Still life: a modern vanitas

I did a still life based on the Dutch vanitas paintings. these paintings showed wealth, and often showed things like meat, but their aim was to show the passing of time, to give the idea that wealth doesn't last forever and death is inevitable. They show the meaninglessness of earthly belongings. The paintings often showed egg timers or clocks, skulls and bones, and flowers. i wanted to merge this idea with modern life and consumerism, to show both how short life is, and how much people rush nowadays. The traditional vanitas paintings were painted in a very realistic style, so i wanted mine to contrast to this by being a very simple line drawing.
I drew a digital alarm clock, to represent time passing, a chocolate wrapper to show how people don't eat proper meals a lot of the time and instead rely on pre-packaged foods and snacks. I also drew a dead leaf, instead of flowers, because many people do not have gardens any more and the only nature they see is on their way to work. It is autumn at the moment and there are beautiful leaves all over the floor, but nobody stops to appreciate them.

Drawing: Using mixed media.

This weeks session was linked to last weeks, in that we were using last weeks drawings to create these ones. I chose a small section of my shoe mountain drawing, and drew it a lot bigger on a piece of black paper. I then used mixed media (wire, paint, charcoal, chalk, masking tape, wood, fine liner, cutting out, string) to pick out details and make it more 3D.

These are some close-ups of the drawing.

I drew with coloured fine liner on the blocks of wood, as a contrast to the very big black and white marks the rest of the drawing is made of.

I enjoyed doing this and experimenting mixing media I haven't used together before, but I did get very messy.

Culture meets Nature: Drawing

To continue on our theme of 'when culture meets nature' we each chose two words out of a hat, one was a natural thing, and one cultural. My two words were 'mountain' and 'shoes'. I started off by doing some observational sketches of shoes, both mine and other peoples.

I then sketched a mountain the best I could from memory (unfortunately I couldn't find a mountain in Wolverhampton) 

I then tried to combine the two, by making a 'mountain of shoes' starting with a pile of shoes, turning into a mountain further up

 Some close-ups of the drawing:

I then tried to combine them in a different way, by making the mountain into a shoe. I did this by putting laces up the side of the mountain, and trying to make it shoe shaped, while keeping the form of the mountain. I then cut away the excess paper to better show the shape.

Quick drawing.

 A quick drawing in fine liner and pencil crayon of the shield bug. It was difficult to draw because I had to scale it up while I was drawing, and it kept moving, but I think it has turned out okay.

Design visualistation: Observational drawing and modelling.

 For observational drawing, we were focussing on organic forms, so I chose this item, which I guessed was some sort of fruit, because I liked the repetitive nature of the surface,and the fact it is not one shape, but lots of little shapes that join together to make a whole.

 I used paper and masking tape to create cone shapes, and cut of the tops to emulate the shape of the fruit. I then used the cut off pieces to make smaller versions of the cones, and cut their tops off too. I attached them together with wire and thread.

 I then thought of using thread to draw with, so I stitched a simplified outline of some of the detail. I think this is quite effective, and would make a good pattern to repeat and use as a textile print or wallpaper.

 I used a barbecue skewer and ink to do a line drawing of the whole object, which created very thin lines and quite expressive lines because I was holding the skewer near the end.

 This drawing is a lot bigger, I wanted to show the end of it, not the side. I quite liked using the chalk, but it was hard not to smudge it when I was drawing other parts.

I think this one is my favourite drawings, it is a drawing of my larger paper model (top left corner), so I collaged some of the same paper onto the drawing, and also used chalk and ink to create the shading. I did the drawing on top of tissue paper, so there was a texture to the background, and I think all of this together makes it a very successful drawing.

Textiles: Surface pattern.

In textiles, we focused on surface pattern and colour, rather than fabric or garments. I liked experimenting with mixed media and texture such as masking tape and stitching, and I liked the methods we used to get interesting patterns. on the first strip of paper, we chose a part of the still life in front of us, and used ink to draw the negative spaces. We then turned the strip upside down, and drew the same part of the still life. I liked this because the ink created very interesting shapes, and they did not match up with the drawing on top. In this piece, I used ink, oil pastel, emulsion paint, chalk pastel, netting and thread. I also sprayed on bleach, to change the colour of the ink.

On my second piece, I was focusing on just one object. I started with a masking tape outline, then turned the paper by 90 degrees and used a chalk pastel to draw the object bigger. I carried on turning the paper around and changing media, And I think this gives a very good effect, capturing the object without just drawing it. I think this worked well because the object I chose had a very patterned texture, so the finished work has very detailed patterns and interesting lines. I think these could both be made into a repeating pattern, to use as something like wall paper or wrapping paper, or a fabric print to use on a garment.

 I then moved on to smaller pieces, and made a collage background from different papers, and part of a photocopy of one of my larger pieces. I then stitched a strip of ink dipped fabric on, using pink stitches. I stitched it so the fabric went from the top to the bottom of the paper, and the stitches went across. I then added more thread, in a wavy line, and some pleated paper.

 After I had done the pink stitching on my first small piece, I noticed the back had some very interesting marks, so I photocopied it and made it the background for my second small piece. I then used parts photocopied from one of my bigger pieces, and stitched onto the background with yellow, green and blue thread. I used all different sized stitches, then glued down the long ends of the thread down.

I really liked the bold stripes on the paper, so I put it with the inside of an envelope, so the large stripes contrast with the small repetitive pattern. I used a strip of fabric going diagonally across, and different stitches on top. I tried to stick to a fairly limited colour palette so it wasn't too over-complicated.

Indian Ink

 The first drawings are done in graphite stick, to try to be freer and more sketchy. We then moved on to indian ink, using strips of card to draw with, so smaller details were done with the very edge of the card, and shading and larger parts with the flat part. I was quite pleased with my shading by the end. I like the semi-transparent nature of the ink because you can go over it to get darker tones and shadows but it also fades into light so there's a good range of tones from just one type of ink.