22nd September - Glossary work and mono printing

Today in lesson we continued to do pages for our glossaries which meant stretching more paper. I picked the words pattern and proportion because I thought they'd be interesting to expand on. 

Firstly I started doing pattern by making a small stencil of a hand to draw around repetitively to show a pattern! This was very difficult because the stencil was so small but I think the end result was nice however it could have been neater and the shapes could have been more exact. I then painted the background yellow and used purple for the hands because they're contrasting colours, this worked really well and was very effective.

Then I did proportion by doing one massive continuous line drawing of loads of different shaped hands I really enjoyed doing this because it's very free flowing and my style of art work. 

Finally towards the end of the day we did some mono printing which meant rolling the ink and copying an image into it using either a picture we printed out or free hand. I tried both but I thought the picture was the easiest because it resulted in a more accurate finish. It was a careful process because I couldn't lean on the picture when tracing it otherwise my prints would be on the paper. 

Ceramics workshop - Week 1

Thursday 17th September 

Today was my first day in the workshops and I was doing ceramics. We started the day off by doing a quick sketch of the sculpture we all wanted to build. The sculpture had to be hands related because of the 'Hands on' project. The sketch I did was all based on flowers because I wanted to add some colour to my design which straight away made me think of some sort of floral pattern. I decided on a simple shape to my sculpture only incorporating 3 hands because I didn't want to over complicate things. 

We then had to mix the clay using the kneading method we had to try and get every air bubble out other wise it wouldn't work. This took a while and was very repetitive but was worth it when my final block of clay was perfectly smooth. After mixing the clay we decided to shape it as how we wanted it on our design using our hands as a stencil and cutting out the clay using a sharp tool. I had to cut out 5 hands 3 for my design and 2 for the group work we did at the end of the lesson. My design meant that I needed to layer each hand on top of one another in the position I needed using wetter clay to stick them in place. I then carved my flower design on to the hands using another sharp tool, this was a lot easier than I thought it would be and I got the outcome I wanted! 

I added colour the my clay using clay paint which also went well, however the clay paint was very watered down and not as bright as I had wished. The pattern I put on my hands meant painting on them was very tedious due to the thin lines used as flower stems for example. Overall I think my sculpture went fairly well and I was pleased with the work I did. 

The role of an art critic (September)

Wednesday 16th September - The role of an art critic 

When i hear the word 'art critic' straight away I think of someone being negative towards someone elses art work. However i have learnt that being a 'critic' or 'critical' is  not always a negative thing. 

An art critic is in fact someone who is specialised in evaluating and interpreting art work. Art critics can come from any different backgrounds and are expected to have a good eye for art and know art history. Art critics can typically view art work at exhibitions, galleries, studios and museums and rarely earn money by being negative towards peoples work. Their opinions and reviews are often published in things such as books, newspapers , magazines and brochures. Modern art critics tend to use things such as blogs and social media to share their views and create a wider circle of people debating art. 

Some well known art critics are; John Updike, Frank O'hara and Charles Baudelaire. 

       I think this piece of art by Emil Nolde is very interesting, I think that it is beautiful, bright and colourful and really creative. I think that Noldes work is my favourite because I can use a lot of texture when trying to recreate it also the art work really inspires me and is joyful to look at. 

Studio work - Glossary and wire hands

Tuesday 15th September - Studio work Glossary and wire hands.

Today in the studio we started off by making two pages for our glossaries,I chose the words line and texture. I really enjoyed this activity because I had the opportunity to do whatever I wanted relating to these two words, however I was limited to 2 A4 sheets. I knew from the start I was going to do texture because that is an area in fine art in which I enjoy. I started by cutting up bits of old news papers and picking skin toned colours out of them, I also found a few pictures of hands which I decided would look cool mixed in with the collage I was going to make. I ended up drawing a close up sketch of 4 fingers and collaged some of them, the other fingers I used paint to create thick layers and carved the finger print of the hand using the back of a paint brush. Overall I think it gave a really effective end result and I was very happy with the outcome. The glossary page I did for line wasn't so good because I found it difficult being able to produce what I had in my head onto the paper. I started by doing a continuous line drawing which looked okay but then I added colour and the 'line' element of it faded slightly I didn't like this piece of work.

Our final activity for the day was to create a sculpture of a hand using only wire. I thought this challenge was really fun but definitely tested my patients. It was very difficult to get the structure I wanted using only pieces of wire and I found the wire a struggle to bend in the ways I wanted it to. However I think my end result was interesting and noticeable as a hand. I think my sculpture looked rather abstract and I think it could have been a lot neater however I think it went well in the time I had to do it in.

The start of my art and design blog

I'm Maisy, and this is my art and design blog 🌻