'Journey' Final Piece - Progress 2

I decided on a different direction for the piece.
I blocked out the initial layout, using reference for the horse.
I also reused Pigsy from the previous version, as it fit well.

I used the sketch to structure the piece better for the next step.

This time I used a more painterly style, working all over the area,
using highlights to make things pop out.

If you remove the linework you can see the image reads, which is my intention -
To make the image read without the need for lines.

This image is still in a relatively early stage,
but it is a good indication of the process.

'Journey' Final Piece - Progress 1

Initial sketch of Sun Wukong, the main character.

I use the sketch as a basis to flesh the anatomy out some more,
which I can then build directly upon.

Using the previous layer, I can draw out a design using clean linework.
This process is essentially the same as using a lightbox when working traditionally.

Initial sketch of Pigsy, one of the main characters.

Using the initial sketch I rough out the basic linework.
I then scaled it up to match the proportions of Sun Wukong.

Again, I used the previous layer to clean up the linework.

One method of colouring digital work is to use one layer for
shading and another for colour. Here I have begun to paint the shading layer.

I then put the base colours on top of the shading,
but it wasn't really working out.

I tried adding highlights to see if it would make things look better.

As I wasn't really feeling the initial method,
 I tried a brighter colour - a pale blue.
This is a method often used in animation.

It looks better, but is now too far in the other direction.
Some reconsideration is needed from here.

William Eggleston - Images from 'Chromes' (1970-1973)

"William Eggleston (born July 27, 1939), is an American photographer. He is widely credited with increasing recognition for color photography as a legitimate artistic medium to display in art galleries."

I liked these works for their depiction of typical 'Americana'. I'm really drawn to this sort of imagery as I find the country and culture fascinating. The works depict relatively everyday things, but the richness of the colour and contrast really makes everything seem a bit more vibrant and interesting. I particularly like the third image, with the deep red neon lighting, I really like how the lighting can change the dynamic of the image.

Dan Flavin - Untitled 1-5 (1987)

"Dan Flavin (April 1, 1933, Jamaica, New York – November 29, 1996, Riverhead, New York) was an American minimalist artist famous for creatingsculptural objects and installations from commercially available fluorescent light fixtures."

I was immediately drawn to the vibrance of this work when I saw it in Tate Modern. There was a Tate attendant giving a talk about the work and one thing he mentioned that I found particularly interesting was how he mentioned that one of the facets of the work was not the physical work itself, but how the lights affected shadows around the room - from objects and other people. It was a different way of looking at the work, taking into account the surroundings, not just the physical item.

Accumulate / Disperse

The title for the project was Accumulate and Disperse, I chose to interpret this from the angle of greed. I was thinking about how people accumulate wealth and indulge with expenditure. I immediately thought of how greed is seen as a sin, which moved my thought process to the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, particularly the first poem – Inferno, which takes Dante through the 9 circles of hell. The fourth circle is greed, headed by the Greek god of wealth – Plutus.

                For my Piece I chose to recreate a dollar bill, a symbol of money and wealth – with iconography of the sin. The face on the bill is Plutus himself, with golden eyes representing wealth being all that he sees, wearing a fur coat and surrounded by gold. I also included a twist on the common phrase ‘In God We Trust’ which is found on the American Dollar Bill, changing the word God to Greed – showing how the people who would be found on this particular circle of hell would have given up God in favour of money.            The note itself if bordered with a greek pattern, harkening back to Plutus’ origins as a Greek God.

                I am quite disappointed with the piece as a whole, I feel the concept had room for a strong piece but my execution was weak – hindered by poor time management and inexperience with the medium which I had chosen to try something new.

"Those whose attitude toward material goods deviated from the appropriate mean are punished in the fourth circle. They include the avaricious or miserly (including many "clergymen, and popes and cardinals"), who hoarded possessions, and the prodigal, who squandered them. The two groups are guarded by a figure Dante names as Pluto, either Pluto the classical ruler of the underworld or Plutus the Greek god of wealth (who uses the cryptic phrase Papé Satàn, papé Satàn aleppe), but Virgil protects Dante from him. The two groups joust, using as weapons great weights which they push with their chests:

… I saw multitudes
to every side of me; their howls were loud
while, wheeling weights, they used their chests to push.
They struck against each other; at that point,
each turned around and, wheeling back those weights,
cried out: Why do you hoard? Why do you squander?

The contrast between these two groups leads Virgil to discourse on the nature of Fortune, who raises nations to greatness, and later plunges them into poverty, as she shifts "those empty goods from nation unto nation, clan to clan." This speech fills what would otherwise be a gap in the poem, since both groups are so absorbed in their activity that Virgil tells Dante that it would be pointless to try to speak to them – indeed, they have lost their individuality, and been rendered "unrecognizable" (Canto VII)."

                                                                    - The Fourth Circle of Hell (via Wikipedia )

Test prints.

Lino, cut to print.

Closeup of paisley print.

Base printing complete.

The finished piece, I am not at all pleased with it.

Spray painting some text using a stencil.

The All-seeing eye.

Plutus - Greek God of Greed.

