Too Hot to Handle

I began my research work into fire with an experimental mixed media piece of art that included the materials of wax, wood, wallpaper, card and paint. Firstly, using one of my images from the original visual research to inspire me I drew a bonfire onto wallpaper which I'd stuck onto cardboard for support. Next I drew out the log areas and used a variety of wooden materials, such as matches and bamboo skewers I glued them down and built them up on the page to create a raised log effect. One of the more unusual things I've done in this project is using wax to create low relief surface texture on my painting. I melted candles on the saucepan and then poured and molded the wax into the desired flame shapes. Once this had dried I painted a fire over it using oil paints.

End Result

Whilst I'm really pleased with the outcome of this piece of work, it's really fragile and difficult to find somewhere to keep it as I'm scared it will break if I put it in my portfolio!!

Car Drawing and Spray Paintings

I furthered my research into air by going on to draw a car as it was one of my original research images and I felt the fumes and emissions it creates relate it to air. I drew the car on textured wallpaper, using charcoal, to give it a more rugged feel. In the area of the car I overlaid tracing paper with a fineliner drawing to give the shapes and tones more definition.

Using this drawing as a guide I went on to create a stencil to use to further my experimentation with spray painting. This was much more difficult and time consuming than I anticipated, due to all the different shapes and tonal variation. I just picked out the areas of darkness and planned to use black spray paint and then in the development section make a stencil to show the areas of light which I would spray with white spray paint.

Stencil laid out (don't know how to rotate)

Car spray paint

First Ventures into Spray Painting

Following on from my previous post, I wanted to continue to incorporate the bird silhouette into my work, but wanted to explore it in an innovative and exploratory media, so seeing as I had never used spray paints they seemed apt. Furthermore, the fact that they are aerosols and therefore work my using air to release the paint, relates them to the element of air and my theme of the elements.

Using the bubblewrap from the previous activity, I printed the last bit of paint onto a blank page in my sketchbook in order to use the same shaped silhouette from printing as in my spray painting. To test the stencils I firstly used diluted paint and an old paint brush to flick it onto the page - I think this gives a similar effect to either blow paints (which I had originally planned to use) or messy spray painting.

Before removing the stencil

Result

The Stencil

Using some spray paint I had at home already I did a spray painting using the stencil next. The paint had nearly finished, but I think this gives the end result an interesting air like quality, in the way that the colour is slightly faded. 

Before removing the stencil

Result

The stencil

I really like how the stencil looks here before it is removed and after I have spray painted it as I think the black splatters on it from the previous piece of work give it more definition and make it art in its own right. My favourite of these 3 is how the stencil looks afterwards once it had been laid out on a white background as the red paint is very fine and air-like and the black splatters outline the birds well.

The last activity I did using this silhouette was a large A2 spray painting where I used new spray paints in colours of red, black and white and covered the page in birds. It turned out a bit messier than I would have liked, possibly because it was the first time I had spray painted properly and also possibly something to do with the fact that it was windy when I was doing it. I did each bird in red and black and then gave them all a shadow using the white and black spray paint.  I also used the stencil to create some prints, and again as art in its own right.

Bird Spray Painting

Bird Stencil (don't know how to rotate)

Stencil Used to Print

Bubblewrap Bird Printing

I was inspired by the use of bubblewrap and the bird silhouettes so I continued to investigate these ideas further. Firstly I used my painting to do printing with, by painting block printing ink over the silhouettes of the birds and printing with it; at this stage it was difficult to see which areas I had put ink and difficult printing with bubblewrap as it was a new technique. My favourite outcome of this was the one that I printed onto paper I had previously prepared with a wash of blue and white acrylic paint to give a sky effect - the image of this is below.

Bird Prints

Next I took a new piece of bubblewrap onto which I outlined two larger bird silhouettes again using sharpie marker pen and I used these to print with using block printing ink in the colours of black, white and purple. I experimented with mixing two colours onto the bubble wrap and with doing 2 prints on a page to produce a shadow effect - the image of this is below.

