Week 4 Sculpture

Measurements and Scales

Using a world map I decided I wanted to create a A1 sized piece of sculpture, I feel this would be a suitable sized piece to show a clear and readable map out of letters. I have sectioned up my letters into the right letters for each country. I now want to place the letters of each country in the shape and vacuum these into moulds of the correct country, this is becoming quite exciting project.

Now I have the basic shape for my countries I began placing the  letters onto the country they belong. Once I have placed the letters onto the right country I took a vacuum form of the letters in the shape of the country, it took a few attempts to get the right shape and the letter placed in the correct posistion.  

Overall I came out with ten different moulds, each one looked unique and interesting representing the correct country. The use of the letters almost added terains to the country creating a life like and quirky piece of art.  Now I needed what to fill the moulds with, I thought perhaps filling them with ice, and creating a statement to do with global warming. 

I tested out this idea by filling one the mould with water. However when I popped out the mould the ice sculpture   was very loose and it was quite hard to see the shape of the country and all define the letters within the country. This is a real shame as I think this would have made quite an interesting final piece.

After the ice moulds didn't work I needed to think of a better substance in which I can fill my moulds with. After some careful thinking I decided substance best for this would be plaster as this is a tough medium which I could fill and carve into the correct shapes, also plaster with clearly define the letters placed in the shape of the country. 

This the final piece I came out with, overall I am really pleased with the final outcome, although it looks very simple. I feel a great sense of achievement as it took a lot of time and effort to produce this piece. Overall I feel I have gained more creating than just creating a final piece. During sculpture I have learnt a lot, how to manage my time, work with idea and develop it. Also I have learnt how to use a lot of equipment within the sculpture room, also I have developed my knowledge within art, I have researched an broadened my knowledge on sculptors and text and image artists.

Week 3 Sculpture

 

I spent some time carefully thinking about text is used within other day to day places, such as notice boards, posters and maps. Using some magnetic letters I already had I began creating shapes and countries from a map, I could really see this idea going much further. Seen from the picture on the left, I used the letters from the country to create the shape. I really liked this idea and couldn't wait to take it further. Therefore have been spending the last 3 days slowly vacuuming forming letters and filling the moulds with plaster. Although this has become a slow and annoying process, the results are really pleasing and has taught me how to create the perfect consistence of plaster and how to use the vacuum former, a key skill I can always look back on and use. I cant wait to start assembling my countries with the hundreds of letters I have moulded and created.

After popping out all my plaster letters, I had to fill down the edges of each letter I found this to be quite a time consuming process, however I did get a nice sense of achievement as I completed each letter. I found the letters alone make quite an interesting and iconic piece of art on there own. I may work on this idea a little later within the project. The next stage is decide on the scale, measurements and sizes from the final piece. 

Week 2 Sculpture

After creating a simple clay sculpture, I felt I need to expand my skills and knowledge within the subject of sculpture. I really enjoyed researching into  Robert Idiana, however I felt I have just been copying his work rather than creating my own unique and individual work. I want to include words or text into my work therefore I have spent some time researching into other text and image artists. The ones I found most inspiring were:

Bruce Nauman

Claude Oldenburg
Roni Horn
These artist really experiment with the use of text within there work covering images with text, or just using text as a final piece.

This piece by Rorn Horn really inspired me to try out and experiment with the idea of covering an existing piece of furniture or something simular with text or sentences.

 I sketched out ideas and came up with the idea of  taking a chair of dinning set and covering it in text. I think this will create an exciting, bold and iconic piece of art however don't feel I can take this piece to another level.  Still using letters as a base, I spent some time designing a few ideas of how I could use text within sculpture. 

Using a simular idea as before by placing text onto an excising object,  thought about creating an object out of text, perhaps the name of a word relating to the item. I really liked this idea and began expanding on the Idea.

Above I tried  to create perhaps a set of  of tool made out of text, either a make up kit or a tool, I really like this idea of creating an object out of text however I feel this Idea has been done slightly before, to take this idea further I need to do a lot more research and development into the idea. 

Bob and Roberta Smith

Week 1: Sculpture

Today was my first sculpture, a few weeks ago in one of the lectures I had been really inspired by Robert Indiana and his LOVE sculpture, I love the idea of creating text into a visual sculpture. I really the scale of this sculptures, how a simple object word or quote can create such a bold, exciting and inspiring piece of art. 

