Author: Lucy

Throughout this brief, I have enjoyed having the freedom to experiment with a lot of different ideas and mediums. I have also enjoyed pushing myself to try different things that I don’t normally do such as the drawings from week 2. I found that at the start of this brief, I was quite limited on colours due to not having easy access to artshops however once I purchased more paint, I was able to focus my work and exploration on the bright, vibrant, primary colours I like working with. I think I also engaged well with the artists I have been researching, looking at how they use line, shape, colour and pattern to create different effects while also combining it with the work that I had done previously. Towards the end of my exploration the main artists that I was looking at were Laura Owens and Jonathan Lasker. Throughout my work I have continued to combine and bring through elements of the week 1 and 2 tasks. The verb techniques that I have continued to use up to my final works are scraping, spreading, smear and spray and I have combined these techniques with my fungi drawings.

I have found it tricky to decide which pieces I wanted to show as my final works as I like elements of multiple of my week 4 paintings however I felt as though most of them seemed underdone, as my final pieces of my exploration are very bright and patterned, I didnt want to over crowd the works and add too may elements. I decided that these two works showed my process the best and didn’t need any extra elements that may have taken away from the patterns and shapes. While brainstorming titles for my paintings, I looked at the artist Claudia Jowitt and saw that she uses numbers to title some of her works. I felt as though this numbering system would work quite well for my art as my methods of working are quite formulative and I have many works that are similar to eachother. In my first piece, 32 Fungi Swirls I have used the number 32 as once I layed out this series of works, This piece was the 32nd one I had done. I used the same method with 44 Fungi Circles. I decided to use fungi in the name to connect it back to the image that these works originated from. Overall im very proud of what i’ve achieved throughout this brief and I am really happy with the results of my work.

For these paintings, I have been focusing on layering. I really like how the colourful swirly lines have turned out and I am enjoying how they look when layered with the spray-painted background and the scraped pattern painting. My next step is to keep experimenting with these works I have done this week and adding the piping technique I have been using. The main artist I will be looking at are Jonathan Lasker and Claudia Jowitt for the thicker paint and the shapes and way of applying the paint.

I have been experimenting with different mediums and surfaces. I experimented with using clay to make the fungi circle shapes I have used throughout my process however the airdry clay I used started cracking and breaking apart as it dried so I have decided against using this process in my future works. I have also tried carving shapes and grids out of soap, I think this is a really interesting medium to work with and I would like to explore this further. I am going to try painting over the soap first then carving out shapes and patterns. The last surface I tried was cardboard and plaster. I used my draped fabric images as an inspiration for the pattern of the plaster. I then decided to paint it red and orange to fit into the bright colour scheme I have created through my work.

I have been looking at the artist Grace Wright for inspiration for the thicker swirled paintings. I have been enjoying using this technique however I still need to work on this as I have found that it’s hard to balance getting a full coverage on the paper and not mixing all the colours together. I have also tried painting on clear plastic and scraping out a rough image of my draped fabric. I found that this piece was really interesting when you hold it up to the light as you can see all the texture from when I was using a palette knife to apply the paint. after looking back at my previous works, I found that I was really interested in using more of the thick spreading paint with a palette knife. I have decided to bring this technique through more and combine it with the vibrant colours that I have also been using. In the last photo, I have tried combining the colourful fungi circles with the drawing of the tin can. I have tried to recreate the shape of the tin can with the circles but I don’t think this came out very clearly.

These two techniques have probably been my favourites to use so far. For the thick piping paint, I decided to combine the piping technique with the spreading with a palette knife technique and I think this came out quite well. I also used the bright primary colours that I have been using so far in my other paintings. As I was trying to thicken the paint in order to keep the shapes and volume of the paint, I was mixing the paint with flour but I don’t think I quite added enough flour as some of the colours sunk a bit as they were drying. The other technique I enjoyed was cutting out different shapes, sticking them down on paper and then spray painting over them to create these patterns on the paper. I have used a range of different bright colours and experimented with flat colours as well as mixing the colours and making lines. I think these spray-painted works look good put next to each other and I think they could make good backgrounds to layer different patterns and lines over.

I have taken the circle fungi pattern from the drawings and used the bright colours that I have been using in my other paintings. I have used a range of different colors and sizes in order to collage them together with the backgrounds I have made in the past week. I especially like the ones with the scraped backgrounds. For these backgrounds, I painted large sheets of paper with two colours and scraped the straight and wiggly lines into them. I then cut these papers into strips in order to collage them together. I’m really happy with how the circles turned out and how they all are slightly different from each other. For my next works, I would like to use the impasto painting techniques and style that Grace Wright uses in her paintings, to make the circle patterns.

I have been experimenting with painting with thick paint, I brought some cake decorating piping tips to experiment with. I have been trying different textures as well as different sizes. As I don’t have any mediums to thicken my paint, I did some research and found that you can mix flour to thicken up the paint and to decrease the drying time. I found this created an interesting effect, making the paint have more texture which I liked. It also made it easier to pipe as it held the shape of the piping tip better.

