Student Work: iPad Paintings

Earlier in the year our Fine Art students visited the David Hockney exhibition at the RA and were inspired by painting on a mobile screen - so.. we thought we'd give it a go ourselves! Today the AS & A2 Fine Art students had great fun in their lessons creating artworks using the Brushes app on the new iPads. Students loved the built in video where you can see exactly how your picture unfolded as you drew it. The possibilities are endless and it is great for the students to use it as a digital sketchbook where they can literally show how they created a piece of art! Check out the video below by artist David Kassan - you will be amazed by how the artwork unfolds. There is also a great Flickr group showing artwork created solely using Brushes (which of course features our fabulous students artwork too!)

You can view A2 Fine Art's iPad paintings here and see a selection of some of the beautiful work produced below by students Shakeela Kennedy & Laura Bennett - enjoy!

Inspiration: Video Books

Hans-Peter Feldman // Paris from haveanicebook on Vimeo.

Have a nice book have created these beautiful videos that allow you to engage with books in an innovative digital format. Each video takes you through an artist/photography book page by page and even have has accompanying music. Check out the full collection on their vimeo channel!

Student Work: As promised..

Here are the final paintings from our life drawing movement sessions. If any of you didn't see the previous studies check them out here and see how much our student's have developed. This week is the life model and I'm already excited to see the fab work our students will be producing. Their really starting to build a relationship with the pen and the paper and trust their judgements now... Come back Friday to see the outcomes!

Inspiration: David Mach

David Mach is best known for his awesome (and rather frightening) life-sized sculptures which use everyday objects including coat hangers, bricks, matches and magazines. Those of you who went on 'The City' trip will remember seeing his giant gorilla Silver Streak at the V&A. Each coat hanger has been carefully shaped and moulded to represent the animal body. Mach doesn't alter the appearance of each coat hanger which gives the sculptures a soft, warming feeling, almost like fur.

"I don't make work out of bronze. I'm doing it with this unlikely, naff material because coat hangers are something you don't give a second thought to. It's getting to another audience. You're not talking to the guy who loves art; you're trying to reach people who would rather set you on fire and chuck you in the river than pay attention to what you do." [Telegraph Jan 2011]


Take a few minutes to check out the rest of his work - you will be blown away with the talent, determination and commitment to each piece.

Enjoy!

Student Work: A2 Fine Art Reflections

The brief was simple: Create a series of compositions based on your holiday research findings. (For those of you who don't know.. our A2'ers visited the Saatchi Gallery and The National Portrait Gallery over the Summer break!) From their experience and observations at the galleries/exhibitions they were asked to create a series of images that celebrate other artist's work and their influences.

All of our students chose to design a composition for a painting or mixed media piece.. check out student Ricardo Daley's final outcome below! You can also find more examples of the great work being produced on our Flickr page.

Student Work: Life Drawing, Movement

Check out the fantastic studies our Life Drawing class have been producing in the last few weeks. Each student has produced three time-based developmental studies based on movement before moving onto a final painting inspired by Duchamp's Nude Descending A Staircase. Have a look on our Flickr page for more examples of the student's work and keep checking back to see the finished outcomes next week!

Student Work: A2 Fine Art, Rituals Lesson One

A2 here are the group mind-maps we did in lesson last week...

Please make sure you have the following in your sketchbook by Thursday 24th P1 next week: 

• Rituals title

• A detailed brainstorm

• Collected images

• Contextual Research

• Initial ideas

• Statement of intent

You can find the statement of intent in Lesson Resources.

Have fun!

Exhibition: Mel Bochner

Mel Bochner 'Master of the Universe' 

The Whitechapel Gallery are celebrating the work of Mel Bochner from the last 50 years in their current exhibition. Bochner is a conceptual artist who often combines colour and language in his work. There's a range of work on display including his early installations, wall drawings, works on paper and his most recent series of paintings which were created using a thesaurus to generate word chains. His use of typography is truly inspiring and makes this exhibition well worth a visit! 

