Category Archives: College Course

Occasional posts of coursework related to my Extended Diploma in Art and Design at Leicester College (2011-2013).

College Term 4 – Ceramics – Weeks 1 & 2

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So far this term in ceramics, we’ve been learning techniques – week 1 included shellac and masking tape resist, piercing and carving. The tiles were fired and then I was asked to embellish the pierced tile – I’ve used beads, head pins and a bit of superglue. The result has been variously described as St Basil’s Cathedral, Brighton Pavilion or the Taj Mahal! I’ve already thought of a way of adapting it to make a final major project, so keep watching the blog 😉

Carved pattern – Masking Tape Resist – Pierced – Shellac Resist

College Term 4 – Painting – Week 3

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It’s monoprint week, using oils. This is a completely new technique for me: paint onto glass with oil paints, and then press a damp sheet of paper down onto it to make the print. Not sure that it will become a favourite technique – I prefer using a gelatin plate and waterbased colour, but I guess I’m still a beginner! As before, I’m working from my collection of beads, and each print is 15x15cm. First image in the pair is the oil painting on glass, second is the print.

I’m quite pleased with the improvement – partly from making sure the paint was a little thinner on the plate, and the paper slightly damper to make the print. I particularly like the iridescence I managed to get on the last purple bead – I included all the colours I’d used on the other beads.

Minor hiccup

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Sorry about the lack of posts, particularly updates on college progress…. My iMac died in the middle of last week, probably the hard drive failing apparently (it’s five years old), and with it went my current photos of work. All being well, it will be back repaired next week and the back ups will have worked, and all will be restored!

If not – well… I’ll be busy re-photographing the work!

College Term 4 – Painting Week 1

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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…

Graphics & Illustration – Exhibition Piece

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This is the last post based on my end-of-first-year exhibition pieces. Today’s is the graphics and illustration project – we had four sessions to create a collage based on the portrait and work of our chosen artist. I developed several collages, based on thumbnail images of the myriad works of Jacek Yerka, courtesy of a Google search. The two I chose to take forward were a simple cut and paste montage of as many thumbnails that would fit on an A4 sheet, and a number of thumbnails mounted on acetate hoops circling an image of the artist photocopied from one of his books (to represent his images being inspired by his dreams). I then researched and mocked up a magazine cover and article (based on Artists and Illustrators March 2012 magazine) and a book cover dust jacket using a photo of the 3D whirling dreams montage and a scan of the A4 montage.


Still Life – Exhibition Piece

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This is another of my end-of-first-year exhibition pieces, this time for the four week still life module. It is white oil pastel and graphite on black paper, and took around four hours to complete. The items were all drawn separately and then grouped together for the piece with a single light source chosen. It was an exercise in creating ellipses which I now know are circles drawn in perspective!

Ceramics – Exhibition Piece

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As regular readers will know by now, the last term’s work at college has been based on an artist of our choosing – mine is the Polish fantasy/surrealist Jacek Yerka. For our ceramics module this term we had to design and make a functional teapot based on our artist’s work.

This first image shows my three designs that reached maquette stage: I dubbed them ‘Time Flies’, ‘Town in a Teacup’ and ‘Brontosaurus Civitas’ – click on the links to see the original images on which they are based.

As you can see, it was worth doing the test run, as the Brontosaurus exploded on firing as I’d not left a big enough hole leading to the pot void… All would make functional tea pots, with the ring pot being the most striking, but trickiest to make. I decided to go for the quickest to make, and my original idea, as time was limited to get the pot finished, fired and glazed before exhibition night. Here’s the final pot – a little on the large size to be practical, but fully functional. The town is a close fitting lid, and decorated with various oxides. The main pot is internally glazed and decorated with slips and part glazed to give the impression of the monster being in water with cliffs leading up to the town. I think I prefer working small, as I’m far happier with the town than the pot!

Life Drawing – Exhibition Pieces

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As promised in a previous post, here are two more pieces that I exhibited at my end of year show last week. These are life drawings of the same model – the first is my first attempt at using oil paints with a palette knife and was completed in around an hour (we had to work really quickly!). I was trying to emulate the style of David Bomberg.

 

The second was a two week pose, with around 2.5 hours drawing time – the first week I drew the outline and shaded with the colour soft pastels before sealing it with spray fixative. The second week I worked on developing the shading with charcoal and spray fixative only, rubbing back with sandpaper and layering and layering to get the darkest tones. I’d chosen Jim Dine as my influencing artist for this term’s work, and tried to emulate his way of working in this piece.

Many thanks to our model for her patience, and for her permission to share my drawings of her.

Mixed Media – Exhibition Piece

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It’s been a while again since I’ve posted – I’ve been busy finishing off end of year projects at college, culminating in our exhibition last night. Here’s just one of my pieces (I’ll share some more in a couple of days), for the final mixed media module, inspired by the work of Jacek Yerka, my ‘chosen’ artist for this term.

Continue reading →

Drypoint print – the gallery editions

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As I mentioned in my original post, I planned to further work on my drypoint prints, adding tone and colour. Here is a gallery of the results – and the bottom right is the print I have given away, number 13 of 15 – and may be the winner will want colour added? Most of these are now mounted for the end of term exhibition. There are some other prints available to purchase if you’d be interested…

I think some work better than others – I’m not happy with the tea dye one, it’s too dark. I am happy with the greyscale/monotone trees with the colour window. The pastel is very much in keeping with Jacek Yerka’s work on which this is loosely based as he prepares his paintings with a pastel version first. Let me know what you think 🙂