28 September 2011

EVALUATION

We had to make a make a design for a mural. To do this I had to prepare by looking at different artists who inspire me, for example; Kara Walker, Si Scott, Richard Hamilton and Michael- Craig Martin. The theme was, ‘who am I, where am I going?’ I began by drawing a mind map and relating pictures to it. At first I found the topic difficult as I wasn’t sure what I would come up with. As I was drawing out the mind map, ideas came to me. Whilst doing the assessment I was given artists to research whose work helped me develop my work as it took shape.  We went on a trip to Liverpool and Old Street where we found incredible street art some of which can be found on page seven of my workbook. This was very helpful.  We looked at work by one of the artists, Richard Hamilton, where he used random household and modern objects of his day and made it into a room. Similarly I created a room by combining 2 sofas, shoes, Dior perfume, watches, and flowers and a wallpaper of a city to make one room. This helped me as I included a few of these objects like the shoe, watch and perfume bottle in the mural.  In class we were assigned a letter each for CREATIVE INDUSTRIES DEPT and I chose out of a hat, the letter A. Below me was the letter U and to combine the work, used the same light blue paint and linked a rainbow. Throughout the mural we had to work as a team to make sure that everything flowed, for example the letter next to me had to have part of the purple watch otherwise it would look odd.  The paints that I used were ‘poster paints’ because if I had used acrylics it would become very expensive. In the end I am very happy with my final piece as it resembles me.     

We looked at Si Scott who is a graphic designer and we had to write our name using his style of work. I enjoyed this as it was fun making up different designs to go around my name. The next artist that we looked at was a woman called Kara Walker and she has an exhibition where there were silhouettes of black people which looked distressing as a lot of them were being abused.  I didn’t like her images as they were strange and I found a silhouette of a couple dancing which I thought was the best and happiest piece for me. I also decided to try and copy her work of the dancing people and looked for research on the dancers but found information on the general exhibition. I found black paper, drew the picture and carefully cut them out. This wasn’t easy as I drew the male dancer in the wrong scale at first but tried again and am happy with the result. Then we looked at Richard Hamilton who was the founder of pop art in 1955.  I made a collage in a similar fashion, using cuttings from magazines to create a room in a modern house.  I really enjoyed this as it was fun finding objects which were appealing to me. Soon after I was told to make four tracings of the collage isolating shapes to create good designs and added in many objects choosing different colour schemes each time. I was shown how to transfer these objects onto Photoshop to clean up the images and move them around on screen.  This gave me an understanding of how I wanted to continue on the idea.    I then had to study Michael Craig-Martin’s work that uses similar techniques.  It was difficult to research his work. I was given a picture of The Bucket, but he doesn’t explain his work on purpose because it is supposed to be up to the imagination of the viewer.  I painted his picture and realised that the colour pink which he had used was very difficult to produce.

Throughout the assignment I have worked both at school and at home as it was easier to do work at home and painted some work at home. I think that some of my tracing could be of better standard and I should’ve been more imaginative and I could have used more modern gadgets to fit in with Hamilton’s work. The two things that I liked most about my final design were the shoe that looked good in any colour and the trendy Chanel watch. I have enjoyed this assignment.  

 

Si Scott was born in 1977 and has been interested in art since a very young age.  He left school at sixteen and then he went to art College to do a BTEC in design and then a foundation course in order to study graphic design for two years at Buckinghamshire University College.

Si Scott is a full time artist and designer and is based in UK.  His work is very unique and its style is a mixture of hand crafted and hand drawn art that has made him very popular. He has done designs especially for firms such as Nike, Hugo Boss, Orange, Boots, UNICEF, Casio and the BBC. Interestingly, he worked for a couple of small design agencies where he learnt about the industry and using a computer. Whilst he was employed he worked on his own ideas and developed them as he was trying to be original. Alas, he got made redundant twice although he claims this was good for him as it pushed him more in order to succeed.   Although he uses computers ‘to piece things together’ he is more creative by mainly experimenting freehand.

In class we were shown his work and encouraged to copy his style. We did this by choosing any four fonts on the computer of our names, printing them off and then taking inspiration from his style and created graphic images. Two of these designs which I liked the most can be found on page 11 of my work book. I have also copied a swan’s head which he drew as I wanted to experiment on something other than a letter.    We have also been constructing a mural and had to illustrate objects around a letter and in my one I have created a plant with the swirls which resemble his style.

JUST WHAT IS IT THAT MAKES TODAY'S WORLD SO DIFFERENT, SO APPEALING? RICHARD HAMILTON

We were given this collage by Richard Hamilton to inspire us to create a collage of a modern room. He looked through magazines and cut out pictures of the newest gadgets and styles of the modern home in 1956. He has used a picture of the moon as space exploration was becoming popular. The lady at the top of the stairs is using a hoover which was a new invention as was the tape recorder and the TV.

Similarly, in my collage in class I have chosen a modern city which could be a wallpaper or just a window. The brand new Dior Jadore fragrance, designer shoes, and watches which are from Bazaar magazine, a glamorous candelabra and an ornament of a flamingo. I liked the effects of water and thought that it would be an awesome carpet to have in a room. The sofas are homely and show a range of modern fabrics. I love the colours that are found in today’s technology and I have included vibrant pink paint cuttings. Compared to Richard Hamilton’s picture, my collage is much brighter. I think that to make my work better and more like his I could’ve added more objects or perhaps use more modern technology like phones and computers.        

