Developing my work Further

Leading on from last week's work I have been looking at drawing with ink from those projected photographs and double line drawings. I haven't been to precious with the drawings that I have created, they are quite expressive and simple, I like some of the forms that I make, but some of them are quite bulky and I'm not sure that the in fact work as well as I wanted them to, I really want them to flow into one another, almost as if they are all one line or are all drawn at the same time like my other drawings of if I played around with scale.

 Also I would like to experiment with charcoal this week and maybe create some large scale drawings or a series of small ones. This week I have looked at the artists Dove Allouche, 
Tony Cruz Pabon and Kira Lynn Harris because of there use of tone and shades, however I think that next week I need to again take these artists into account when doing my work because I think they will be useful with how I plan to develop my project.

Developing my second body of Work

Example of Frank Auerbach's work

Biro on paper 42 X 60 Cm

Biro on paper both 42 X 60 Cm

I have been experimenting with drawing more than one line at the same time this week, varying the pens and shades. These came out with some really interesting drawings that explored shape well because it was harder to draw with the pens the shapes sometimes didn't turned out how I planned them to, but by using this method the shapes seem to be more organic and very light.This week I have been looking at the drawings of Frank Auerbach and Alberto Giacometti both draw in a very interesting and similar style which I think is something that I need to experiment with next week. I think that need to continue to move quickly with this and start experimenting with ink.

Frank Auerbach and Alberto Giacometti

Frank Auerbach

The Magdalen Laying Down her Jewels 1955

Auerbach is both a painter and a drawer who works in an abstract and expressionist way. Auerbach was originally from Germany, but escaped to England when the Nazi's took over where he attended boarding school and then St Martin's college in London to study art. When he first started showing he got allot of criticism about his application of paint, but it was soon recognised as a new type form of up and coming artists.

I wanted to look at Auerbach specifically for his drawings, some of them self portraits others are of figurative scene. I like the sketchy look of them and the pace that they looks as if they have been drawn at, they look really quick to do. I is really interesting how they are done, Auerbach uses the process of building up layers of the charcoal and pencil to give you the final finish on the work. It's really interesting because you have to look really close to the drawings to realise this, however it is the same method that he uses to create his paintings. The layers create depth to the work because of the different tones.

All the works are very abstract and the lines are very expressionist there seems to be a lot of movement captured in the drawings because of this it's almost as if the figures are vibrating, it is quite chaotic. The layers in the work suggest that he's never quite happy with the image and a way of masking this is to add another layer until it does become to Chaotic to notice. There subjects in the work don't always know that they are being drawn they are often memories of something Auerbach sees in the day and wants to keep to draw later, which could maybe fuel this frustration with not being able to get it right because he can't quite remember what it looks like.

I think that this is something that I should try, working from memory it might bring out more movement and expression in my work.

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/frank-auerbach-676

Alberto Giacometti

man lost - 1947

Giacometti is a sculpture, printmaker and painter from Switzerland who studied sculpture in Paris he had a fascination for the figure and human form. I have a particular interesting his drawings, but since looking at a wider arrangement of his work I really like his figurative sculptures. His sculptures tended to be in bronze and the surface had a rough texture as if it had been eroded away as if he was trying to turn back to their natural form. Something that he did do with some sculptures, he reworked them turning them into something completely different.

His drawings are really interesting, most of then sketches of ideas for sculptures and future projects others self portraits, but the self portraits where in different styles they seemed to me realist and representational of a real human form. Whereas the other drawings are obviously representational of the human form they aren't as you would usually see it the shape different it's a bit like and alien to us, but Giacometti believes that this is what he looks like he was trying to educate the work on this expressing his ideas on the human form and why it is this way.

There are a lot of lines in the drawings and they are very concentrated in specific areas creating a focal point making you concentrate on that part of the work the most, making you completely appreciate the form of the face. I really like the work and I think that I would like to reflect the use of line in my work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Giacometti

Developing My Initial Drawings

Pencil on tracing paper 14 X 21 Cm

Marker on plastic 14 X 21 Cm

Biro on tracing paper 14 X 21 Cm

I have been experimenting with adding tone and colour to my figures this week, however I felt that they didn't really work that well because they lost the delicate feel that I wanted them to have. Without the tone they had a creepy, almost ghostly feel to them and I think by working on tracing paper they became a lot lighter than working on normal paper. So now that I have figured out that isn't the direction I want to go down I decided to draw on acetate because that has very similar qualities to tracing paper.

These turned out quite well  which then lead me onto the idea of projecting them onto paper to get larger shapes, but when I did this the shapes became blurred and unreadable. I photographed these and they are really quite beautiful and something that I want to push on with next week. These photographs reminded me of Michal Rovner's work because of her use of figures, but also of Henry Michaux who works with very similar forms.

Michal Rovner and Henri Michaux

Michal Rovner

Culture plate #4 2003

I have looked at this artist because there is an obvious visual connection between our works; Rovner is both a photographer and video artist. She often distorts pictures of specific groups of people to hide their identity; it is a rebellion against prying into people's personal lives. She wants an air of mystery behind her work; she wants to keep people wondering what are they doing? Where are they going? Are they doing something they shouldn't? It's like it's a game to Rovner.

Her video had the same sort of theme, however not always sticking to humans and using animals and objects. One of her instillations was even filmed at the Israeli boarder, which to me is quite an intimidating place, but also one where no one can remain anonymous. This was called "a game against nature" which suggests again that this is a game that she wants to play and she doesn't really mind who she plays it with.

