I looked in to this piece due to the way I see the context behind it. To me this shows a life circle of the owl (I understand this might not be the meaning), to me the bottom red whole is the death after the bright blue life. Her art to me speaks a lot about life and death within animals and I really enjoy this. She uses a lot of “alive” masks to cover the death faces.
This is a statement from the artist about her own works. This explains what she wants to show within her work and what inspired her to do this.
These shows the skeleton of a decayed animal, though this doesn’t have the same look as my project due to me looking in to decay over time, I was intrigued within the material she uses to create them (string). I do also like her work and thing i possible could benefit from it.
This is a explanation of how she makes the works and how she manipulate the materials to get them to become more like the thing she is trying to convey .
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Kris Kuksi
He is an American artist who is who does realistic art. Made out of random things he can find.
Kris’s works don’t particularly have the same message as mine but I do like the look of it and so want to try something like this as more of a relief piece on a canvas.
This explains materials and also why he makes his work but doesn’t go to much into it.
As I have been looking into head space within in sculpture, I have decided to look into both how I feel and what I image. When thinking about being inside my head I used music a lot to escape it. The piece started as a painting of what leaving my mind could look like. It remind me of Kendal Murray. I am going to be look into her more.
To create this piece I started by painting the background, at first I was just thinking of having this painting as an experiment. This is to be understand how to paint a fantasy world (as this was my first time). I wanted to be able to create a better background for my plaster skull. Once I had painted this, it then developed into a more relief piece. Due to wanted to have a lot more control within making the mushrooms and landscape, I used clay instead of plaster. The water within the artwork is made from melted crayons.
I am now going to paint and complete the plaster skull I have made.
This talks about how in the 1960s and 1970s the female form where being used within the western art, within this time women where claiming back their bodies within their art.
This site gives information about The Nouveau Realisme, where the artists started to look into using their bodies to preform art. This was both through photography’s and performances. One piece involved naked women painted the canvas with their bodies.
Yves uses bodies a lot as his paintbrush. he uses the body to express his art and also to show within photos. his use with the body is very inspiring as this is a new and developed way of using the body within art.
This video is Carolee explaining why she thought of this method of making her art. She does not consider herself a body performer but her performances have a sense of intimacy.
Japan’s Gutai group
This is a group of artist founded after the war in japan. it was formed in 1954 by Jiro Yoshihara. The younger artist within this group looked in to body art.
Sadamasa Motonaga
Janine Antoni
This video talks about a range of this artist work. also how/why she made them.
For this I’m looking into an artist and their method on making art. so I’m am looking into Tian Haisu.
Tian Haisu is a young Chinese painter who makes art by land skating, she makes black and white paintings. She create massive scale art by using her inline roller blades this combines her love for ice-skating and art. that have a tub of paint that slowly spill onto the wheels. she uses the front wheel to create the smaller details of the piece. her paintings are black and white landscapes.
This is a video of the prosses of her making the art. it also shows how she uses the roller blades to make this art.it takes you through her making her paintings called blood-lane-line it is 40 feet tall by 20 feet wide, most of her works are on massive scales. as she does her paintings she will fill up the tub on her boots. This piece was present in the California Institute of arts, It was also a really liked piece within the show.
Before she makes her art she will sketch them out as a design. Then she will go in with the roller blades. These are some photos of her making her work. The next photos are of her beautiful works. her works are both simple yet stunning. Due to the fact she keep its in a traditional style of painting.
She uses her unique way of making art, to make traditional Chinese paintings. she used her whole body to create the art as she has to use her balance to se able to use the roller skates.
her art includes a range of mountains, trees, water and sometimes buildings that are within the landcape she is painting.
This is website that explains a little more about how she makes her work and what she uses for her art. This really shows how you don’t have to use normal tool to make traditional art.
The post before this shows how I have planned to make a skull and head out of plaster(I have also made a mini clay skull).On Sunday night I made a mould out of tin foil and masking tape, to be able to pure the plaster in.
Making The Mould…..
This is the possess of me making the skull, At first I was only going to make one half and then I decided to do the full skull as I wanted to carry on with the idea of having the mushrooms inside the skull so I going to use this doe skull to carry out that idea.
For this I made sure that the sides would line up and be able to look like a whole skull. My plan is to make a thick plaster that I can put on with my hands to the shape will be hollow, but I don’t know if it will be strong enough.
This was a lot harder to make than I thought it would be but it did end up working and holding shape in the end so after taking off the skull I was really happy with the look of it.
Doing The Plaster…..
These are some photos of the plaster being put into the moulds, at first I really wasn’t sure if it would take the weight of the plaster but it ended up holding really well.
I made one lot of thick plaster that I used my hand to layer onto the mould, next I made a thinner plaster but not much thinner and then I used some rope netting ( ) so I would put the netting into the plaster and then add it onto the dried thicker layer. This would give it a good and strong shape.
I waited two hours to take it out as I didn’t want it to break. it came out with a really good shape. it isn’t perfect but I do think it was better than I thought it would be. the edges are very ruff but I do like this as it makes a natural decay look so I can put the mushrooms inside and you have to look around the sculpture to get to see the insides.
My next post will be me paintings and adding in the mushrooms and other things.
