Day Six: Pattern Repeat & Colourful Cutar

It's the penultimate day :( Having spent the week visiting lots of locations 'off site' we spent the day in the village. This was great actually as it was the perfect time to have a day of reflection. Not only on the trip to Spain, but a reflection on the whole summer and time to consider what might be taken on into the new term and year ahead.

Having spent time in Cutar on two occassions now I had a real urge to draw the whole landscape of the village. On the first night we took a paseo and I was totally struck by the view from the top by the bus stop.

This was to be my chosen location for the day. 

So, after an early rise to catch the sun:

it was a day spent connecting with the village through line....

To start off however, we all had a repeat pattern workshop on the terrace

Collecting florals from the surroundings 

Then cutting them up to help start the repeat:

Positioning the flats on reverse of one another 

then filling in the gaps with more drawing:

Slicing the image again to create the full repeat

Then drop this into photoshop and tile up - It's quite tropical!

I then took myself to the top of the village

And began with some continuous line drawings:

It is interesting how the second drawing has become much tighter than the first 

- I must have been observing better!

I then went on to draw the same landscape again, but this time used colour! 

I'm quite pleased with the outcome here. It just goes to show that perseverence and practice is key to a better drawing!

Tutorial that evening brought a really nice close to the week's work. Both comparing our drawings from day 1 to those of day 6 we could all map our journey and progression of thought through the week. The key take away was that drawing (in terms of design) is a process not a product...so drawing from drawings is a must for developing ideas! I think that's been rattling around up there but having some time and ability to gain perspective on things this has really stuck. I'm going to take this into my work this coming year and really work from my work. It's all there, you just have to tweak it out, through looking, analyzing and recreating to transform again...I'm really excited!!!!

Along Came Piper

I have been on the hunt for a kitten and yesterday I met one which I just had to take home! So here she is the beautiful blue eyed Piper!

I'm naming her so, as I wanted something that matched her colourings and had some kind of artistic connection. It also needed to fit with Pixie, of course, and at first all I could think of was Grayson Perry! I thought that was a bit long though and she is a girl (though maybe that didn't matter?!) Then there was Rothko, but again a bit male sounding. So on my way back from uni today the perfect name appeared. After John Piper, the painter, who I was introduced to in our Printmaking last year. He works with a lot of grey (a very British colour!!!) but is sensitive with his blues and accent colours too. I love his mark making, and that's really where I'm at with my work right now so what better name for her to have than that! She has delightful blue eyes and exquisit mackerel-like markings. I think I'm going to have a lot of fun drawing her :) so watch this space!

John Piper, Newhaven, 1937

Construction, Cranes and Collage

Whilst researching for my essay today, I stumbled across the Twentieth Century Society Magazine. It's an interesting read, with further details to be found at The Institue for Historic Building Conservation. As well as featuring an interview with Richard Pare about his photos of Soviet Modernism (last seen as part of the Royal Acadamey exhibition...also interviewed here, here and reviewed here), there was also an article on Joyce Pallot. She makes gorgeous screenprints of industrial-style scenes and I found a good portfolio of her work at Emma Mason Check these out!

Building Construction

Untitled (Cranes Orange)

Untitled (Cranes Pink)

Landing Stage

Lonely Dockside

Untitled (Cranes)

There are also some nice watercolours to be found at fine art dealers campbell wilson

Architectural Study

Scaffolding

Great aren't they! It's got me thinking...situation drawing of construction/deconstruction at a building site - there's one right by uni at the moment...sketchbook at the ready!

I also found these lovely geometric inspired collages by Andrew Zarou rather in keeping with today's discoveries!

All up for assesment!

Today is the end of term 1!  Phew! that all went a bit quick!? I presented my work to Kathy and Daniel yesterday, which went 'alright', though I did feel a bit gabbly!!

here's my space set up for assesment

mouldmaking examples, sketchbooks, technical file + artist research

my monoprint series of bikes - which turned out quite well in the end!

and I finally made good out of all those bits of broken resin!

Now it's off for 4 weeks and back in Janurary - lets hope for some snow!!!

Printmaking Sketchbook

Final day of printmaking... here's my sketchbook process!

introduction to collagraph

experiments in collagraph

chin colle and different papers

monoprinting (with j-cloth ink pad...NOT VERY GOOD!)

experiments with acetate

transfer experiments

working with colour

using my drawings

layering, layering

Lino printing

2 - plate lino

experiments with colour and paper

two new plates

experimenting some more

new set of collagraph plates...

just not working how I wanted them too :(

creating 'wallpaper' with the lino

successfully experimenting with monoprinting

developing some new drawings

some monoprint rejects

and other experiments that didn't make the series

working on a secondary large scale print

and the collection of collagraph prints...

...which due to excess ink...

....or too damp a paper...

...just didn't 'hack it' as a series

I do quite like the way the orange one (on the right) 'shakes' however!?