’t as hard as I use to work a bit with material. I am not going to be able to explain this over text. but once the corners are done then I was basically done. all I had to do was go to the studio and paint the canvas with primer.
Painting task – Only using white or white and any colour except black
For this class I had pre-painted 4 MDF boards (A5) four different colours; black, blue, yellow and red. I did this a week ahead of the class as I had the time.
(I could use what ever colour boards that I wanted)On the first board, the task was to paint a 3D object only using the colour white. The second board, was to use white and any other colours we wanted. But I was not allowed to use black. The third board, I could use any colour I wanted except black, but I could also not use a paint brush. The final board, I could do what ever I wanted.
First Board (Black)…..
This board I had to only use white paint….. I chose to use a deer’s mandible. I wanted to use this object as it had a firm shape and also I had a good idea how to establish some 3D aspect.
How I did it…..
When painting this I started by diluting the white paint with lots of water, so that I could paint a very faint “foundation” for the shape of the jaw bone. From this I slowly added more to start building up a 3D look. This did mean I had to start making up more diluted white paint, but each batch would have less and less water mixed in.
I used the thickest white paint on the areas that either had a highlight or was the closest bit to me. (e.g. the teeth, they are white and some bits that was closest to me so I put a lot of white down)
Second Board (Blue)…..
This board I could use any colours I want but not black. For this I used a bones from a deer. I choose this as it had a lot of big form changes. so I could play with the blue colour behind a lot easier and see if I could add in different levels of shading.
How I did it…..
So I decided to play with the blue colour on the board, to see how well I could use it for shading. I started by using a white paint (no water) and put it onto the board, this lifted up some of the blue paint making the nice light blue that is in the middle of the board.
Then I waited a little bit for it to dry and I decided to go in with more white paint (no water). To make the simple shape of the bone. For the shadowing and darkness of the bone I would just keep moving the white paint around in that area to slowly lift up the blue underneath. I would do this till it was as light or dark as I wanted it.
Third Board (yellow)…..
This board I could use any colour paint I wanted expect black, but I could not use any paint brushes. I used a deer’s bone.
For this painting I used my figure to put the paint onto the board, I would put the paint straight onto my finger and then add it onto the board. I started by loading my finer with white paint and making the shape of the bone. Then I started in with the grey paint and added this to the darker areas of the bones and the lightly shaded places. Then I went in with the very dark brown paint this was placed in the very dark marks on the bones and the dark shading. I also use this colour with some yellow to make the shadow to give the illusion of a shadow.
Fourth Board (red)…..
This board I could do anything I wanted. So I decided to use a rat skull that I have as it wanted to do a simple painting.
I am not as keen on this one as it is too simple, but I do like it as I wanted it to be simple. With this board I want to go over with a thin layer of red to make it hard to see, but the skull would be there.
For this all I did was using a paint brush I added white paint (no water)onto the board and then painted out the shape of the skull and teeth. Then I used a beige in order to give a 3D look and a light shadowing.