Where: Whitechapel Gallery 

When: now till December 30th

Cost: Free!

Surface Pattern

For centuries Islamic Artists have used highly decorative patterning to adorn buildings and fabrics.  These repeat patterns are made from simple stylised motifs inspired by the natural world.  These motifs are often so detached from the primary source that they become just abstract geometrical shapes.  These abstract motifs are then repeated, many times over, to achieve these highly decorative outcomes.

The examples left were taken from the internet and from photos captured on location in Marrakesh, Morocco. You can see that many of the examples use bold geometric shapes to create a very simplified motif. 

Sometimes you can still make out that the primary source was nature.  These more figurative representations have been simplified, but not to the point of abstraction.  The photographs of the ceiling carvings near the bottom are a clear example of this.  Compare those decorative ceiling pieces with the center image in the top row.  This example has been simplified to the point that is now just a collection of coloured shapes.

The examples shown are applied to a variety of everyday objects from walls, doors, windows and ceilings to all kinds of fabrics such as rugs, curtains, cushions, clothes and bags.  Each design is also executed in a variety of mediums and techniques.  These techniques include painted or coloured mosaic tiles, different types of wood or stone carving and prints.
 


To put the above into a more contemporary context, have a look at Helen Rawlinson on Etsy

She has used a simple flower motif to create a multitude of very decorative outcomes.  The design you see to the left is clearly taken from nature.  There are two motifs, which when repeated create a simple repeat pattern.  This is then applied to whatever outcome she wants, such as the tea towel below. 

 For a more detailed analysis have a look at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's article on natural patterns in Islamic Art and the same institutions article on geometric patterning in Islamic Art

Also check out the handmade art on Etsy and the more graphical work on Behance

Think about how the art has been produced or what technical process has taken place.  What is the work about, what is the content?  Also how is the work placed on the page, what formal elements are used?

The Big Draw

The National Gallery are taking part in The Big Draw: the national campaign raising the profile of drawing as a tool for thought and inventiveness. They provide the materials and there will be advice from artists on hand too - to take part turn up at the National Gallery between the 3-7 Oct at 1pm. If you don't fancy any of these why not see what's going on nearer to you and take part in the big draw!

A2 Reflections

A2, here is the link for the Central Saint Martins MA animation students transcriptions videos we looked at in lesson last week. Just to remind you all, the pieces came from a live brief with the National Gallery which involved producing a short film inspired by the gallery's collection. One to watch is Hannes Stummvol, whose graduation film 'La Messicole' was inspired by Paul Gauguin's Harvest: Le Pouldu (1890). With a painterly aesthetic created through digital tools, it features a girl called Chloe daydreaming during the wheat harvest and explores the boundaries between fantasy and reality, work and play, visual arts and music, wheat and poppies. There is nothing wrong with enjoying an artist's work and reflecting a final piece upon it. Watch some of the animations through again to help you get that balance right and become inspired with the modern interpretations you are creating.

Last chance...

To book reduced tickets for Frieze Art Fair 2011 at Regents Park. Tickets are available at the reduced rate until midnight Oct 1st. So hurry! If your thinking of doing art foundation this contemporary art fair is something you shouldn't miss. The fair presents the most interesting galleries working today. To read more about it click here to remind you of what the big fuss is all about.

Pipilotti Rist: Eyeball Massage

Contemporary Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist presents her first major London exhibition at the Hayward Gallery from the 28th Sep.. that's tomorrow (to Jan 8th 2012).
Rist is renowned for fusing colour, sensual images and mesmerising music to create immersive video installations in which the visitors themselves become important elements of the artwork. She uses themes such as birth and death, family and love, the body and the natural world whilst playing with size and scale and the natural world vs the urban environment.

