Hans Holbein - The Ambassadors

The Ambassadors, Hans Holbein
http://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/asset-viewer/the-ambassadors/bQEWbLB26MG1LA?projectId=art-project


The painting portrays two wealthy men, we know this from each element in the painting. For example, the fact that they have their hands included in the painting shows that they are wealthy because painters charged more to paint the subject's hands because they are difficult to paint. In addition, the clothes that they are wearing suggests that they are wealthy. The objects on the shelves all suggest that these men are well educated and consists of globes, instruments and books.

"On the left is Jean de Dinteville, aged 29, French ambassador to England in 1533. To the right stands his friend, Georges de Selve, aged 25, bishop of Lavaur, who acted on several occasions as ambassador to the Emperor, the Venetian Republic and the Holy See" - (http://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/project/art-project#!asset-viewer:l.id=bQEWbLB26MG1LA&projectId=art-project&urlStub=The%20Ambassadors)

When seen from a certain angle, the skull doesn't appear distorted, it appears 3D. It is known as an anamorphosis.







Liverpool 800, The Singh Twins
http://www.singhtwins.co.uk/Album_Painting-Series/Pages/Single_paintings.html#9


This painting is divided horizontally in half, in the bottom half of the painting the twins have depicted events of Liverpool's history that stood out to them personally as they found it very difficult to portray every single event in the history of Liverpool. For example, the man and the woman in the middle at the bottom are shown fishing which represents Liverpool's early days as a small farm and fishing settlement.

The top half of the image represents Liverpool's modern identity in the form of a coat of arms structure. On the right of the coat of arms you can see a Liverpool FC scarf and to the left you can see the entrance to 'The Beatles Story'. These are two things that are a main part of the city.

Photography: Self Portraits

I thoroughly enjoyed my first lesson with Gwen as I found it really interesting and love her sense of humour and teaching style.

Me and Beth took self portraits of eachother using her camera outside using natural light, and some inside in the lift because the lighting was good in there. I really like how the ones outside turned out because I prefer the natural lighting rather than inside the lift.

Contextual Studies 300 Word Analysis

Sheila Gallagher, Deute

http://inhabitat.com/nyc/ny-exhibit-features-sheila-gallaghers-beautiful-recycled-art-created-from-found-familial-objects/

Deute, by Sheila Gallagher is a collection of found melting plastics such as old prescription bottles, bottle caps, and other found objects, arranged to create a beautiful picture of a path down an autumnal forest. From a distance, the piece looks like a painting of a forest, but close up, it is a textured filled with melted plastics which creates really interesting detail close up.

 

 

 

Robert Rauschenberg

Charlene 1954

http://arthistory.about.com/od/from_exhibitions/ig/rauschenberg_combines/rrc_01.htm

 

Charlene by Robert Rauschenberg is one of his “Combine Paintings” made up of oil paint, charcoal, paper, fabric, newspaper, wood, plastic, mirror and metal on four Homasote panels mounted on wood. The colours are very similar to the colours in Deute by Sheila Gallagher as they are warm, autumnal colours. However, in Charlene, the colours have a slightly more darker tone. Unlike Deute, Charlene doesn’t make up an interesting overall image, but is more abstract and focuses on the textures and colours. The textures are what makes this piece interesting, as opposed to the detail and composition that make Deute interesting.

 

Digital Postcards

I really enjoyed working on Adobe Illustrator and making these because I learnt a few different techniques on the software that I could potentially use in my project since I'd like to go down the graphics/illustration route.

My favourite postcard was the second one, but now, reflecting on it, I like the third one the best now because of the bright colours and the interesting detail and composition.

Written Reflection 400 words

After the Lewis Noble workshop, I was inspired by him to create texture in my paintings using a palette knife. I made the image more realistic because that is the way that painting comes naturally to me, although I still feel as though it is reminiscent of Lewis Noble's work because of the texture. To make the painting fit in with the Trash to Treasure theme, I created the background with a range of found papers from the college, but I think that the paint covers the collage too much so it loses the meaning of Trash to Treasure.

 

This is the second Rob Wilson inspired piece that I have done and I much prefer the first, smaller sample I did in this style. I didn't really enjoy creating this as I found it quite boring and tedious, I think that it could have done with a bit more colour and maybe some acrylic paint like in my first Rob Wilson sample. I created a collage for this one first, unlike the first one, and I think that it shows the theme of Trash to Treasure better. I was inspired by Rob Wilson to use stitch on a collaged and inked background as I thought it worked really well in his pictures, but it turned out to not quite work for me.

 

 

 

The first sample that I did inspired by Philip Bannister was only small, so I decided to revisit it since I didn't particularly like the Rob Wilson or the Lewis Noble inspired pieces. I am glad that I did because I really like this technique as it is a quick and easy technique that is effective. I added the collage this time round and I think it looks much better. This technique, I feel, is the most effective because the collage is visible in the background which portrays the theme of Trash to Treasure much more effectively.

 

In conclusion, I will use the Philip Bannister inspired style because it leaves the background collage visible so it doesn't hide the theme like the other styles, and it is because of this that it is my favourite style out of them so this is the style that I will continue.

 

Experiments/developments and Listening Critique

This first sample was inspired by Rob Wilson

 

 

The second sample was inspired by Lewis Noble

 

At this stage I am experimenting with different artist styles and like the Rob Wilson and the Lewis Noble samples the most... I wanted feedback on which style I should choose for my final piece and the feedback I got was useful...

The Lewis Noble sample covered the reclaimed items collage too much so the theme of Trash to Treasure was lost

The Rob Wilson theme shows techniques and theme more clearly

The conclusion was that everybody preferred the Rob Wilson style so that is the style that I plan to develop.

Lewis Noble Workshop

I really enjoyed the workshop, even though it's not typically my style, it was really interesting to have an insight to how he works and I may take inspiration from him and incorporate it into my own style because I would quite like to try out a new looser style for my project. 

First, we went outside to Brough Park and were told not to draw what we saw, but to respond to the textures and landscape and make marks on the paper with charcoal. It was very messy but fun!

Then we went back inside, ripped up the charcoal drawings and rearranged sections to create a new, interesting composition. We then responded to these with paint, using different brush strokes and mark making. I enjoyed using a palette knife for the first time and will definitely continue to use one for my project!

After the paint dried, we ripped up and rearranged these again to create new compositions again and ended up with some really nice looking pieces that almost filled an entire sketchbook!

Paper Manipulation in 3D

Although it was messy because of all the glue, I really enjoyed the session, particularly the beads, even though it took a long time to make one and my fingers got sore from doing it...

 

Inspiration... Rob Wilson

From this video, I can see that he starts out by doing a quick line drawing of the subject then goes in with his watery blue ink, builds it up and sticks the dressmakers paper on with water. Then he works into it more with the same blue ink, building up the intensity and continuing to layer dressmakers paper. Then, he sticks other mixed media on there such as magazines and newspapers with what looks like PVA glue, then works into it with brown ink and more blue ink. After that, he adds detail to the image with white and black acrylic paint, adds more mixed media to create detail and then stitches into it.

I really like his work as it is very interesting to look at and figure out how it's done. I think I will take inspiration from him and experiment with dressmakers paper and inks and stitch. I think that I need to do some small samples in my sketchbook of different painting styles and artist responses to find the style that I like best.