#lsadpainting

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PAINTING WITH FOUND MATERIALS: PART 4

Forgot to post a conclusion to the painting with food experiment so here it is. After almost incinerating the piece in the oven, I was able pull it back to life a bit, before completely destroying it again, and then kind of bringing it back, but not really.. 

Here’s how it went...

While cooking it too long in the oven brought out some very interesting textures on the page, the detail and depth of the image in regard to its lines and colours was greatly diminished. I applied a tumeric/toothpaste mixture to try and remedy the situation by lightening the face, however it dried and cracked leaving more of a mess than I started with. 

I was pretty much ready to throw it away until I realised that the toothpaste doesn’t need to be laid on so thick. The bright white effect actually becomes more prominent when the toothpaste dries, regardless to how thick it is on the page. I therefore started applying the toothpaste in little dabs using a chopstick and I managed to bring out the highlights in the face a again, giving the image more depth. 

It was starting to look interesting to me again, especially when I applied wet turmeric to the top of the figures head with thick streaks of toothpaste accompanying it. Once mixed and dried, this created a fantastic, wildfire type effect which gave the image more meaning, as the subject of the painting was after all expressing anger over losing a point in the tennis match he was playing.

It would have been a great idea to stop here for the night after arguably making the image even better after almost destroying it. However I had to push things and tried melting some hair into the piece for reasons that still escape me...

One thing lead to another and I ended up nearly toasting the whole image again. All the lovely, fiery bursts of colour had once again been reduced to tar. It now has an even grungier, darker tone to it which, while I don’t completely dislike it, doesn’t excite me like it had before. I drew out some of the highlights in the face and head again, but I wasn’t really willing or able for round 3. 

I suppose the intention to experiment with new materials was the ultimate goal so in that sense it was a success, however it was also a painful lesson in knowing when to hold back and stop while creating art. 

[irish-artist-ie]

#Repost @matthayeslsad

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Being born is going blind and bowing down a thousand times, the echoes strung on pure temptation. Sorrow in solitude, these are the precious things.

#art #painting #psychedelicart #townesvanzandt #lsadpainting #lsad #kfest #irishpainter #irishartist

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A post shared by Irish Artist (@irish_artist_ie) on Oct 22, 2020 at 7:53am PDT

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PAINTING WITH FOUND MATERIALS: PART 3

I want to do a series of food paintings with the six images of tennis player faces from my previous post so I decided to start with the first one. The expression in this image is of a player losing a point and expressing frustration.

I started by making a layer of the shape of the face in turmeric, which gave a nice, bright yellow tone. I followed this up by adding soy sauce to map out where the facial features would go with darker tones and then used beetroot to bring out the red in the mouth/nose. 

It was coming together pretty well but I was missing white which I love using to bring out highlights to make things pop. White proved difficult to find around the house until I saw another students post in which they used toothpaste so I decided to give that ago. 

This is where things started to get weird…

Toothpaste is is pretty difficult to control on a page. Mixing it too much will give it a soapy/bubbly texture which doesn’t lend itself very well to painting. I initially wasn’t too impressed with how it was settling on the page so I decided to throw the image back into the oven and see what happens. 

Unfortunately the lack of patience I suffer from which led me to putting the painting into the oven in the first place came back to bite me in the ass when I walked away for too long while the oven was on and I burnt the bejeezus out of it. 

This was tragic in one sense because I lost all of the nice bright colours in the portrait, however I kind of liked the result after sitting with it for a while. The way certain ingredients on the page burnt was quite fascinating, particularly the soy sauce and toothpaste. 

The soy sauce turned into a sticky, tar- like colour and presented an array of new textures that weren’t as apparent before baking the piece. The toothpaste also reacted in a very interesting way, as the brightness of the white was accentuated by the heat upon drying, much like the way it scabs up on your bathroom sink if not rinsed properly. 

I decided to keep going with it and came up with even more interesting results as well as a powerful lesson that I’ll share in my next post. 

Spoiler alert: I ruin the painting…

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When asked for our Painting elective to choose artists whose work we may look at in regard to our ‘Movements’ brief, I decided to go with three very different artists as a way to keep things open-minded for the first week back. 

PHIL HALE

Phile Hale is an American figurative painter who lives and works from the U.K.

 Before working as a fine artist, Hale worked as an illustrator. In fact I believe the first time I noticed his work was a cover he did for a comic book when I was younger. Comic book art at the time wasn’t that concerned with realism so seeing art at this level really left a lasting impression on me. 