Richard Hamilton was one of the founders of the Pop Art movement in the year of 1955.  Pop Art included all the media, commercials but was particularly popular to advertisements.   Pop art was the ‘new’ thing as it was influential in advertisements in the US especially in buying homes, cars, toasters, dishwashers etc.

Hamilton wrote that Pop Art was for him; “Popular (designed for the mass audience); Transient (short term solution); expendable (easily forgotten); Low cast; mass produced; Young (aimed at the youth); witty; sexy; gimmicky; glamorous; and last but not least, Big Business”.   

He stated that his collages are filled with images from popular culture but he is not trying to make a statement about pop culture nor embrace it; he used popular images and symbols as fodder to explore an interior realm.

Richard Hamiltons work was first shown in a famous London exhibit called “This Is Tomorrow”. The man in the picture is holding large lolly pop which states the word ‘POP’ on it; this is where pop art was first formed.  

 STINKFISH

I really enjoy these pictures because of the patterns and colours combined with the art Nouveau which makes the images stand out and look special. For example, the three faces on this sheet of paper look different. Firstly the first picture is in black and white and has bold intriguing patterns this makes me like it because it is diverse. Secondly, the second picture has a wide range of different colours which at times mix in together to look fun and funky as well as the Art Nouveau which is making it stand out. The third picture, with some range of colour though mostly black and white, also participates with Art Nouveau and cleverly connects to the hair on the girls head. His work looks like it has been done mostly by freehand with some use of stencil at times.

ROA

 

I’m really fond of this piece of work by ROA because of the antique uniqueness of the kind of work that he endures. I like that his work is black and white and because they are opposite colours and stand out. What makes an impact on me is because his work is scattered around streets making it special. Not only is this the reason, it is because like this stalk it is very large which also makes an influence. It looks like he does his work by painting on the white to get the shape and then adding the detail with the black. He only paints animals which makes a    change to the typical urban art that is found today.

Kara Walker: My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love

I have chosen two black silhouettes of dances from the exhibition entitled ‘My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love’ by Kara Walker.  They are the only two happy characters in a scene of violence.  The dances look happy and lively.  The rest of the scene looks like witchcraft.  There are jagged black shapes in the sky.  Some could be evil black birds and omens.  Another image shows a girl who has stuck a scissors into a man’s back.  The exhibition takes its inspiration from the slaves in the southern States of American before the Civil War, and minstrel shows.  It covers racism, violence and sexuality.

In the picture there are large, black, flat cut-outs on white background.  As they are silhouettes, the shadows create the only depth.  The cut-outs have no faces.  This could be because Kara Walker is mainly concentrating on the actions rather than the individual people.

Kara Walker is an African American and was born on 26 November 1969 in Stockton, California.  Her father was an artist and she enjoyed watching him work when she was young.  She also enjoyed and admired Andy Warhol’s work.

I am studying Kara Walker’s work because we are doing a mural and her work is displayed in the exhibition very effectively on the walls.

Michael-Craig Martin THE BUCKET

The original of this painting is a 6 x5 foot work using acrylic on aluminium. The background is bright, fuchsia pink with some black outlines of several shapes. The bucket stands out as he has used red, turquoise and yellow which clashes next to the plain solid pink. At first the shapes are not very lucid but become clearer to me the more that I look at them.  There is a light bulb in the bottom right hand corner, the top of a teapot in the bottom left hand corner.  Above it is the back of a sandal.  I am not sure what is above that – it could be the front of a shoe.  The top right hand corner is the shape of a lace-up shoe. In the painting, each of the objects around  the bucket is touching it.  The picture studies colour and design. The artist leaves the observer to make a guess of why he put these particular objects together.

Craig Martin uses a computer to scan separate images to plan and experiment with them. When he is happy with his layout he then paints the piece.  He does the outlines of the design with black tape.  He uses 4 inch rollers to make a 5-6 coating of intense, strong colours.

Michael-Craig Martin was born in the year 1941 in Dublin but lived in London. He comes from a  Catholic family. He studied art in Paris, then at Yale.  He was influenced by one of his teachers, Joseph Albers who taught him theories on colour. He is famous for his piece of work called ‘the oak tree’ in 1973 which is a glass of water on a plain shelf with a text saying that it that it was an oak tree. This is called conceptualism. “People call me a conceptual artist as if the idea was all, but actually what interested me is what happened when the idea becomes a thing”.  In later works he uses everyday household objects. He uses black line drawings, brightly coloured images and the work is done on canvas usually done with acrylics and uses black tape to make out the lines. In trying to create drawings of objects with no style, he has become famous for this style.

 I have copied this picture in my book and I found that insuring the objects touched the bucket was harder than I thought it would be. I also realised that there is a lot of thought has gone into the design for example I noticed that the top of the light bulb and the rim of the bucket and the top of the sandal all were the same level. The way that Craig Martin prepares his work his similar to how I am planning my collage in class.