Walter Sickert - La Hollandaise

La Hollandaise - Walter Sickert (c. 1906)

Photo I took of the piece in London

"Walter Richard Sickert (31 May 1860 – 22 January 1942), born in Munich, Germany, was a painter and printmaker who was a member of the Camden Town Group in London. He was an important influence on distinctively British styles of avant-garde art in the 20th century.

Sickert was a cosmopolitan and eccentric who often favoured ordinary people and urban scenes as his subjects. His oeuvre also included portraits of well-known personalities and images derived from press photographs. He is considered a prominent figure in the transition from Impressionism to Modernism."

"If there is one physical object which characterises Walter Sickert’s art, it is the iron bedstead which formed the centrepiece of numerous figure studies painted in London during the period 1905–9. This lowly piece of domestic furniture became the artist’s trademark, synonymous with both the subject matter and ethos of his paintings. His friend and model Cicely Hey, for example, described herself as the ‘last occupant’ of the iron bedstead, while the artist Diana White ironically asked Sickert if her niece, Regina Middleton, was required to buy one in order to become his pupil.

The bed served a dual purpose as prop. Sickert organised his studio models in a series of poses based around the bed which allowed him to explore different figurative arrangements within an intimate environment. The physical appearance of the iron bedstead, however, was also important. It became symbolic of the social subjects Sickert sought to portray in his work, being functional and hard-wearing but also cheap and unrefined. It served as a metaphor for the urban working classes and the dingy London interiors – so beloved by the artist – which they inhabited"    - From the Tate

Atkinson Grimshaw - Liverpool Quay by Moonlight

Oil on Canvas - 1887

"John Atkinson Grimshaw (6 September 1836 – 13 October 1893) was a Victorian-era artist, a "remarkable and imaginative painter" known for his city night-scenes and landscapes.

His early paintings were signed "JAG," "J. A. Grimshaw," or "John Atkinson Grimshaw," though he finally settled on "Atkinson Grimshaw."" - Wiki

What I like about the piece is how completely drab and monotone it seems, but the lights in the buildings to the right just pierce through the grey. It completely changes the feel of the piece, heightening the impression of the cold, miserable outside juxtaposed with the warmth of the inside of the buildings.

Sally Mann

"Sally Mann is an American photographer, best known for her large black-and-white photographs—at first of her young children, then later of landscapes suggesting decay and death.

Mann is perhaps best known for Immediate Family, her third collection, published in 1992. The NY Times said, “Probably no photographer in history has enjoyed such a burst of success in the art world.” The book consists of 65 black-and-white photographs of her three children, all under the age of 10. Many of the pictures were taken at the family's remote summer cabin along the river, where the children played and swam in the nude. Many explore typical childhood themes (skinny dipping, reading the funnies, dressing up, vamping, napping, playing board games) but others touch on darker themes such as insecurity, loneliness, injury, sexuality and death. The controversy on its release was intense, including accusations of child pornography (both in America and abroad) and of contrived fiction with constructed tableaux."

Francis Bacon Presentation

Notes for my presentation on Francis Bacon (I ad-libbed a lot of the presentation so the notes were mostly used as jumping off points):

·         Bacon was born in October 1909 in Ireland to English parents. He lived much of his life in England but also lived and worked in Paris and Berlin early in his career. He started out as an interior designer and never went to art school as he felt it taught bad habits. The works of Picasso were what inspired him to become a painter.

Triptych – August 1972

·         ‘This work is generally considered one in a series of Black Triptychs which followed the suicide of Bacon’s lover, George Dyer. Dyer appears on the left and Bacon is on the right. The central group is derived from a photograph of wrestlers by Edward Muybridge, but also suggests a more sexual encounter. The seated figures and their coupling are set against black voids and the central flurry has been seen as ‘a life-and-death struggle’. The artist’s biographer wrote: ‘What death has not already consumed seeps incontinently out of the figures as their shadows.’

                                                                                                                                                 –Tate excerpt

·         The Triptych is from a series informally called ‘The Black Triptych’s’ – all based around the life and death of George Dyer

·         Bacon met Dyer in late 1963 when he caught him attempting to burgle his home. The story goes that Dyer fell in through the sky light of Bacon’s studio.

·         The relationship between the pair was often rocky.  Dyer – a Boxer and sometimes criminal from the East End often clashed with Bacons friends

·         Dyer died 2 days before the opening of Bacons exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris, a huge event where even the president of Paris attended. October 1971. They were both alcoholics and heavy amounts of alcohol and an overdose on barbiturate pills were what killed Dyer.

·         Bacon had many relationships after Dyer, but the death of George haunted his work throughout much of his later career

·         Bacon often used a lot of reference images for his work and then manipulated and deformed them

·         Wrestlers derived from an Edweard Muybridge photo

·         Figures of Bacon and Dyer derived from photos by John Deakin, a close friend of Bacon’s

·         I like how visceral the paintings are. Bacond often described painting as ‘attacking the canvas’ and the sense of motion shows this

·         Last month one of Bacon’s triptychs sold at auction for $142.4 million

Slides: