Katy Aston: Textile design.

Katy Aston came to give us a talk about her degree and textile work. She brought in lots of samples of her work, and my favourites were the wood and suede pieces, because they are very interactive and tactile, and can be bent into lots of different shapes. Her designs are quite geometric, using lots of squares, diamonds and semi-circles in her patterns. I like the limited colours pallettes in her projects, because I think they aren't too over-complicated to go with the patterns.

Thorsten Brinkmann inspired photographs

Thorsten Brinkmann takes photographs of figures, covered up with fabric,  clothing and objects. The portraits are slightly surreal, as the bodies are covered up, and the faces are never showing.
   We made similar photographs by dressing and covering each other with cloth and hats, and also used objects. The pose of the figure was very important because it was the only way of showing emotion and feelings, because you couldn't see their facial expression. When I was modelling it felt very strange because I was trapped in the cloth, but at the same time it felt quite safe, because nobody else knew what you were thinking so it was easier to become a different character.

The third picture along was the one that I dressed, I decided to use black and white because it was very striking, and I liked the idea of the stripes going across the body.

One of my favourites is the first one on the middle row, because of how the fabric is clingy, so the buttons on her jacket, and her hands stick out and make a very interesting texture. I also really like the second one on the bottom row, because even though the top of the body is completely covered, the arms and feet show it is a figure. I also like the garden shears in her hand, because it makes it seem as though she is going to work, and doing something, as opposed to many of the figures that look as though they wouldn't be able to do anything.
I am dressed in a purple robe, bottom left, and I think because I am kneeling, the fabric drapes nicely and falls well on the floor.

Black and white photography.

Inspired by Corinne Day's 'The Face' we approached portrait photography in a slightly different way, so that the subject was not posing, but answering questions while being photographed. This was to try to make the model to forget they were being photographed, to get more natural, expressive faces. We were using 35mm film cameras, and we used the darkroom to develop the photos ourselves. I enjoyed learning the process of how the film negatives are made into prints.
  I printed nine different photographs of Alex, and arranged them in a similar way to 'The Face' but I think the black background with white in between makes them look more separate, and not so much a whole artwork. I like the contrast in these photos, especially her stripy top, and her face stands out really well from the black background.


I then took the background off by cropping them on the computer, and I think this closeness makes it look more like an artwork, rather than a series of photos.

I really enjoyed working in the photography studio and darkroom, and doing the whole process from start to finish, taking the photos and developing them into an end product.

long exposure photography

These photos used a similar method to the light painting, using a long exposure, but instead of torches, we used a series of flashes to capture the pictures. To get the movement, we all swapped places and moved around, so each time the flash went off, The camera captured everybody in a different position.

 In these two (above), we used both flashes and torches, so both the torch light and all the people would come out in the photograph. The top one of my favourites, because Paige stayed still for more than one flash, so is fairly solid, which contrasts to the busy background, where everything is difficult to make out. We then worked in pairs, to experiment with different ways of creating interesting long exposure photographs.

Light painting

Light painting is a method that uses long exposure photography and torches to create an image.

 We used torches to draw around people, then scribble around them , to create silhouettes. I enjoyed this, but it was difficult to get  the whole silhouette, because if the torch was not pointing at the camera, it did not record the light, so doing the lower parts we had to crouch down.

To make this picture, I used a torch to draw Alex. I like the final image, because of the movement and continuous line, but it was a very strange thing to do, because you cant see what you have drawn until you look on the camera. I think it looks like there are two people in the picture.

We worked in pairs, one modelling and one drawing, then swapped over. I think all of the different styles of figure are very interesting, and when I put them all together it was very obvious that different torches had been used, to create the different coloured drawings.

Life drawing: Sculpture

This week, instead of drawing, we used clay to make the figure. We started  with basic shapes, and then used clay tools and our hands to refine this into a more realistic figure. I enjoyed this, but in the time we had, I found I couldn't get all the smaller details in. I think I captured the proportions quite well, and I enjoyed how easy  it was to change parts by adding and taking away little pieces of clay.


































Making the head sculpture was my favourite part, because of how much detail I could put in, but I also enjoyed the process of building up the head, starting with a newspaper base, then building up the basic head shape with clay. Each four minutes, we all moved positions, so as to get an all round view of the head. I struggled for a while to get the profile right, but I think my end result turned out well and is very realistic.

Photography Research.

Looking at different photographers work, I realised how many different styles of photography there are, and how carefully composed they are.

Loretta Lux:
     Lux is one of my favourite portrait photographers, because of the eerie expressions on the children's faces. Her portraits are very haunting and surreal. In this photo, 'Portrait of Antonia' I like the muted colours, because the neutral background makes the blue look very bright in comparison.







Imogen Cunningham:
     I like how abstract the shapes are in this photograph, although at the same time very realistic and detailed. The flowers really stand out from the black background, and the texture of the flowers is very subtle.























