Coloured experiments

I've been told to try and experiment with colour in my drawings. It's possible the colour might add something to my work. My first attempt was creating lines with colour, the colour being the same colour of the face that the line hits. I wasn't entirely pleased with this. There's something about this drawing which doesn't have the same effect as my previous work.

Coloured lines
Coloured pencil on tracing paper
A4
2014

 This was another colour experimentation. Instead doing the same pencil line technique. but adding block colours to certain areas instead. I did prefer this outcome to my last drawing. But I'm still not entirely happy. The block colours make the face much more evident, thus making the lines almost unnecessary. I feel like this takes away from the ambiguity of the work.
 

Blocked colours
Pencil and coloured pencil on tracing paper
A4
2014

Barrier Installation

Last week I went about further testing my black light by creating an installation in a room. This is a test as to what the final outcome of my self directed project will look like. It's the exploration of creating visible and invisible barriers. 

 I finished expanding the sheet made out of tights that I started a couple of weeks ago. This time it successfully reached opposite sides of the wall. This is the first barrier of the installation. It's visible in the light and I purposely made it like this so it's difficult to see what is behind the sheet.

 This is what was behind the sheet. It's a variation of my web installation I did a while ago. This time however I intertwined white thread and white wool around the web like structure.

 After I put up the sheet I created a web like structure from white thread in front of the sheet. Even though it's in front of the sheet it's not very noticeable and your eyes are still instantly drawn to the sheet.

After I set up the two black lights I turned the lights off and the room looked completely different. The web like structures in front and behind of the web gave off a blue glow and instantly stood out more. While the sheet became see through and almost invisible. I consider this experiment a success, there were just a couple things which I was unhappy with. I need to figure out how to make the black lights more discreet so that they don't distract the viewer from the installation. Also, the rooms blinds did not completely mask out the sunlight outside, meaning I would either have to find a way to block the windows more successfully or use a darker room next time.

Black light installation

This piece is created by sewing tights together to create a skin like structure. I wanted this to stretch across opposite walls, but I didn't make it big enough, so I stretched it across a corner for the time being. I would like to eventually extend this piece so it will stretch across the whole room, created a barrier.

 I then created a web like structure made from white thread, created a second, albeit invisible barrier.

 But when I turned the lights off and turned the black light on, the second barrier became visible to the human eye. This is what I would like to explore, but by created something like this on a bigger scale.

Black light experiment

After my self directed crit I've decided I want to experiment with the idea of creating barriers. Something that was suggesting was to purchase a black light and experiment with creating things that could only be seen in the dark.

So I've purchased a black light and did a little experiment with it to test out whether I would want to further carry on with using it. I created a web with white thread. In the light it is barely noticeable, but when I turned the light off, it gave off a blue glow. I found this mesmerizing to look at, this experiment was definitely a success. This has given me a clearer idea on what I want my final piece to look like.

Black tights

I've been using flesh coloured tights for all the web structures that I've made. I thought it would be a good idea to experiment with the colour. So I switched from using flesh tights and black thread, to black tights and white thread. 

The end result of my experiment was definitely a lot more sinister looking. I'm however not sure whether I liked the way it looked. I want the message of my work to be subtle, but I feel like this is a lot more loud.

Drawing Crit

The drawing crit for my installation went quite well. There was quite a lot of discussion about my work, which was pleasing to see. These are a few things that were said in my crit.

• Pieces could be about madness because of how busy the drawings are. There are areas of busyness but as you move away it starts to calm down in certain areas.
• Tangled
• Perception and space, different density of lines
• A map of all the points on a face
• Faces can not be made out from close up, only when staring at it from a distance you can make out he faces
• Isometric chaos

Media

• Very formal
• Muted tone is framing a more conceptual reading of work- You look through it and in some ways do not see it as a piece of art. Every line has a meaning
• Something you have to read into
• Materials are not designed to seduce the viewer, more for conceptual pleasure
• Maybe add colour to exaggerate areas, colour might give the piece more depth

Tone

• Detached and analytical, very formal and lacks emotion
• There is tension between the subject matter and tone
• Confusion-not seeing a way through something, problem with processing information
• Uncertainty
• Instruction manuals- has the same tension as work. Narrow instructional information, medical encyclopaedias, factual- similar detachment in the images
• no empathy- almost socio pathic  

Display

• Displayed in symmetrical way- Aesthetically pleasing 
• Maybe too close together, eyes are drawn to work next to it- maybe detracts from work
• It is unclear whether they are separate pieces or all the works to be seen as one piece
• Possibly could have been lifted off the wall  

Agnes Martin

Agnes Martin was a Canadian-American abstract painter. She is often referred to as a minimalist and an abstract expressionist. The work that I'm interested in is her grid like paintings created with acrylic paint and graphite. To me the painting looks like it could be a template or structure for something else, as opposed to the final product. The painting 'morning' is based on a rectangular system of coordinates. Yet it is also supposed to be about the happiness and bliss of the morning.

