Evaluation

Context

I decided to carry on with the sky theme I have been working on since the beginning of the year. So at the start of our final major project I visited the Harris gallery in Preston. There I saw an image that had been placed over a light box. It looked amazing, so I wanted to do something similar for my final piece. It also seemed fitting with the sky theme, as there is loads of sources of light in the sky. My original idea was too print a photograph, I’ve taken, and print it onto acetate, and then stick it too a light box. So I researched some photographers such as Wolfgang Tilmans. I also looked at artists who use paint a bit differently than the traditional, because I wanted to create texture in some part of my final piece. 

Research

After doing more research, I started to lean away from putting a photo over the light box. I wanted to do something a bit more creative. I also had the idea to do some abstract canvas, that resemble skies, to accompany my light box. I looked at John Constable to begin with, but his work is too traditional. So, I looked at the likes of George Rowlett who uses paint very thickly, and it looks touchable. I want people to feel that way about my work. Richard then introduced me to the work of Helen Frankenhaler, who makes marks by poring paint, rather than using a paint brush. I also looked at Damien Hirst’s Spin Paintings, which I absolutely love. So I decided to buy some tins of paint and use them to pour onto canvas. 

Problem Solving

The canvas’ that I poured paint onto turned out really well, so I didn’t really need to develop that idea any further. I just bought a wider range of colours, and created more canvas’ in the same fashion. The big task was creating something to put over my light box. I did my initial experiments on paper. I used paint to begin with, and then combined it with PVA. I then tried ink and later combined that with PVA. You can see this development process in my sketchbook. I preferred the ink to the paint, so now it was a case of making the background transparent so the light would come through. I first tried applying ink on to Perspex but I didn’t like how that looked. I then had the idea of pouring PVA onto a plastic sheet and then applying the ink to that. It turned out really well once dried. Now I needed to see how I could develop the PVA and what effects I could create. I tried everything I could think of, ink, paint, dye, salt but I still preferred the ink. I then came across Brusho, and it looked great. So all that was left was perfecting the colour and the thickness. I knew I liked purple the best, and I had to keep the colours similar to what you might see in the sky. I did what seemed like thousands of experiments finding what colours went well together, what thickness worked best if there was anyway I could shape the PVA, rather than cutting it. Once I had sorted all this out, I had to transfer these small experiments onto a much larger scale, which was a bridge I hadn’t crossed until this point of my project. 
I stuck several sheets of acetate together with masking tape, to make a large surface to pour on the PVA. I measured the light box, and tried to estimate how much glue I had to pour. This guess work worried me, but there wasn’t much else I could do. The PVA can be unpredictable at times, so I just had to hope for the best. The PVA took about two weeks to dry. I came to peel it off the acetate, and the PVA started to snap. So, worried I would ruin it, I left it for another day. I decided to just cut around the acetate, but for some weird reason it started to peel off really easily. I placed it onto the light box, and figured it would be best to stick the PVA down with double sided sticky tape so it can be peeled off again at a later date. I then had to trim my PVA, scissors wouldn’t work, so Jamie and Bill offered to trim it with a Stanley knife for me. See blog for all these issues in depth. 

Planning

I wrote the majority of my plans on my work plan. I used it as a sort of calendar, it was actually really useful. My work was really independent, so I didn’t need to work around other people schedules.  The only thing I had to make a scheduled time for and plan was the pouring paint sessions. I needed a lot of space, and had to set the area out so nothing would get spilt onto floors and tables etc. I also needed Richards help with the pouring paint, both for artistic influence and to help me move everything to places it could dry. So I obviously had to arrange times me and Richard were both available. This was fairly easy as he is in college Tuesday to Thursday.

Practical Skills

I learned a lot of new skills on the project, mostly concerning materials and how it can behave. This was the most enjoyable bit of the course for me. I discovered how to make interesting effects using PVA mixed with various other materials. I also learnt about how bleach can look amazing when added to ink and created some really nice sky effects with this process. All of the skills, and experiments can be seen in my sketchbook. Some went wrong, as can be expected but I made some really successful discoveries, and got myself familiar with a lot of media. I’ve annotated my sketchbook through out so specific reflection can be found in there. Overall I think I’ve come a long way during this project, as my work has, and I’m really proud of what I have achieved.

Presentation

I thought building the exhibition would be really hard work, but with Jo and Jamie’s guidance it didn’t seem so bad. Everyone pulled together and contributed to building the exhibition, which made things happen a lot quicker. It really didn’t seem to take long. Ideally I wanted my work to be hung side by side, the canvas’ in a grid and the light box next to them. But in total I have 25 small canvas to be hung up, and I need a plug for my light box so I am willing to compromise. Jamie has suggested hanging the light box on the wall, and the canvas grid across from it. I think this will look quite good. My only concern is actually hanging the light box up, its really heavy, and I don’t know if the wall will take it but I have time to talk that over with Bill. 

