Day Four: Malaga

Today we went Malaga. There were some great exhibitions on and it was a good day for photographs and drawing.

The Alcazabar was my favourite location of the day last time and it didn't disappoint on a second visit! It is a most beautiful place - I love all that moorish styling and with a new found mode of 'useful drawing' I had a great day!

Here are my 'surface patterns' from the day:

And a more painterly psychedelic study:

There was an exhibition by Subodh Gupta: The Imaginary Order of things at the Contemporary Art Gallery which was excellent. My favourite pieces from the show ticked the texture box that I have been collecting:

The window holes invited you into another world: 

There were other sculptures playing with mirrors/concealment:

The 'combine' sculptures were my most favourite:

Along with the simplistic vessel forms:

The composition

And the layering

I mean look at it - wow!

That's some more details to add to my list then...hanging, fixing, rope and thread

We discussed relief painting in ceramics during the tutorial and ideas behind installation. I think this is the area I want to explore with my work. Although I would like to try lots of other materials, I can save some of that for later. Having enjoyed working with ceramics over the past few years I would like to challenge my current uses of it and perhaps incorporate more drawing... a good day though, on lots of levels, it's off to the sugar factory tomorrow - yippee!

Working through the mountain..

..of postcards, leaflets, flyers, and business cards! I've junked a whole bin's worth already and am slowly working my way through the next! Having collected an awful lot this past year through visits to Collect, New Designers, NTU Degree Shows and the MA Expo, I've not spent anytime evaluating what I wanted to keep!? So here I am with a few days to go before starting back and considering my own work again! As I work through, here are my favourite finds:

Continuing my Journey by Lexi Mac

Isobel Thackray

Janet Wooton: eco resin, black bamboo and jute

Christina Barnard Illustration

Kyle Hands, Painting No.56

Canadian artist Martin Messier brings this unusual orchestra in which all the sounds are made by sewing machines made in the 1940s, amplified and processed by computers. A complex network of strange rhythmic patterns which create all sorts of mental associations among the audience, thanks to the evocative power of these small industrial marvels.

Print Research and Sketches

After my tutorial I started researching some print artists. I thought about our print and surface lectures, and specifically about Maija Louekari's Hetkai. The sketchy-line overlay used here would work well with the movement sketches I have done...more drawings perhaps to play with?

Hetkai

Kathy had suggested that I look at Hockney's tree paintings...they're enormous! I don't think I'll be working that big just yet!?

Bigger Trees Near Water, 2007

Suzanne Manns exhibition The Truth About Trees popped up in my search. I was interested by her abstraction and overlay style

Dead of Winter

Paula Zinsmeister had some interesting ways with collage and print

Tree Angels

An article on Mbuti women and barkcloth brought up this interesting print

Mbuti Bark Cloth

These bold composition paintings by Cara Enteles are just brilliant! Not 'prints' as such but the perspective and use of line and colour is great. Just what I need to be thinking about too...

Powerline Tree 4

Tree After Magenta

Bryan Nash Gill creates these prints from real tree bark

I also discovered this brilliant blog on printmaking too - a very inspiring read!

love the movement in this print by Margret Barnard

I then went out to draw some more trees, and noticed that I was paying more attention to perspective, abstraction and line/surface detail.