Art and more Art……………
So I went into the studios today to hand in a staple gun, had a convo with Ryan who then pointed me to the direction of an artist call to decorate a coffin with the theme of angels. Which makes sense, as one of the reasons I’m painting circles is the fact that I read the passage in Ezekiel (10), which includes a detailed description of winged creatures accompanied by spinning wheels with many eyes. Yeah I’m that artist now, casually painting coffins…. 😀
Peaceful.
So to kick start our 2 Semester Sam and Tom decided to make a sculptural installation made up of easels, frames and paint. I must say I did like the outcome and the view from widows contributed to the piece in a weird and wonderful way. I love the linear patterns created by the easels in contrast with the zigzag formations created by the frames. These two will do great things together, I just can’t wait to see what they get up to next 😛 Sam’s on WordPress: samcleasby.wordpress.com and Tom has a Facebook page: www.facebook.com/tpjamesbrown check it out! 😀
So I’M BACK AT BROOKES!!!! So happy to be near art again O_O” Now we all know as an artist it’s great to get your name out there, so Magdalen Road Studios kick started a new project called Filament 14, a residency whereby new artists get a taste of the real “art world” creating works of art and exhibiting it in the same space. So Jean Wykes was the first Brookes student to start the residency and to support Jean I thought I’d show a small snippet of the work she had up in the studio. The rest of her exhibition included a performance and a video piece on the history of Cowley Road, a well-known road here in Oxford, great restaurants, bars and cafes with influences from everywhere around the world, it’s like the centre of student life here! So Jean had an installation of triangles set in a uniform pattern that gradually broke down into individual pieces, representing the diverse cultural identities found in Cowley 😀 I’ll be part of a collective making work in the same space 😀 Can’t Wait!
Aww Foundation was a great experience, I didn’t realise how good I had it until the end (funny that ey). So we were all different in our art styles and the one thing that unified our artwork was just that, OUR ART WORK. It was unique in it’s own right but it was all one thing ART! Recently, I have been trying to understand why that was, and it’s because we had a tutor who believed this with all his heart. If there’s one thing we knew in the foundation year is that Ian truly cared about each individual, problem is (like kids) we all wanted he’s attention and he was only one guy :P, but the genius of Ian is that he obviously knew this and surrounded himself with artists that got the ‘Art is Art’ message and allowed them to influence us.
I will be talking more about the others in other blog posts, but this one is just for Ian. So looking back at my photos I found a picture that flooded back all these memories; now Ian can get easily distracted whenever you spoke to him so all you had to do was say IAN! and he would give you this look that assured you that you had his attention, but we all giggled because it was the same look each TIME! My one regret is that I never got to see the rest of Ian’s artwork, he told me that he had a photo realist side, but I never asked to see that work, however he has a great and unique style now involving intricately painted sculptors, you can check them out on http://ianbottle.com
So I couldn’t sleep -_- I looked at Lteisha’s design and wondered what else I could do with it. Then I remembered, back in the day I would scribble over images with biro, and it was always hair; I don’t know why. So I did the same with the design and even I’m happy with the result 😀
Taking a trip back to memory lane, I guess it was obvious that I’d be interested in all forms of art. The gallery consists of art from my foundation year that I found simply AMAZING!! I wish I could have taken more but time was not on my side that day.
This was truly a labor of love it took a while as I had to have it finished among other projects. It’s a bust from the Ashmolean. Like the description below I painted this on stretched paper which I primed with a home-made gesso. After drawing the image I then blocked in the important shadow information and filled in the rest of the detail.
Acrylic on A 2 paper .
So with a lot of encouragement I’ve decided to be true to myself and start from scratch. Well not exactly, I’ve always been a secret watercolour lover 😀 I also love working with different media so with some inspiration from my favorite singer/songwriter Ester Dean and artist Kate Knight, I decided to finally finish a design for a good friend Lteisha. She’s a makeup artist; and of course we artists have to help each other out so I broke my I WILL STICK TO READY MADES! mantra and allowed the geist to take control. Something in me is just yearning for the 90s So it was obvious that I’d have that vibe, partnered with Ester Dean’s flow the outcome was destined to be retro 90s. So as I’m sure you are all aware I’m obsessed with a particular colour pallet.
So I thought I’ll wing it and see what I can create. OH WORD OF ADVICE do not be fooled by your eyes when buying artist quality paints you mistake to be the primary colours red, blue & yellow. I’m sure you’ve done what I did in the past and mixed all types of combinations and still didn’t get the colours you desired, well HAVE NO FEAR! I’ll let you in on a secret most artists keep to themselves (probably thinking it’s something new 😛 ) The holy painting trinity is: Process Cyan, Process Magenta, and Processed Yellow 😀 with these three colours you can make all types (Hues) of colour, which is why your standard printer uses cyan magenta and yellow then standard primary red, blue & yellow. You can then mess around with your desired gradient tone by adding black or white to your colour mixture. So yeah started painting again in water colours, this is one outcome, I hope to perfect this technique and produce more mixed media mash ups. Visit Lteisha’s Hair and Beauty Page She’s one to look out for! https://www.facebook.com/lteishamccoy?fref=ts
As an artist you are always looking around for the next best thing and you just know when you have found it. Emmanuel Awuni (a good friend) is an up and coming artist, what he doesn’t realise is the principle of the creative act ( I LOVE MARCEL DUCHAMP O_O ). Now he thinks he’s not good enough simply because of the difference in our styles of painting. But he doesn’t realise that his art SPEAKS FOR ITSELF! So I’m going to show you one of his pieces and I know you will all see what I see!
I’m not too sure of the dimensions of this painting. Knowing Mani this is probably acrylic.
It was a nice and clear today, so I had to go out. A good friend of mine, Josh, suggested Folkestone so I thought why not. We went as far as the Harbour and made our way to the art studios. We met Kate Knight an artist and I must say the future of the visual arts looks GREAT! Check out her website: www.kateknight.org. and I need to be more prepared! For some reason I left my camera at home but thank God I had my phone camera handy. It’s amazing what phone cameras can achieve!
As a child I have always had a fascination with all things Egypt. I love the history and Egypt’s rich culture, not to mention the role Egypt played in God’s plan for the Jewish nation. The great exodus in which the Israelite people were lead by Moses and delivered from the hand of the Pharaoh. Off topic; one great historical find I always remember is that of the Boy King Tut. Not so much about his history (though I do like to read about it once in a while) but more for the treasure. There’s something about being a child and treasure, the moment I looked at the death mask, I didn’t have thoughts of dead mummies JUST GOLD!!! O_O and what I think could be Lapis Lazuli? BUT WOW! Up to now I still want one of these and I will have one >:) The drawing is of a death mask I found whilst surfing the web, I’m not too sure if it’s a picture of the real thing but who cares IT LOOKS AWESOME!!!!
A4 Graphite on Paper
tinkhanib.com 