My Journey to Understanding Contemporary Fine Art & Illustration
This blog is based on the theoretical study and studio practice of a three year, UK based, Bachelor of Arts Honours Degree in Contemporary Fine Art and Illustration.
A new brush sweeps clean, so they say!...
A new and exiting academic year two starts for me on my journey towards understanding Contemporary Fine Art and Illustration, and a bit of spring cleaning is always good.
So, in order to keep my blogs tidy, correctly filed, archived and easier for you, the viewer to read, I've started a new associated blog to represent the second year of my journey...
- Simply click the link below to be taken to a new chapter. - You can also get new posts emailed to you automatically by following the instructions at the bottom of that new link.
My continued desire to improve my drawing skills has been supplemented over the last few weeks and days with some basic sketching of portraiture, life and studies of hands... A more detailed blog appears in my Summer Projects blog here >>
The book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, by Dr. Betty Edwards (4th Edition, 2012), Tarcher / Penguin Group publishing, has been particularly useful. Many of the exercises at first sight appear quite simple, and yet, through their application, quite complex development is actually being achieved. I can't recommend this book enough, for anyone with even very limited drawing skills through to professional or student grade artists to use.
Anyway, the journey so far has helped me to produce the following pieces, which are particularly recogniseable from the Betty Edwards teaching style;
So, having had my assessments for Studio Practice term two a couple of weeks ago, then my "theory" assessment for "Contemporary Art in Context" last Thursday, I can breath a little bit of relief now...
I've been doing some general sketching over the last couple of weeks whilst trying to write the contextual essay for my "in context" element of my degree. By the way, I've posted the essay, based on ten of my favourite contemporary thinkers here; 10 Favourite thinkers in Contemporary Art
The sketching has really been carried out just to keep up practice as much as I can. Now that the assessments are over, I shall buckle down and re-start my "drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" book, by Betty Edwards.
Well, I can't believe that we are already into May!...
After having spent the last two weeks (on vacation for the Easter holidays) looking at the various key contemporary thinkers for Art in western culture, it's time to re-engage with my blog and put my research notes on hold. I've been on holiday, but strangely, I feel pretty worn out!
Not sure if this feeling is because I've tried to cram too much in to the last two weeks, or whether it's pre-assessment nerves for my Studio Practice 2 assessment tomorrow. It's crazy really, I have nothing to worry about I'm sure.... But I just "do"... I've done a reasonable amount of practical work (Although there's always that little nagging voice saying I could always do more), I've finished my presentation for the assessment (comprising of three * 3 minute 'filmettes' (or Vignettes I believe is the correct term for such), and I'm well into doing the Contemporary Art in Context Presentation that needs to be ready for the following week.
My Reading & Responding films is below;
The thing is, I'm feeling really nervous before tomorrow's assessment presentation! I know it's likely due to the 'unfortunate' trait that believe me is a real hindrance some times, and that is I'm just really conscientious, I just want to do my best, so I automatically get the anxious feelings about anything I do, worrying "is it good enough"... And on it goes.
So today, as my lovely wife was off work too (as it's been a bank holiday here in the UK). I've tried hard to just do as little as possible and try to switch off. (Blimey, that's been hard!!!) But my wonderful wife puts up with sooo much, and she deserves a rest too. Ah well, I do hope that the work done already is acceptable. - 'nuff said!
So my next blog will likely be a round up of how I've got on tomorrow and how the assessment went, and what my plans are for my next presentation, in about a weeks time.
'Leslie' by Chuck Close, 1972 (White Cube Gallery)
Watercolour painting mounted on canvas.
One of my Tutors (Bob, - & thanks) - recently suggested that I take a look at some of the Super-realism work of Chuck Close, which I think he concentrated upon during the 70s / 80s... I found the work frankly amazing...
An example is
"Leslie - 1972-1973 72 9/16 x 57 in. (184.3 x 144.8 cm) Watercolour on paper, mounted on canvas"
Courtesy & Credit of the White Cube Gallery, London. See http://whitecube.com/artists/chuck_close/
It seems that he created some 'intense' neo-realism works of the 1970s and then moved in to a phase of 'shadowy' pointillism through the 80s. His latest work consist of a kind of diagonally skewed grid style, and where the negative space is as important as the object being depicted. Again, these are at http://whitecube.com/artists/chuck_close/ and all credit to the White Cube gallery.
President Bill Clinton 2006, by Chuck Close, Oil on canvas. White Cube Gallery.Photo: Kerry Ryan McFate
I wondered if I could use a similar technique, or even something new as a process on my earlier idea of the turmoil of the rat, and it's continued fight against man....
My chosen final photo for the Reading and Responding / "Invictus" poem that I put into the exhibition still seems to be the one I keep comming back to. It's suitably abstract, it has no subject per se, and it still holds the greatest interest for me.
How I want to depict this image though I'm still uncertain.
It does have the qualities that I think would ask questions of the viewer... such as,
What is it?
Why and where is it?
What's the green thing in the middle?
What are the horrizontal stripes?
Why is red juxtaposed with green?
What's the perspective in the piece drawing us towards?
and hopefully, lots of other questions too....
This image is getting stronger and stronger for me to sketch and re-imagine and re-map...