Sandy Skoglund:
Skoglund interested me because of how intricate her photo sets are, and how much work must have gone into the background to take just one photo. This one caught my eye because of the pattern that covers almost all of the people and items, but there are also parts that show through, like the suit, and parts left completely uncovered like the arms and legs of the women. The colours are not very varied, so you have to look closely to see all the details.

Photograms.

We used the darkroom to create camera-less images on photographic paper. These photograms were made by putting objects onto the paper, which stopped the light from touching the paper. We used an enlarger to control how much light hit the paper, and this made an image of the object on the paper. These can be very simple, using solid objects such as a hand, to stop the light, or more complex using more than one object, and transparent objects to make very delicate patterns and shapes.




for this one, I used a strip of lace, a doily and a glass bowl shaped like a leaf. I like the effect the glass has because some parts are white, and some are black.









I really liked the subtlety of the glass on the paper, so I decided to try with some other transparent objects. I really like how the crumpled plastic cup came out because of all the lines that go across the cup, as well as the lines that came from the creases. This photogram also has two ripped edges, and I think this gives it a very interesting outline.







 I wanted to use something more bold, but still delicate, so I stayed with transparent objects: a bottle, a ruler, a fork and some fabric with sequins on. The lettering on the ruler and sequins on the fabric were opaque, so were left white. I think the detail makes this photogram one of my favourites, as well as the parallel lines going across the paper.

 For this one, I used the glass leaf, two limpet shells, a piece of net, and a piece of plastic wrapping, which had flowers printed on. This one has a lot of contrast between the background and the objects, because the net and limpet shells are opaque so are white against the black background.








The part I enjoyed most while making these photograms was experimenting with different objects and seeing how they came out when they were developed.

Illustration: Observational bird drawings

 In our first day of illustration, we were doing observational drawings of stuffed birds.

 The first drawing we did was with our non-drawing hand, so for me my left hand. This was to create a looser drawing, and to capture the basic shape and essence of the bird. We then did another drawing of the same bird, on top of the previous drawing. I like this because of all the overlapping shapes and messy lines.

 This owl was drawn without looking at the paper, just looking at the owl. At one point. my graphite stick fell off the edge of the paper. The basic shapes are all there, but aren't all in the right place.























This toucan is drawn using the same method, but with a felt tip pen. I like the shape of his beak and his feet. It looks like a toucan even though his head isn't complete.

This is my favourite of my bird sketches, it was done mainly looking at the bird, and only glancing at the page. I like it because it is very simple but also very accurate to the real bird.

Life drawing: Tone.

This week, we were using tone, with no lines. I found this very hard because it was difficult to put the blocks of tone in the right place and still get the proportions right. I also found it took more time to build the image, whereas with line it is easy to get the basic shapes in fairly quickly. I also found that the background plays a big part in the range of tones, as a dark background makes the figure look lighter and vice versa.At the start, we were just using charcoal on white cartridge paper, but I found it difficult to get the full range of tones, because a lot of shading was needed to make it dark enough that only the lightest highlights were still white.

Next, we shaded in the whole of the paper grey with charcoal, so that was a mid tone, and more charcoal could be added to make it darker, and it could also be taken away with a putty rubber to make it lighter. I found this a lot easier, because the background meant I had a shade to compare the figure to. If a part was lighter the background, I used the putty rubber, but if something was darker than the background I added more charcoal. This meant I didn't have to shade parts of the background in to make the figure look lighter. The only bit I didn't like was the way that the charcoal background picked up the texture of the drawing board underneath, so it wasn't a flat colour.







After this, we used creamy beige coloured sugar paper, with white chalk and charcoal, so the background was quite light. I had to shade in the background to make it contrast with the figure.

My favourite way of drawing with tone was with the three different colours, black (charcoal) white, and red (chalk) and we were still working on the sugar paper. When the red and white mixed, it made pink, and when the red and black mixed it made a brown.

I think working with tone has made me look closer at the different shapes and blocks of tone, instead of assuming, to capture the contours of the body realistically.

Life Drawing: Perspective.

In our third week in life drawing, we focused on drawing figures from different perspectives and angles. The hardest part I found was not being able to measure in heads, when the whole of the head wasn't visible. we didnt do much work on tone this week, just proportions, angles and perspective.

 This one was very difficult. I measured it it feet instead of heads, and it was hard because my brain was telling me that a torso should be long, but because of the angle, this torso needed to be very short and angled, so I was trying to draw what I saw, and my brain was trying to draw what it thought a body should look like.

Life drawing: Line and Tone

We used pencil this week, and as well as line, and started to use hatching to build up layers of tone. we also had some more difficult angles and poses. We started with quick 20 minute sketches, then moved on to longer drawings, so we could get the proportions and tone.

We only used hatching, not cross hatching, so that the lines all go in the same direction and eye won't see it as lots of small lines, but rather areas of dark and light. I am very pleased with the collarbone and shoulder area of this drawing because I think it shows the contours well, but I think I could improve by using even darker tones, to make it look less flat.

In the lying down pose I think my hatching works better because of the very dark parts, like the shadow on her tummy and the back of her thigh.