Morning 

1965

Acrylic Paint and graphite on canvas

support:1826 x 1819mm

frame: 1840 x 1832mm

vitrine: 2075 x 2070 x 90 mm

This work is not directly linked to mine. She is not creates portraits or any type of organic object with the lines like I am doing. Instead she is almost creating something from her imagination. Yet it s similar to my work in the fact that we are both using the medium of lines. Similarly I want my drawing to be structural looking, almost like the blueprints an architect would draw when they are designing a new building.

Julian Opie

Julian Opie is a visual artist, and part of the new British Sculpture Movement. He works a lot in sculpture but what I'm interested to look at is his portraits.

Opie' creates a graphic portrait style using some sort of computer software. Because of this, he moves between the fields of contemporary art and commercial design. These portraits caught my attention because it was similar to what I've been trying to portray in my drawing project. The drawings are cold and detached. There is no emotion, just blank faces all made to look the same.

Although his portraits and not similar to mine in a formal way, the tone of his work is what I want my work to be. I want to create portraits which are completely detached of human emotion, something I feel would be fairly difficult to do, as human faces are full of emotion.

Graham Coxon

C-type colour print on paper laid on panel, 2000
34 1/8 in. x 29 7/8 in. (868 mm x 758 mm)

Drawing- Three dimensional

This was an experiment to try and make my drawings more interesting and 3-dimensional. Instead of drawing the lines to make the face, I folded them thus making this ambiguous, sculptural looking face. I do like this outcome and thinks its definitely a change to the drawings I've been doing. However I'm not sure whether I'm going to carry on with this method or not. 

folded tracing Paper, A3

Web Installation

This was an installation I created. It's an entire room filled with a web like skin structure. I like how interactive the piece is, and how you can move around the installation. 

I don't want the photographs to be the final piece, but rather for the viewer to experience the room themselves.

Cathy De Monchaux

 

Cathy De Monchaux is an English sculpture who creates exquisite and intricate sculptures which can be seductive and grotesquely threatening at the same time. There is a sexual threat of her objects, she uses hard materials, often spikey or in some way appearing to constrain the softer parts, which results in her work being both sensual and threatening. There is always an element of opposites in her work, such as rough and soft, achieving something like this by placing brass and steel against leather and velvet.

Cathy De Monchaux, Wound Painting No.9
 (Thin Scar), 2002, Paper, brass, wood, paint,
nails, 92x71.5x9.5cm

While her work is fascinating and I loved looking at all her instillations and sculptures, the reason that I started looking at her was when I came across a piece of her work named 'Wound Drawing No. 8'. It's a painting created with watercolour with wire and nails around the outside. It's a lot more subtle and understated than her other work, but I really like it and I'm amazed at how similar it is to some of my scar pieces created on wooden boards. I hasn't heard of Cathy De Monchaux before I created them so I found it amazing that they were so similar. Monchaux's piece is purposely rough looking, similar to how my pieces were. However there are a lot of differences as the ideas behind the pieces and the aterials used. But either way I find the piece amazing and really catches your attention, which is what I would like to hopefully achieve with my work.

Numen/For Use

Numen/For Use are a Croatian and Austrian collaborative who blend architecture and public instillation art. The sculpture like pieces are large in scale and take over whole public spaces while also reinventing them, changing the way that we look at the spaces. There work is spectacular but also encourages you to interact with the work.

The pieces which caught my attention were there huge web like structures made out of just tape. From a distance you can't tell what the webs are made of, but the closer you look it becomes more evident what it is and takes your breath away even more. The structures the design of the webs have greatly influenced my work and the way I present my web.

Dryden Goodwin

Dryden Goodwin s a British artist who is know for his intricate drawings, and often combines mixed media such as photography, film, screen based installations and soundtracks.

He has a fascination with drawing but doesn't execute it in a conventional, traditional way. His approach is more contemporary and he looks at the sculptural potential of two-dimensional images. The reason Goodwin caught my attention was his unique way of drawing faces. He uses lines and scribbles in an intricate way to create a face. For my drawing project I'm trying to create a face with only the use of straight lines. His work is not entirely exactly what I'm producing, but I think the way he tried to create portraits in a unique way, links his and my work together.