Bird Prints with Shadows

Bubblewrap Birds

For this project I am trying to be more organised than I have been throughout the rest of my art course so I made a timetable illustrating what I plan to do each week. For the first 4 weeks I'm spending a week doing research on each of the elements; the first one being air. In my timetable I also roughly planned what I would be doing each week to keep the work flowing and have a logical record of my thoughts and processes.

Seeing as the first element was air, I wanted to try and choose media and materials that relate to that element as well as using images from my original research to inspire my work. I chose to continue using the bird silhouettes that I drew in my original collage only this time to paint them onto bubble wrap because of its connection to air (the bubbles all contain air). I drew and shaded in the silhouettes using black sharpie marker pen as this was one of the few media that worked well on the plastic and then painted the sky background using acrylic paints, but to add more atmosphere to the painting I also added in colours of yellow, pink and green.

Bubblewrap Birds

 I chose to display this piece of work in a frame that I had at home already as I thought it would be a good way to finish it off and I think that the gold of the frame is a complimentary colour. I like to think this piece of art could be used as interactive art as the bubbles in the bubble wrap can be popped by viewers thus releasing the air from them. Furthermore, I think it would be fascinating for it to be done on a massive scale, such as in a gallery or warehouse to that visitors would have the opportunity to pop the bubbles.

The research continues

Next for each element, using the leftover images I had printed off, I did a page of thumbnail sketches using mainly pencil and a few in fineliner pen too. On the page opposite the sketches I did a more detailed piece of artwork that i felt had a connection to or represented the element.

For air I prepared the page using an acrylic wash of black paint, before drawing on the silhouette of 2 birds on an electricity pole using a black sharpie marker and a black sketch stick.

Bird Silhouettes

For fire I did a more experimental painting than those I have done in the past. Firstly I drew on the outline of a flame, using one of my research images as inspiration and then painted the negative space black using oil paints - I chose oil paints as they have more of a matte finish than acrylics. I then diluted acrylic paint in firey colours and then did a drip painting by splashing on the paint and allowing it to drip down the page. This made a massive mess!! Especially when I spilled a pot of black paint everywhere and left black splatters and splashes all over the kitchen floor, but I am really happy with the outcome. (And the colours look much nicer and more vibrant in reality.)

Fire Drip Painting

I haven't yet done a picture for earth, so lastly is my drawing to represent water, where again I wanted to do something a little bit more experimental and unusual from art I have done in previous parts of this project. I liked my inclusion of silhouettes in my drawing of the birds, so using that idea again, drew a silhouette of a person under an umbrella and coloured it using black sketch sticks - which are way messier and dustier than I anticipated, so not sure I'll be using them again. I drew the raindrops in a geometric style and outlined them in fineliner. Having a black silhouette and black outlined raindrops left the page looking too plain, so using orange ink that I had anyway, I added in a wash of colour to the raindrops. This gives them a firey feel and therefore connects them with the other element of fire.

First Research work and ideas

I have a slight back log of work to post about as I've been doing this course for a couple of weeks and haven't posted any work yet, so will be posting about a few things retrospectively.

For my first section I did general research work of all 4 elements, which consisted of brainstorms on paper painted in colours that I thought represented the elements; so browns and greens for earth, blues and greys for air, reds and oranges for fire and blues and greens for water. I also researched images that I thought represented each element and printed them off to make a collage and included a couple my own sketches too, amongst the printed off images. Below are images of these pieces of work.

AIR brainstorm

AIR collage

EARTH brainstorm

WATER brainstorm

WATER collage

EARTH collage

FIRE brainstorm

FIRE collage

So why make a blog?

So I've made and re-made countless blogs over the past few years, some of which I've kept to myself and some of which I've shared around. I plan to use this one to document my progress through my final stage of my art and design foundation diploma; I'll be including images of my work and of my inspiration and writing about my thoughts and processes along the way.

I've written my own brief for this project, which is:

"I plan to explore the contrast and mythical meanings between the elements of Air, Fire, Water and Earth, using a variety of media and find ways in which they can be incorporated into other situations, such as portraiture, figure, etc, in order to create a mural based on these discoveries. I will also explore the connections between them and ways in which they can be linked and combined."

I'll hopefully be posting fairly frequently as I want to use this blog as part of my project, so stop by and browse a while....