The actual figures in the work are quite ghostly, blurred at the edges, an effect that I really like. They look quite calm and peaceful, maybe like the protest. Some of the figures seem to me walking around in circles as if they are lost. A common factor in all of her work is memory and time, it's something that she always brings to the table in her work, and she likes to make sure that it's present because it's something that is incredibly important to her, past and where she came from because of her culture.

http://www.pacegallery.com/artists/405/michal-rovner

Henri Michaux

Michaux was primarily a French writer and poet, but due to later drug use he started making drawings while under the influence. He was well travelled and had a good social status; he was very popular at the times of his writing. Michaux started taking mescaline which he believes that made him create these art works however it has since been proven that the drugs wouldn't have aided his creativity at all. Michaux fell into the trap of believing and relying on the drugs to create the work.

Critics thought that he was releasing the inner pain of his body, they really emphasised this almost like they were trying to break Michaux just in case created more or better work. Michaux's work was very spontaneous, there doesn't seem to be a great deal of thought to them they just seemed to be whatever popped into his head when he started drawing.

 The work is quite light and airy it seems very carefree, almost like a dream. Which is interesting because when doing the drawings Michaux was said to be in "his own little world" and incredibly this seems to translate straight onto the page. The drawings are simple black and white and drawn with Indian ink, Michaux says that he wanted to use simple colours because any more would have overcomplicated it and bogged it down. I really like the work because of its simplicity and I wanted to look at the work because to me I can see small figures within the drawing something similar to my work. However the work is very perceptive everyone can see different things with in the work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Michaux

Developing my Ideas

Wave Motion, John Lancaster, 57 X 76 CM

Neville Gabbie, Still from his Chalk Performance

This week I wasn't sure where I wanted to take my project at the end of last week so I started to make larger drawings and get out of my sketch book a bit more. I soon found that the shapes that I was making where becoming almost to engineered and not random or organic as I wanted them so I decided to get around this to pour watered down acrylic on top of it to create these random shapes that I could then add further detail to in the form of lines and squares. I really liked these pieces because they felt less forced they sat really well against each other the contrast between the lines and the circles I really like.

Acrylic and pen 42 X 30Cm

 I wanted to look at artists that would help me inspire my work so I have looked at aboriginal art, John Lancaster,  Neville Gabbie and Paul Noble. These artist all look and involve obsessive mark making in there work and they have inspired me to take my work in many different directions, which I think will be one of my main targets of this week to experiment with all these different ideas. I think that I might do a bit of performance art and start some large scale drawings, but also to introduce some ink into my work. Because the watered down acrylic worked well, but think that using ink will make a larger movement in my work and create smaller patterns of detail. 

Diana Al-Hadid, Vlad Kulkov and Cameron Robbins

Diana Al-Hadid

Untitled- 2011- 106X155cm

When you first look at theses ink drawings it is hard to figure out exactly what they are about, but at a second look you can begin to see the structures within them. I wanted to look at this artist because of the first visual connection I had with the work which was the drips. However no I look more closely at the work I can see that there isn't so much of an atheistic connection. Al-Hadid has a great passion for structures and creates art about the structures that most interest her. She is more commonly a sculpture and is famous for creating them out of a load of materials that you can buy anywhere really.

This is a very similar case with her drawings; even though they look simple enough they are made with many different media such as paint, charcoal, turps. Al-Hadid likes to almost put her materials to the test by applying them, she moves them around, erases them, conflicts them against each other to create accidental encounters that with either make or break the work. If they don't work she simply creates another layer over the top. I think that this is something that I need to take from the artist; don't be too precious with the work and if it doesn't go to plan work with it.

She often refers to her work as "battlegrounds" as if she was at war with her work. Because of the way of working the structure in the middle becomes to look suspended and floating. This is something I really like it adds a surrealist feel to it and doesn't pin it down with reality.

http://www.d+
+ianaalhadid.com/#30

Vitamin P2

Vlad Kulkov

Excessive Mutant Character -2009- 151X120cm

I looked at this art because at a first glance the forms are very similar to my latest paintings and drawings. Kulkov works in a very precise way the pen strokes are very neat and exact, they are all the same distance apart and are all the same length. This creates something that is very majestic; in areas the lines are clear in others they are blurred.  

Kulkov is very interested in radioactive waste this is how he imagines it to look like. He wants the shapes to look destructive, as if they are eating you up, but he also wants them to be silent which is why small marks are used as it is a silent killer. The drawings themselves look innocent, but you can see from the areas of darkness in the colouring that there is something lurking there.

I really like the uniform use of line in the work I think that this might influence my work into maybe becoming a bit neater and organise rather that such an explosion I want it to be more subtle.

http://www.reginagallery.com/artists/kulkov
vitamin P2

Cameron Robbins

08.05.2010; 5.50pm-2010- 55X75cm

Robbins is an inventor of drawing machines; he has a fascination of mark making which is obviously why I have looked at him. His work is a result of a constant experimentation of the testing of materials against nature, he uses wind, light and water to power his machines to create these drawings. He has been creating work and its starts raining which is when he gets these large drippy areas which I think really add an element of uncertainty to his paintings.

The shapes that are created are really pretty and they do reflect the process that he is working with, they are very natural forms. His work is more about the process that goes into it rather than the final outcome, which was the same as me in my early stages in the project if not now. The actual devices that he uses to create these works are really interesting, they are made up of everyday materials that he finds lying around.

If he is going to produce a series of drawings that are specifically about water he will uses things that relate to water when creating his drawing machine. There is a lot of thought that goes into the work and I think that is something that I need to do with mine. I need to this of a specific routine or way that I will produce my work in.

http://cameronrobbins.com/