Life Drawing

I did a session of life-drawing which was my first time ever doing life drawing. I found it difficult at first to get the proportions right of the model and I was struggling with the time of 10 minutes as I couldn't finish my full body drawings. I tried then to use a wire skeleton to try and help me with the proportions of the figure however I found that I was then spending most of the 10 minutes focusing on getting the proportions correct rather than drawing the figure. I realised that using pencil probably was not the best material as it was very restricting for the short amount of time I had to do each 10 minute drawing so I decided to use a Biro-pen without the skeletal wire which I found worked really well as I managed to get the whole body drawn and some of the other subjects in the background. We then had the model do some more straining poses and had only 5 minutes drawing time so I decided to use graphite and focus on specific sections of the body and mark making to create the tones and shapes of the body. I personally feel as though the pen and graphite drawings were my most successful of all of the studies I did and I have decided to do some more quick 5/10 minute drawings of my family and friends to try and capture body shape and proportions to help me have a deeper understanding of figures and people and the shapes the body can make rather than the details of the person.

Experiments with Photographs and Video

Genre Study- Full Draft 1

For my personal investigation there were a few genres that I wanted to look at. Those being: Expressionism; Post-Impression; and Abstract. I chose these because I personally prefer these styles of art to more realistic artwork as I feel as you are freer to express yourself with the marks and colours that you choose to use which I enjoy doing. Expressionism actually developed from Post-Impressionism which was the style used around the late 19^th century/early 20^th century. I decided to look at Post-Impressionism because some of my favourite artists were part of the Post-Impressionist movement, those being Cezanne and Van Gogh. I have seen their work in person many times at different art galleries, the most recent being at the London National Gallery.  Post-impressionist art was created to react against impressionist artwork by exploring lines, colour and form as well as the emotional response of the artist which was the particular aspect that led the Expressionism movement in the early 20^th century. This art style interests me because I like how the artists use lines and colours in their work, I like how they use bold, dark lines to represent the outline of different subjects in their pieces and I also like the variety of colours used in their work with the majority of the colours being very similar with very subtle changes which I feel gives the paintings more life and excitement. In the likes of Cezanne and Van Gogh they tend to use dark outlines and then specific marks with their colours to create tones and shape in their backgrounds and subjects in their pieces which I really like.

I am mainly going to focus on Expressionism for my personal investigation as I feel that it relates quite well to my chosen theme of figures and emotions because the whole purpose of Expressionism is to depict the subjective emotions that things create within a person. I have been looking at the Expressionist artist Egon Schiele and the artist Gustav Klimt who had a lot of influence on Egon Schiele’s style of artwork. I have also chosen abstract as a style to look at because I find the abstract style more exciting and interesting to create rather than trying to make my work look totally realistic. The artists I am interested in looking at currently for my personal investigation are Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, Paul Cezanne, Picasso, Edgar Degas, Clara Lieu and Jason Shawn Alexander. These artists all relate to my chosen theme for my personal investigation as they do artwork involving figures and people and I have chosen them all for their style of artwork which I have felt inspired by for my investigation. My plan for my personal investigation at the moment is to experiment using the different styles of art inspired by these different artists to figure out which styles I like and think work best for what I want to do with my theme of figures and emotions and then I can experiment further with the art that I like best from the initial experiments.

Group Activity

We all picked a piece of work from our sketchbooks that we thought best represented where we currently were at with our personal investigation. We chose an aspect of this piece to inspire us to draw something on the large piece of paper in front of each of us. Then we moved places for about 10 minutes, sometimes by one seat and sometimes by several and used our chosen piece of work and the work that was already on the paper done by other people to continue drawing on top of the original pieces. We then collaborated to make all of the large separate pieces of paper into one big group piece.

This was the first piece that I drew.

This was the piece of work done by someone else before I added to it.

This was the piece once I had added to it. I was very hesitant at first, I wasn't too sure on what to draw and was worried about ruining someone else's work.



This was the next piece after I added to it. I was less hesitant about drawing over this piece as I had slowly began to get more confident with what we were doing.

This was the next piece before I added to it. Our teacher asked us to consider using other areas of the page as well instead of just focusing on the area already drawn on.

This was the piece after I drew on it. I decided to focus on line and texture but tried to stick to the similar style that was already drawn on the paper so that . Me and the person next to me also collaborated a little and started to edge out onto each others pieces of paper.

The final outcome was very abstract, with the majority of it being charcoal, other mediums used were pen, graphite and pencil. It was difficult to capture the pencil in the photographs as it was very light. I really liked the final outcome and thought that all of the pieces worked well together in the positions we had placed them. As a class we discussed where we thought pieces best went together to make it a group effort.

Genre Study Draft

For my personal investigation there were a few genres that I wanted to look at. Those being: Expressionism; Post-Impression; and Abstract. I chose these because I personally prefer these styles of art to more realistic artwork as I feel as you are freer to express yourself with the marks and colours that you choose to use. Expressionism actually developed from Post-Impressionism which was the style used around the late 19^th century/early 20^th century. Post-impressionist art was created to react against impressionist artwork by exploring lines, colour and form as well as the emotional response of the artist which was the particular aspect that led the Expressionism movement in the early 20^th century. 

My Short Film

London

I went to London to visit the National Art Gallery and the Tate Modern Gallery.

Cenotaph to the Memory of Sir
Joshua Reynolds - John Constable 

Water-Lilies, Setting Sun - Claude Monet

 There were not many figurative pieces that I felt inspired by or that I really liked. I saw some pieces from some of my favourite artists such as Van Gogh, Cezanne, and Monet which I really enjoyed looking at. There were also some other artists that I found whose paintings and artwork I liked such as George Shaw, L.A. Ring, Edgar Degas and Odilon Redon. I felt as though the National Art Gallery didn't have a lot of artwork that was relevant to my theme and what I want to look at for my theme as a lot of the artwork was very old from around the 12th/13th Century.

Bathers (Les Grandes Baigneuses) - Paul Cezanne

There was an exhibition on at the National Art Gallery for George Shaw called My Back To Nature. I really liked the style in which he had done his paintings, and there were also some figure sketches on paper he had done that were on display which I really liked.

Sunflowers - Vincent Van Gogh

A Wheatfield, with Cypresses

Portrait of Hermine Gallia - Gustav Klimt

After the Bath, Woman drying herself - Edgar Degas

Road in the Village of
Baidersbrende (Winters Day)

Ophelia among the Flowers - Odilon Redon

 

The Weeping Woman - Picasso