I have been working on backgrounds to paint over or to cut out of. I’ve used the scraping technique from my verb paintings to create texture in the backgrounds. I experimented with using white paint to scrape, In hopes that the patterns and lines would not be super visible until you look closer or when you paint over them. I painted over these with coloured ink to sit in the creases of the paint. I have also painted some lines with watercolour, Inspired by the artist Silvia Bächli. I am hoping to cut shapes out of these paintings and layer them together. I have also brought through the fungi shapes from my drawings, using a few different techniques and experimenting with distorting the circle patterns. I enjoyed scraping these circular shapes into the impasto paint.

Claudia Jowitt

I am really interested in using the technique that Claudia Jowitt uses of piping paint. I think it is really interesting looking at the different textures created by different piping tips. Claudia Jowitt also uses an impasto painting technique as backgrounds, I enjoyed working with this technique in my verb paintings and I would like to continue with this. I also like the colour palettes however most of my work is using a lot brighter more primary colours so I wont use it in my works.

Laura Owens

Laura owens is an inspiration for my next works, I like how the gridded patterns are layered together and overlapped. I also like the squiggled lines and the orgainic shapes created. The cut out/ erased part of the works are very interesting to me. I would like to experiment with this and try cutting out parts of my work in patterns and squiggly lines.

Jonathan Lasker

I really like the bright colours that Jonathan Lasker uses in his paintings. I like the mix of shapes of solid colour and curved thick painted lines and the juxtaposition of the geometric and organic shapes and lines. I am interested in using grids and layering in my works and I will be using Lasker as an inspiration.

Grace Wright

I would really like to try this technique of painting, layering different squiggly lines over eachother. I also like the bottom image with large sections of solid colour, giving a space of rest amougst the rest of the busy layout. The patterns of the lines remind me of the fungi patterns that I drew and I would like to try recreating that picture with this technique. I like the layering of the lines and how the colours work together to create depth.

I had the most fun working on the drawings for this image. I really like the patterns that can be created from the fungi picture and I have enjoyed looking at what happens when you take out individual parts of a pattern and separate, move and distort them. Moving forward I think this will be the main imagery of my work, looking at circles and the ring patterns on the inside. I really enjoyed working on the first drawing as I liked how the different shades worked together and the intricacy of the patterns in the circles.

For these drawings, I wanted to try and keep it quite simple. I wanted to show the big draping parts of the fabric as it is my favourite part of the photo. In these works, I have used watercolour, charcoal, pastels, and ink. I really liked how the grey ink and the green watercolour ones turned out, I liked how they created a sort of pattern with the marks. I think it could be interesting to try capturing the draped fabric effect with using less marks and incorporating more shading to give the drawings a bit more depth.

The photo of the tin can above is not the exact one I used as a reference for these drawings but I can’t find where I got the original from however this photo is pretty close. For these drawings, I tried to use materials that I hadn’t used yet as I felt as though some of my techniques and materials were getting a little bit repetitive. In these works, I have used a sharpie, grey ink, paint pens, and pastels. For my pastel tin can I was trying to only use the side of the pastel and to not make sharp lines with the top. I was focusing on the shading, showing where the light hits the can. I was trying a similar technique with the colourful paint pens, each colour was a different shade of silver from the photo.

For these works, I have used a mix of felt pens, charcoal and watercolour. I found that my favourite to work with was the charcoal as I like the rough sketchy look it creates and I was happy with the results as it was one of my first times working with charcoal. I found it difficult looking for an image with a person that I wanted to use for this task as I have found from past experiences that I’m not the strongest at drawing figures and faces. I wanted to find an image that was relatively simple so I could focus on the more minimalistic style from Antoni Llena’s drawings. After looking at my works I think I could pull it back even more and use less marks than what I have used in these drawings and possibly look at expanding the colour palette.

This set of beach drawings was the first ones I completed, I don’t think I fully engaged with the task as looking back at these drawings they mostly look similar and I don’t think I was really considering how I could use my artist techniques effectively. For my last watercolour drawing, I did start to look at Silvia Bächli and how she uses different variations of lines to create her art. Out of the beach drawings, I think this one turned out the best, and this use of lines Is something I would like to explore in some of my other works. I did however make a few mistakes in this work as I didn’t wait for the water colour to dry properly before starting some of the branches so some of the colours are bleeding together a bit.

These works were based on the Paul Cezanne work, Pitcher and fruit from 1894. I was interested in using this painting as I really liked the bright colours of the fruits and how all of the colours blended together. For some of these works, I experimented with scribbling the colours on, not worrying about it being too neat. I think this technique worked out with the felt pens however I don’t think it worked as well with the colour pencils as the colours aren’t very bright and it makes the whole drawing look quite bland. I also think I could have experimented with leaving some sections uncoloured to see how that affects the overall look of the drawings. I have also started to look at making the shapes of the fruit more geometric in my last drawing however I think I prefer the more organic shapes.

Antoni Llena

I have been really interested in looking at Antoni Llena’s work as some of the techniques used in his drawings are new to me and I wanted to try and expand my knowledge and skill in this area. I really like the simplistic approach to his work, using minimal marks to give a specific effect. I have never tried drawing with so little detail and I think it will be a challenge to show my images that im drawing in enough detail so you can still see the connection to the original piece while still staying very minimalistic. A large portion of Antoni Llena’s drawings are made with pastels and colour pencils, I like the colour range thats used in his work and im really interested to try using different sides to the pastels to make different marks like Antoni Llena does in his work.