Hales work depicts figures often performing physical acts of confrontation in somewhat surreal environments. It’s hard to know if you are looking at a moment unfolding in front of you or a glitch in time, whereby different moments are occurring simultaneously in contradiction to each other. The mystery of Hale’s subject matter is pushed further by the use of tenebrism in his paintings, a technique whereby light and dark are highly contrasted to enhance drama and action. 

WK INTERACT

“WK (aka WK Interact) was born in 1969 in Caen, France. He has lived and worked in New York since the early 1990s. WK is interested with the human body in motion, his paintings of figures frozen in a flight of movement reflects this infatuation. The artist’s unique process involves a technique of twisting an original drawing or photograph while it’s being photocopied, resulting in the monochromatic palette and streamlined moment-in-time appearance of his finished work. WK site-determines his placements by finding an appropriate location first, then his imagery is chosen specifically with a concern for encounters in an urban environment or “interactions” (as the artist indicates in his pseudonym). In the late 1990s his images began appearing on building facades in downtown Manhattan, complimenting the constant stir of bodies and the perpetual motion of contemporary urban life in the fast-paced city.”

IAN WOODS

I don’t actually know a whole lot about Ian Woods except that he has a decent enough instagram following and he has influenced my recent infatuation with collage. 

He often makes portraits of an artist or public figure (he tends to lean towards hip-hop culture) by cutting interesting shapes out of magazine editorials of the subject and merging them together. The effect often translates into the subject appearing to be animated on the page, whether through body language or facial expressions. 

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PAINTING WITH FOUND MATERIALS

So full discretion: I’ve done this before and actually love it. I was inspired by one of my favourite artists, David Choe, who used to paint with soy sauce and ketchup while he was in prison in Japan. The being said, this will be the first time I have painted with ENTIRELY found materials, including brushes, so I’m pretty excited to see who it turns out. 

I didn’t really wander far to find materials, most of what I needed was in my kitchen. I would, however, like to have a go at painting with rust this semester because it’s probably one of my favourite colours. 

The colours I was able to extract from mixing hot water with these different condiments and spices definitely play to my sensibilities, as I’m drawn to autumnal colour palettes. I had to involve beetroot because I love that hot pink, and while the green pesto showed promise, the colour eventually faded as the oil reacted to the paper. 

Anyway, lets see how this goes...

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PAINTING WITH FOUND MATERIALS: PART 2

So first I decided to go at the page with some tea using a brush I made from a cut up sponge and chopstick. I’ve painted with tea and coffee before and I love the effect, especially the different tones you can get by pooling up the liquid on certain parts of the page and seeing how it dries. 

This brings me to my next point which is that I am an extremely impatient person, in other words I hate waiting for paint to dry. As a result I sometimes bake paintings in the oven. This is sometimes a brilliant idea and sometimes a terrible idea. 

But more on that later...

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PAINTING WITH 3D ELEMENTS / AUTOMATA ART

Further developing the idea of an automata painting, I began implementing the wire to the frame and attaching eyes that I had clipped from magazines and glued to foam board. The foam board was ideal as it allows for easy insertion of the wire without compromising the material. 

The sliding part within the frame was made from a recycled corrugated plastic election poster and allowed for easy insertion of wire through the top of its width. String can now be tied to wire which, when pulled by a lever system at the top of the frame, should allow for the movable piece to travel up and down the length of the frame. 

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LINE DRAWING EXPERIMENT 

IN PREPARATION FOR WIRE SCULPTURE

One of a few sketchbook experiments I did using a single line to draw each layer of the face with a different sized fine line pen. 

My aim was to think of the lines as wires when constructing this sketch. The first stage in the drawing is flat enough. Using a thin lined pen to outline the “skeleton”, I continued to build on the drawing using a thicker pen with each layer, until the character was given “depth”.

Observing the images now, I think the 3rd (maybe even 4th) image had the most “character” and that the final result maybe went a little too far and got lost in the thick lines. 

Knowing when to stop is an important lesson when making art. Alexander Calder was a master of “less is more” and I can see how his success in applying this idea to his own work factors in to how highly regarded he was. 

My goal now is to translate expressions in body language and movement using kinetic wire sculpture as a medium. I can also see how this aesthetic can fit nicely into my graphic design and painting work so I’m going to bookmark the idea for now and come back to it.

I’ll expand the concept a bit more when I gather my thoughts/research, but I’m going to try making a simple wire sculpture  first and see how I get on. 

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For my MOVEMENT project I am going to be looking at KINESICS, OR the study of the way in which certain body movements and gestures serve as a form of non-verbal communication.