Evaluation

The light box hung up without any problems. The grid and the light box ended up hanging across from each other, but it looked really nice. It sort of looked like a transition of how my work has developed, the canvas’ to the light box. It was really difficult arranging the canvas’, harder than actually painting them. It must of took me about two days to come up with an arrangement I liked. The critiques I received were really positive. Jamie and Jo mostly spoke about how I have progressed over the year. My work has come on really well, at the beginning of the year I would of never pictured myself doing fine art at university, but now I am really confident. 

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Proposal

Review

During my Foundation in Art and Design my approach to work has matured greatly. I’ve discovered new artists, such as Gehard Richter, who has become such a big influence on my work. I’ve also picked up many new skills including print making and keeping a blog. I’ve had the opportunity to visit many art galleries including the Saatchi Gallery. My FMP will allow me to continue building up a log of primary research, and allow me to further my experimentation into materials and processes. I aim to overcome past issue by asking my tutors for advice, and being patient with things. 


Ideas and Concepts

I’ve chosen to continue and to develop a theme based on skies for my FMP. I’ve learnt a lot about paint and textures whilst creating pieces inspired by skies. I obviously need to take my work to another level, so I want to work on a much larger scale, for example on an installation. I also want to work with lights. Light is directly linked to skies and should look effective as part of a piece. My ideas are quite vague at the moment, so I could take a variety of paths, resulting in different outcomes. But my sky and light theme will stay prominent throughout. 


Contextual Research

I’m going to look to, John Constable, David Hockney, George Rowlett, Gill Rocca and Wolfgang Tilmans to help me on this project. The internet is the most accessible source of research, but not the most reliable. The best kind of contextual research is visiting galleries. In preparation for this project I’ve took out a Hockney book and visited the Harris in Preston. The primary research I’ve been doing is mostly photographing the sky and photographing sky sections of paintings.


Techniques and Presentations

The main media  I’ll use is paint, both for colour qualities and creating texture with it. I’m alos going to experiment with copying photographs onto acetate, and other various clear materials, and applying them to light boxes. This is a totally new process to me, but it shouldn’t be too difficult. There’s a chance I’ll need to position my final piece near plugs, which could become a limitation, but there is ways around it, like battery powered lights. I do want my final piece to be fairly large, so I will need a reasonably amount of wall space. 


Evaluation and Progression

I need to work on my reflection skills.  So throughout this project I’m going to reflect on my work briefly in my sketchbook, and in depth on my blog. I will also keep the majority of my research on my blog, along with descriptions of the processes I’ve used. I will put stuff like this in my sketchbook but only the necessary bits, I don’t want my sketchbook looking like a scrapbook. By the end of this project I hope I can naturally reflect on my work, and keep a written record of the processes I have used. 

Arranging time

These are just the photos I took, so I could print them and arrange my grid with them.

THE CANVAS'

Before I said that the canvas' were easy to make. That's because the hard part is arranging them in the grid. I've took about 70 photos of them in different arrangements, and still can't decide how I like them I even had people helping me. So I've taken photos of them individually ready to print so to mess around with. 
These are some of the arrangements I came up with:

My original idea was to keep the pink ones together : the second vertical row.  but after playing around I realised the grid looked better with all the canvas' mixed up. 

This is one of my favourite arrangements the different styles seem to be spread out well.

I like this one, but there is too many stripy canvas' on the bottom row.

Now the bottom row is too busy.

Because I was struggling so much I put the canvas' into a sort of order so I could randomize that order.

Me and Joely turned it into a game and took turnd to swap canvas' over.

This is the order we ended with. I quite like it this way, but we'll see if it sticks that way.

Final lot of pouring paint

Same technique and colours only this time I bought some black and silver. I quite liked the use of the black, but it does divert a little from a sky theme. The silver worked really well, I wish I had of bought it earlier and added it to more of the canvas'. I know for next time.

I prefer the canvas' were the colours have blended rather than sat on top of each other. The colours in sky blend together and fade into each other, so the canvas' that resemble that are much more effective. 

The canvas' are really good considering how easy they are to create. Each set of canvas', which ranged from 5 to 7, only took about me an hour or so to do. Other than interpreting how quickly the paint will come out, and which colours would look good together the process is really simple. I just hope that isn't obvious to other people.

Every cloud has a silver line.