College Term 4 – Painting Week 1

I had to hit the ground running this week, with the first day back at college for Year Two, Term One. We’re starting off with six weeks of Jewellery, several weeks of Drawing, Life Drawing, Painting and lots and lots of Ceramics. Later on we’ll be doing some more Print.

The theme this term is ‘collections’ and we’ve been researching ‘artists who collect’ from those that seem to curate lots of objects (e.g. Portia Munson) to those who do assemblage (e.g. Joseph Cornell). I have to say I fail to appreciate the artistic creativity in curation, but I’m sure someone will put me right! I know these curated collections are art by definition, given it is commissioned and displayed and appreciated, but not what I would see as creative arts by any means.

Painting this week was set to stretch our comfort zone. We were handed bamboo pens, black Quink ink and told to draw our collections and then use clean water to move the ink around the page. We were encouraged to explore the media and work loosely. My collection is of beads and buttons, just in case you can’t tell from these images!

The ink has so many different colour pigments in it, more and more become obvious as it moves with the addition of water. Wet-on-wet creates more feathering, and translucent wash layers can be built up. I left the paper-white areas as highlights. It was difficult to add more ink back into the image as the paper had become more absorbent and spongy. I think I did ok…

Life Drawing – more from Term 2

That’s another block of life drawing finished! This term we’ve looked at the paintings and sculptures of Antony Gormley and used wax and ink to paint the human form. This is the second piece from Week 2 – I’ve already posted my work from Week 3 here. I’m particularly pleased with the crouching figure. Many thanks to our model for his fortitude!

This second image is the result of a four 40 minute sittings over two weeks, starting with a measured outline, then addition of oil pastels for colour using David Bomberg’s paintings as an influence. In the second session, we then broke down the oil pastel with turpentine before adding the background and working into the figure more. The figure isn’t dark enough with the addition of the background, so some of the form is lost as a result. Many thanks to our model for allowing me to share the image (and for sitting so patiently!).

Life Drawing – Term 2 – Week 3

Here’s my life drawing from this week at college. We are experimenting with expressive strokes in black Quink ink washes, and this week added in rust colours using oil pastels. The black Quink is ideal for this as it is full of every blue and brown colour you could wish with a few grey tones chucked in as well! I used a blue, orange and brown for the rest of the colouring, blending as I went, over the top of the tonal ink washes.