I wanted to try and make a little skull before making a bigger one, I am going to make it out of clay and see how well I can do it and if I want to then make it bigger out of clay. I also want to try and make a head out of clay, so I could possible make a mould out of it and then have a plaster head. Or I could get as statues head and then go to plastics and get it vacuumed and then that could be my mould for the plaster.
My Mini Skull…..
This is how it turned put I didn’t do the back of the skull as I did find it hard on a small scale but I think it would be better as a bigger skull. I do think an animal skull might work a bit better with an animal skull so I’m going to make a mould of a doe skull.
I started with a ball of clay and then used a metal tool, to then mark out the shapes then I started to remove the clay. It was a simple way of making the the skull and i do like the outcome, even though I do think it could have been better.
I do want to try a bigger scale as I believe it will be easier.
I manged to bring clay back to be able to make the mushrooms, i started by looking at some reference photos and shaped them. I am so happy with how they turned out.
Making the first one I found a hard as I needed to find a controlled and logical way of making them, once I had made the first mushroom I found my way I liked to do them. This meant that I started to make them faster and tried different styles.
I started getting a lump of clay to make the cap (the top of the mushroom). From this I would then use slip to add in the stem. Once the stem was on I would add the gills (lines under the cap). Then I would add the skirt (little bit coming off the stem.
I used a craft knife and scalpel to make form and markings.
painting the mushrooms…..
I dried the mushrooms on my radiator at my accommodation, I did end up braking one but it was very thin anyway so probably wouldn’t have worked. The ones that did work I manged to paint and I am so happy with how they look.
I painted these by starting painting them white to get a good base colour. Then I went in to the stem with a grey to give it a more natural look and some of them with brown and also black.
Then I started to paint the gills I used white and then I when in with grey and black to show the lighting would be above them. This was just to make the look even better than just having it white.
To finish the look, i went in with white on the cap and then started to add a light brown all over but not tasking care at the very edges as some apart can be white. when the lighter brown was on, I then went in with a slightly darker brown in the middle to give it a better look. As nature is not perfect I then also added random white and black marks to the cap.
This was the main basses of how I made all the mushrooms, I am so happy with them and think they look so realistic. I might be making more but not sure yet.
From the mushroom idea I have (I’m still experimenting with this) developed my idea and i want to experiment within crashing the plaster to show damaged with plants to symbolize grown within mental health. I also want to add some that have dead plants in to show a healthy mental health and a bad one. This was inspiered partly by Emil Alzamora.
my plans within this idea….
I feel like the plaster would work better as it would crack more, but I don’t really want it to completely crack so I want to experiment and see if it does and how long it will last.
For this i would also let the plants grow out of the eye sockets as well so maybe the head could actual be a skull.
next post will be making the mold/clay for the head. For both ideas.
I wanted to look into head space within drug use and metal health, as they can be linked, so I was thinking of using mushrooms to show the growth of a mental health but also people link mushrooms to drugs (e.g. magic mushrooms).
Emil Alzamora…..
She is an artist that has made me think of a way to develop my idea and make it a lot more interesting and something I would love to experiment with.
These are some works of her that I found interesting but the one that really caught my eyes was one where she has a human head and had a plant out the top of it..
This image is what gave me the idea of how I could improve and develop my work in to something more interesting and experimental than just a simple sculptor. I still have more ideas than this one but I want to experiment with it to see how well it would work.
When first looking into heads I was thinking of going through a drug like subject but after seeing this it made me think of a better was to show my work, and have the plants roots crack the work. I have a plan for this but ill put it on another post.
so from this next I will be making a plant of how I could now do the ideas of my next experiment. I will also be adding designs and possible images of it.
For this I wanted to keep it related to my art, so I’m going to use it to help my painting project as well. I’m going to look in to the sciences and physical way that a human ages over time. (I wanted to look in to cancer but I know a lot about this so I decided to go for something I know less about).
How A Person Ages Over Time – online research
The cognitive function (to start getting “old”). changes a lot within our bodies. What I want to research is growing old but I want to focus on blindness.
Presbyopia (Age Related Eyes Sight Lose)…..
its where the lens of the eye will stiffen, so it wouldn’t be flexible enough to focus on close range objects. This starts around 40s and increasingly get worse until around 65s year old.
Another eye condition is Fuchs’ dystrophy. This is less common but also can be caused by aging and drugs. This is where the outer layer of the eye thickens leaving the eye with a cloudy look to others.
This interested me because it could show how in hindsight ,when we are older, we regret things from when we where younger. This would help me show a humans lifetime within my work as it links the young and old together.
This is a video talking about how it feels to lose vision over age, it focuses on how one made got a lot of anxiety over this.
I found this interesting, This is an artist who talks to blind people to create what they think their loved ones look like. It shows how blind people see without their eyes and its not far off the true look of the subject.
This is an article from The Newyork Times about a person who had gone blind with age. It talks about how he has struggled with it, They also give some ways to help the blind from their view of having it.
Artist Research – using time and aging in their work…..
Marna Clarke – “Time As We Know It”
Marna Clarke is a photographer, she lives in new York. she has a project called “Time As We Know It” this is a project where she takes photos for aging. The main subject of the photos is herself and her partner.
The Project…..
She started the project around 5 years ago. The whole point was to document her “growing old”.
Keith Salmon
Keith Salmon is a blind artist. his work includes bright colours to make landscape pieces
These stood out to me as they still give off the look of a landscape yet he is blind. The vibrant colours and brush work really make this piece put together and creates texture.