You do have to pay to get in but it will be worth it as it won't just be your eyes that are 'massaged' at this psychedelic exhibition. There will be sculptures and installations that provide an adventure for the whole body, with opportunities to lie on beanbags and listen to music and watch films peering through floorboards. Watch the video below to get a sneak peek into the exhibition!

Artist creates masterpiece on an iPad!

Artist David Kassan paints his life models using a simple App called Brushes. The short video above shoes Kassan using a variety of virtual brushes. You can watch the painting take shape from blank screen to a finished piece from about 6mins. Kassan is not the first artist to use the iPad for his work. David Hockney has been converted too! So much so that in Jan 2011 at the RA, Hockney will be showcasing his first ever iPad landscapes (See image below!)

"The iPad is a very new medium for artists, but it has certain things about it that are quite fantastic. One of them is speed with which you could establish colour, palette, faster than any other medium I have ever come across." [David Hockney, Metro] 

Using an iPad as an artist brings you new freedom with your materials and if any of you want to have a go and don't have one at home then ask Kirsty (Who might let you use hers if you ask nicely!)

GERHARD RICHTER: PANORAMA

A new exhibition of Gerhard Richter's paintings is taking place at Tate Modern from 6th Oct to coincide with the artists 80th birthday. Panorama is a new major retrospective exhibition that groups together significant moments of the painters career. It includes realist paintings based on photographs such as the famous 'Betty, 1988', gestural abstractions such as the squeegee paintings, subtle landscapes, colour charts and glass constructions.

Since the sixties, Gerhard Richter has immersed himself in a rich and varied exploration of painting. Panorama presents Richter's most ambitious abstract paintings from his 1974 colour chart containing 4096 different coloured squares, to his 20m long 'Stroke' of 1980, to the richly coloured 'Forest' squeegee paintings of 1990 and culminating in the beautiful six-part series 'Cage' from 2006 on long loan to Tate Modern. The exhibition is curated by Tate Director Nicholas Serota and is one not to be missed!

COLOUR LESSON

We have just looked at the colour wheel.  In this blog are notes and images from the lesson.  During the lesson we laid thick opaque paint in Newton's Colour Wheel and thin watery translucent paint in boxes beside it. In the wheel and the boxes we have painted 3 Primary Colours (Red, Yellow and Blue)  then mixed those colours to make three 3 Secondary Colours (Orange, Green and finally Purple).  We have then mixed those secondary colour with the colours either side of them on the wheel to make our 6 Tertiary Colours.

The wheel can now help in grouping colours together.  Harmonious Colours can be seen next to each other and Complimentary Colour opposite.

• If the Complimentary (opposite) colour to blue is orange, what is the complimentary colour to red and Yellow? Record this on your colour sheets 

 The colour wheel was originally devised by Sir Isaac Newton, he of apple on the head fame. There are more contemporary colour wheels, predominately the wheel produced by Johannes Itten, who taught at the Bauhaus School (Germany) in the early to mid 1900’s. The colour wheel contains all the colours in the colour spectrum. The colour spectrum is made by passing light through a prism, the light divides into bands of colour, from purple, through blue, to green, yellow, orange and then to red. Newton then turned the flat lin spectrum into a circle. The circle then makes it easy to read the colours and how the two sides of the wheel contrast.

During the lesson we looked at artists that have used colour in their work. The use of colour has been used to maybe express an emotion.
 

Patrick Heron (monochrome colour)

Anish Kapoor (vibrant sculptures)

Pablo Picasso (early blue period)

Tony Cragg (found objects)

Other artists to look at would be Mark Rothko, Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall, Piet Mondrian, Wassily Kandinsky, Robert Delaunay, Andre Durain, Vincent Van Gogh, Louis Anquetin.

• Choose an artist and think about: How does the artist use colour? Is it harmonious, or primary or complementary colour? If the colour expresses an emotion, what emotion is it?

 

The websites of the Tate Gallery , Royal Academy and the BBC Paintings website may help you.