Upon researching I found this very interesting study which was recently conducted by the Psychology Department of the Hebrew University, in collaboration with New York University and Princeton University.

The study finds that body language provides a better cue in trying to judge whether an observed subject has undergone strong positive or negative experiences than facial expressions, which came as a bit of a shock to me. 

The study conducted used examples such as the collection of images above to ask participants whether or not the people portrayed were going through a positive or negative experience.

Researchers showed three different sets of images

1) only faces

2) faces and bodies

3) bodies without faces.

The image above shows the faces of professional tennis players, three of which are winning a point and three of which are losing a point. 

When shown the images of the players with only bodies as well as with both bodies and faces, participants were easily able to identify which player had won a point and which player had lost a point.

However, when shown only faces like in the image above, participants were unable to tell which players were celebrating and which players were experiencing grief. 

It’s a very interesting study. I initially thought facial expressions would be a prime focus of my project, however now I am rethinking things a little. 

I suppose they call it BODY language for a reason...

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Single line drawing inspired by the work of Alexander Calder.

I wanted to focus less on detail of the characters and more so on the expression of movements (or movements of expression). 

I think this will be a great cross section between my chosen electives of graphic design, sculpture and painting. 

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GRAPHIC DESIGN / PAINTING - EMOJI

I wanted to make emojis using coffee rings and see what they looked like. I was initially trying to get them to touch but once a couple of them did accidentally I realised it made for an interesting effect, as if they were in motion and their expressions were changing suddenly. 

I liked the idea of giving the piece a bit of narrative so I had the expressions escalate from calm calm/content mood to an anxious/frantic one. Sort of like a bad acid trip. 

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RESEARCH: CHARLIE ISOE

Charlie Isoe is an artist from Australia who works primarily with painting but also makes sculptures and photographic art from found objects. 

His paintings are incredibly visceral, and he even goes as far as to mix his own bodily fluids into his painting. I have followed his work for many years, and was always inspired by the mix of realism and surrealism with splashes of geometric patterns, typography and expressionism which owe as much to Basquiat as they do to Francis Bacon. I am also drawn to how he expresses movement in his paintings:

“I’m often describing some sort of narrative, ambiguous, and deliberate, which talks about more than just the physical subject. Sometimes I’m trying to get a sense of movement about the figures, like a sort of dynamics. In the actual process of painting, as things evolves from really loose marks on the canvas, those multiple views kind of take on different forms, which aren’t necessarily human figures anymore, but what I want to capture is really human.”

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RESEARCH: Alexander Calder

Alexander Calder, the inventor of the “mobile” and kinetic art. 

I feel he will be the perfect cross section between my three electives of graphic design sculpture and painting.

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RESEARCH: THE WIRE PORTRAITS OF ALEXANDER CALDER

"In Paris, after 1926, Calder starts bending wire into portrait likenesses, drawing in space," Zabel says. And Calder’s portrayal of public figures, entertainers, close friends and himself, are, in typical Calder fashion, like nothing ever imagined. Using bent wire and metal, Calder playfully toes the line between caricature and art during a time, in the 1920s, when there was a fine line, says Zabel.

The work of Alexander Calder is really exciting me at the moment. When I came across his portrait work I knew I found a perfect match for my Movement project in that not only is Calder regarded as the father of Kinetic (or moving) Art, but the simplistic, less is more approach he takes towards his work lends itself perfectly to the current scenario of being confined to my room during lockdown. 

Unfortunately I missed the wire drawing workshop from last semester, which I now regret, however I’ll have a go using what little wire I was able acquire and see how I get on. 

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PAINTING WITH 3D ELEMENTS / AUTOMATA ART

Interesting results from casting shadows from the wire onto the painting. I loved the way the shadows gave the illusion of the facial features becoming animated and distorted. Even though it’s probably the least tangible form of art I can think of, I very much enjoy the unusual effects that present themselves by playing with shadows. 

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PAINTING/GRAPHIC DESIGN: COLLAGE

Inspired by the HANDS series by Tim Hawkinson, I made another attempt at collage using arms and hands this times opposed to faces as I did last semester. Some of these strike me as far more expressive that than any collage I had done using facial features, which supports the idea that body language may be a much more reliable source of quantifying emotion.

The intention behind returning to collage is to experiment with positions, shapes and skin tones as a study for the potential 3D painting I plan on making. My idea is now that I might try to work in 3D sculpture elements in the form of appendages that are capable of moving outside of the frame. I’m going to develop the idea further and get to work.