 I was really excited to start a project with an idea that had been bouncing round my head for ages. Seeing all the materials and around and learning what they could do was so inspiration.  Using this idea I created my own "LOVE" out of clay in which I placed in the vacuum mould which created a plastic mould of clay letters. 

This is my vacuumed "LOVE" it was great fun doing this however there was not a big enough gab between lines within the "E" resulting in the plastic not being able to fit in between some of the gabs. After scoping my clay out of the mould, I mixed together a mixture of water and cement to pour into the mould to set. I cant wait till next week to see how my sculpture has turned out.

This week I have also done some research into sculpture to help with my project, I was really inspired by the work of Jack Pierson, he uses old shop letters to create new sculptural words.

I really like the use of colour within his work even thought his medium are not bought, only found it still fits together well. He has really considered the use of shape, colour and composition of the letters placed within sculpture.  Also the use of the wording seems to be really important within Pierson's work he has taken into consideration the look of the individual letter. As seen in Fame the letters are lit up with a fancy modern twist to the overall piece much like the word being shown.

Week 4: Print

I didn't get to make it to print this week as I had to go home for a funeral. Therefore I decided to do some printing at home, as I didn't have many resources available to me I went back to the basics of printing potato printing. Using a spoon I carved out my a thistle shape into two potatoes.

Even though this has slightly differed from the brief I really like the effect I have created, I stamped the two colours on top of each other to create a bold looking pattern this work has very much reminded me of the work of Rob Indiana.

Indiana's work looks eye catching and often consists of bold, simple, iconic images, especially numbers and short words like EAT, HUG, and, his best known example, LOVE. I really like the way he has used simple serif text to create a really exciting piece of art, this has made me really want to try and print some text similar to this. Using this idea I tried to create own image using different text on photoshop. Now I really want to try printing some of  my own.

Print

While researching something else I came across this gorgeous line etching by John Urban The Walrus 1969. I thought it really linked in well with my project by using nature and the environment as a theme. I really like the way to create the sea weed and other plants John Urban has used swirls and repeated line. Although the print is far from lifelike the careful detail and use of rubbing has created a really contrasting bold highlighting the life underwater.
Today I also tried to lino print my image at home although I did end up with a disappointing print. Resulting this I think I need to make a trip up to Sion Hill.

I quite like the sketchy feel to this print. The thistles look quite good however the patchy printing really lets the overall image down. I think it would look so much better with a deep block black highlighting the white detailed thistles.

Week 3: Print

This week I felt a little less prepare and inspired for lesson, so I decided to do some research into print making artsist I wanted to carry on the nature theme for my project but felt I needed some inspiration.  Consistently I stubble upon this awesome print by Arthur Boyd 1920 Figure and Flying Beast. (Dry Point). 

I felt great movement within his prints, even thought what seems unintentional of the artist, in the right hand corner of the image I feel looks quite like wildlife I don't really know the print is trying to convey but I quite like the feeling of letting viewing decide for themselves. There are a lot of bold wispy lines throughout which could be seen as grass or vines. I personally feel the image has a feel of freedom and nature however referring to the title I could be wrong. I really want to get this lose relax feel into my own prints.  I decieded to look futher in Arthur Boyd's work as his prints seem to have a strong nature theme running throughout.

Waterhole with birds near Alice Springs

Wimmera, Waterhole with Birds

I really like the lose relaxed feel to Arthur Boyd's work his style of print matches the subject matter of the image the freedom of nature. I really like this work and want to try creating a similar feeling within my own work. After exhausting etching I decided to move onto a different type of print; mono printing and once I started I couldn't stop. 

Using the thistles as a theme I carried on printing them, I really enjoyed mono printing, I thought I would quick fast prints out this however I found the longer I spent drawing out the print the better prints I seemed to produce. 

I even found taking the negative of the print created a great image in itself. However I feel I have really worn out the idea of printing thistles. I found myself wanting to move onto some a little more demanding.

Week 2: Printing

I came into this lesson once again really excited about printing I had already etched out my design into my metal plate, I was still working with a nature theme, over the week I had research and sketched many thistles and plants to which I wanted to print.

Using my favourite image I printed it using the same technique as last week however I found my prints last week to be quite heavy with a lot of ink creating quite dark area in place I didn't want. Therefore this week I wiped my metal quite dry to get more lighter and less and contrasting print. 

With the same technique as last week I printed my etched out design however I was really disappointed with the results, the print came out really faint, this was a result of over rubbing the plate and also I found I had not carved deep enough into my metal plate, even thought this was really disappointing I couldn't wait to try out another print.

Once I had worked into the metal plate a lot more, I found I had printed a much more interesting and defined print I had used my knowledge of the last few prints to establish what areas to rub and which area to leave to create a more high contrast and bold looking print. Overall I am really pleased with the final out come.

Week 1: Printing

Today was my first printing lesson, I started off by trying to get inspired, I did some research in print makers and came across this awesome piece of work by Tom Hammick, Motorway Trees, monotype.

I loved the use of nature and the mix of collage and print. I partially liked the simple look to image, and the composition of the tress placed behind the fence.
I starting etching a dried thistle I had pervious sketched in my sketch book. I found this experience was really interesting. I had never done etching before, although I think I picked up the method quite quickly using a vary of different materials to make a mark. Below I placed my etched out metal plate. 

To create this image I used a  fine sheet of aluminium, using with some sharp tool like shovels to cut out my image onto the plate. The curved out image will area that will be printed onto paper.

Before printing I had to soak my paper in water, and inked up my sheet. Using small piece of card I scraped the ink onto my sheet of aluminium and  applied it into the groves of the metal. Then  whipped of the excess ink to apply in the cuts of the metal even more. Lastly clean scrum is then used to clean off the edges of the plate and the areas that are wanted white. Below I have placed my final print of the thistle

I used a heavy etching press to enable produce a nice looking print. The heavy pressure forced  the paper into the metal groves and inked the marks onto the paper. Overall I was really pleased with the final print I tried maybe different dry point with different amounts or ink and pressure

Lectures

Over the past two weeks I have had many lectures on Abstraction, Art Povera, Text an Image, and painting. I really enjoyed these lectures especially my lecture on abstraction, over the past few week I have researched many artist shown throughout the lectures which I found really inspired me.   
Matisse

Matisse's work is made up of colour, pattern, shape and balance evoking a mood of excitement and interest. Matisse gets his message across by stripping paint down to the bare minimum.
Robyn Denny

Above is an image by Robyn Denny, one of his most famous and popular painting is "Three Short Days in May". His work is about mapping an documenting events in space. His work has almost become a mix between figurative and abstraction. 

Jackson Pollock 

Pollocks paintings are made up of his own journeys, they are very instructive I feel his passions and ideas are worked into his paintings. He has an amense sense of colour and space. Each painting seems to have its own narrative. Expressing great energy, space and time within each piece of Pollocks work.   

Pietro Manzoni

Manzoni is a very experimental artist, he is seen as very direct and upbeat one of his most popular piece's is a "can of shit". His work is simple but full of expression. Another of his piece's is "Magic Base" He used a real person within an exhibition, he believed it took art back to the bare basics.
Cornelia Parker

Parker is inspired by the world around her. Her work has become very unique and universal, she believes her work is very powerful to the spectator and echo's great movement. Another of her most famous pieces is "At the bottom of this lake lies a fragment of the moon".

Tracey Emin

Tracey Emin has highly influenced many artist of today. She uses traditional materials, and sometimes has a poetic natural within her work. She is a very visual and experimental Artist. 

Richard Long

Richard Long art expresses the meaning on many people's lips; what is art? His work is made of natural products placed in a landscape and sometimes uses a lot of text.

Robert Indian

Robert Indian turns flat text into 3D letters, standing proud within cities and towns. His letters are carefully crafted and become greatly ascetically pleasing pieces of land art. A clever mix of text and sculpture.

Susan Hiller

Susan Hiller found lost language within art. Hiller created and made a shift from painting into a text base gallery.

Ghada Amer

Amer paints with a western narrative and uses images from pornography to draw paint or college into this work. He believes he is reclaiming romans sexuality. There is always a lot of action within his pieces.

Joanne Greenbaum

Greenbaum produces a mixture of drawings and paintings within his work. Greenbaum doesn't know her final outcome or idea until she is painting the finally piece. The artwork is almost seen as uncertain and sometimes unbalanced.

Chris Ofili

Ofifi is a previous turner prize winner! Ofifi has changed our sense of what a painting is and can be. The artwork is seen as quite carefully crafted and very detailed.