DEPTFORD X 2011

From the 23rd Oct - 3rd Nov 2011 Deptford X is returning with a full programme of events spread over two weekends. The main programme features work by artists responding to a theme set by curators Indra Khanna and Hew Locke. It is an arts event born of Deptford's creative community and based on a belief in the limitless potential of the area. Look out for the Billboard project, Deptford Biscuits and a host of exhibitions in all art galleries in Deptford!

Deptford X exists to promote the best contemporary visual art and celebrates art with the widest possible audience. A lot of the main studio spaces in the area will be opening up for either one or both weekends so this is a great chance to see what up and coming artists are getting up to! There are 2 walking tours during the festival: one by Q art on Sat 1st Oct (Ask Kirsty for more details on this!), and one which starts at The Old Police Station, New Cross where you will be given an MP3 player and a map to find your way round.

Have a look on the exhibitions board in the resource area to see the programme and check out whats going on when. It is well worth a visit!

Painters Framing Their World

I was lucky enough to visit the highly acclaimed Frank Auerbach show at the Courtauld Gallery in London two years ago.

The exhibition displayed Auerbach's paintings and drawings of London building sites from 1952 to 1962.  This was a period in history when central London was being hastily rebuilt, following the devastation of World War Two.  Auerbach spent the ten years between 1952 and 1962 sketching on the building sites, quickly capturing his reactions to the construction taking place.  In the drawing below you can see how Auerbach was thinking of using bold lines of perspective to FRAME VIEWS and lead the spectator into his painting.  The resulting works are a WINDOW onto a world of large mechanical construction sites.

Study for Shell Building Site from the Festival Hall

Many of the paintings and drawings are dominated by the thick lines you see above, portraying the huge building girders that make up the frame of a modern building.  Cranes are also used as FRAMING devises in many of the paintings and drawings, their legs once again portrayed in thickly rendered lines.

Shell Building Site from the Thames

In other works (like the one above) Auerbach conveys the devastation to the earth using light, colour and texture to document the vast holes that are cut into the ground.  Here the PICTURE PLANE is used to frame areas of earth at the sides and the vast spaces below.  Auerbach used IMPASTO oil paint (thick areas of undiluted paint) to build up areas to create more depth to the painting.  The whole effect draws the viewer into looking beyond the frame, into the painting and then onto areas the artist wanted the viewer to focus on.

Have a look at these videos, explaining the work and Auerbach talking about the work himself.

Josiah McElheny: The Past Was A Mirage Id Left Far Behind

Josiah McElheny for the The Bloomberg Commission has transformed the Whitechapel Gallery into a hall of mirrors. Seven large-scale, mirrored sculptures are arranged as multiple reflective screens for the artists interpretation of groundbreaking experimental abstract films, programmed to change throughout the year. The sculptures will reflect and refract the projected film selection, saturating the whole gallery and visitors in images and light. Distorted and multiplied, the moving images explore how abstracting is used to depict an image of visual enlightenment.

The Bloomberg Commission is displayed in Gallery 2, a dedicated space for site-specific works of art that was previously the reading room of the former Whitechapel Library. Inspired by the history of thr Library as a creative haven for early modernist thinkers such as Isaac Rosenberg and Mark Gertler, McElheny's new work explores the history of abstraction in film and video, reinterpreting them by presenting fractured, constantly morphing versions.

The work is being shown until 20th July 2012 and is worth several visits to see the changeover of films. The best part is that it's free and you can make a day of it by visiting the Rothko show too!

The London Art Book Fair 2011

The London Art Book Fair takes place at the Whitechapel Gallery on the 23-25 September 2011.

It is an annual event devoted to international art publishing. The London Art Book Fair presents the work of individual artists publishers, galleries, magazines, colleges, arts publishing houses, rare book dealers and distributors alongside a wider associated programme of talks and events.

Events include discussions with Cornelia Parker and Turner Prize winner Mark Wallinger alongside a book signing by Wolfgang Tillmans!