SPRING
ARTIST RESEARCH: Henri Matisse
Artworks from left to right: The Sheaf, Horse, Rider and Clown, The Snail, The Dancer
- What are the meanings and ideas behind the work?
Created during a period where Matisse was prevented from painting due to ill health, Matisse use collage to show off his creativity when paintbrush couldn’t, in this instants, using his imagination to create a snail from pieces of paper.
- What ideas were influencing the artist when they made the work?
Again, it was made when Matisse’s health was not the best and he had snails in his mind when he was doing this piece, but apart from that, he didn’t have a set plan on this piece, instead he decided what colours go where as he went on.
- Describe what can you see in the image -colour/line/shape/technique/materials/subject matter/texture/pattern/space/form.
There’s a lot of bright colours and spares in this piece, as well as a bit of negative space from behind the shining lights of colours. I can defiantly tell that colour and shape are the main elements here but, to a lesser extent, tone is also use for some of the squares, just so they look different if someone who is colourblind is viewing this piece.
- What have you learnt about the artist when exploring their work, what do you like and what would you like to try in your own work? How does it make you feel looking at their work?
What I have learnt from researching Matisse is that whatever happens to him, he still finds a way to show off his creativity and artistic side of him. I enjoyed looking at his bright collages and I would like to replicate that in my own art somehow, it somehow feels energizing for some reason, which is quite ironic considering the piece is literally called ‘The Snail’.
REACTION
This is a repeated pattern piece based off the collage works of Matisse, made from a sample piece. I did with some added tissue paper to give the piece more of a Matisse feel to it. The sample was a template of my pattern and colour scheme. I had made this piece as I wanted to experiment with the theme of repeating patterns, to see how I would feel about it and I wanted to respond to an artist of my choice. I used my primary research of a photo of a plant at Kew Gardens and recreated the piece using watercolours and tissue paper. I then got a lot of photocopies of it and I used those copies to create the repeated patterns. I stuck the patterns down and then I added some purple tissue paper help the flowers stand out a bit more. Matisse worked with a lot of cut outs and I wanted to experiment with them. Overall, I am really happy with this piece as the repeated patterns was well reflected and it really goes well with the season the experiment will be reflecting, Spring. I have learnt how to experiment with different techniques that might be out of my comfort zone and see what other effects I could do in my artworks.
Here we have a second Matisse experiment which is similar to the last one that I did but I decided to go with more random shapes this time round, just to see how it would look like on the page.
I had made this experiment as again, I wanted to go more random this time round and seeing how it would look, so that I do not try anything random in my final outcome and it not looking great, because that would be terrible for me!
I made this piece out of first, tissue paper and glue, before realising that the colour of the tissue paper mixed with the glue and kind of gone everywhere I switched to card and glue and that seemed o help fix the problem. I cut the card out with some scissors to create the random shapes before sticking them down.
I got to admit that this is not my best piece of work due to the fact that the colour of the tissue paper mixed with the glue and therefore, the piece kind of looked messy and dirty so next time, if I don’t want colours mixing in with the glue, DO NOT USE TISSUE PAPER! But apart from that, I am happy with how this all came out.
What I have learnt here is to try and take the materials I will be sticking down into consideration, especially if I do not want colours mixing in with the glue!
ARTIST RESEARCH: David Kracov
Artworks in order (Left to right): My Heart Is All A Flutter, Book Of Life, Keith Haring Book, Thinking Outside The Box – Conductor
- What are the meanings and ideas behind the work?
Unfortunately, Karcov decided that he wouldn’t be telling us what was going through his head when creating this piece, as in his words, it will lose the connection with the viewer’s feelings as the ideas of the artist would take over.
- What ideas were influencing the artist when they made the work?
Again, Karcov decided to keep his influences private, only saying that this piece was personal to him.
- Describe what can you see in the image -colour/line/shape/technique/materials/subject matter/texture/pattern/space/form.
There are lots of bright colours in this piece, as well as the repeating shapes and patterns of butterflies to form a greater shape of a heart. The piece was created using metal, for the purpose of it being hung up on a wall.
- What have you learnt about the artist when exploring their work, what do you like and what would you like to try in your own work? How does it make you feel looking at their work?
What I have learnt from looking at Karcov is that he really enjoys using bright colours and smaller forms or shapes to create the bigger picture, no pun intended. That is what I really enjoy about Karcov’s work, using smaller forms to create something bigger and that is something I want to incorporate into my own work.
REACTION
FINISHED PIECES
What we have here is some 3D reactions to David Karcov that I will use in my scrapbook as I wanted to save time o my project and I thought using these experiments in a scrapbook would be the best way to add some 3D elements to it, plus they look pretty cool!
This piece will help me in my project as one, I get to do more experiments and two, I could add some 3D pieces into my scrapbook, as that was what my tutor suggested to me and I want to try and add them. I mixed the experiment part and the final outcome parts together to save some time for myself, not sure how that will affect me later on, we will just have to see!
I had made these pieces by creating the wire structures before colouring some paper in using my sharpie pens. I coloured some paper as I did not have any other coloured paper already and pus, I have more control of what colours the finished pieces will be. Once that is done, I tore the paper and with some glue, I glued and moulded the paper to the wire structures to create a sun, flower and leaves.
I am really happy with how the structures came out as they look really nice and a bit scrappy, prefect for my scrapbook! Plus they were easy to stick onto my scrapbook.
What I have learnt here is that it can be quick and easy to do some little experiments if I am short on time and that it is possible to use those experiments in my final outcome.
DIGITAL REACTION
Original photographs from Kew Gardens
FINISHED PIECE
What we have here is a digital experiment based on David Karcov’s work looking at how I could do a double exposure effect without it being an option on my program on my iPad.
I have made this piece as I wanted to try out how I could use the overlay layer effect on my iPad to get the double exposure look, plus I needed some more experiments and this seemed like a pretty cool idea to try, I did it on my iPad as I did not haven of the adobe programs at home, where I did this experiment.
I had made this piece in Procreate and I did this by removing the background manually and I then added some of the other flowers over the original flower and with select the shape of the original flower and inverting it, I removed the areas of the flowers on top that were not covering the original yellow flower. With that done, I set the layer to overlay and repeated the process until I feel like the piece is complete.
With the quality, I got to say that this is my favourite experiment that I have done due to how good the final piece looks, I just love the overlay effects of it all.
What I have learnt here while doing this experiment is that can create different effects from using my own programs if I am unable to access the programs from college and the final piece could still look amazing.
Building The Pages
With spring, I wanted the first two pages to be in a shape of a flower/clover as I felt like they represent spring really well, with the cherry blossom blooming and the different plants coming out, I just thought it would look really nice.
I covered the two pages in tissue paper to create some texture. I did the first page in pink as I felt like pink is a very spring colour and I did the other page in green for the clover.
For the event page, I did it in a shape of a daffodil and this is where I must admit that I’d chose the wrong kind of paper. I did the original page with tracing paper as hey, I could only colour one side and it’ll account for the other side as well, EASY PEASY RIGHT!?! WRONG! When I painted the page in acrylic paint, for the bold transition into summer, the petals kind of scrunched up and curled in on itself, which it very inconvenient! So it’s possible that I would have to do that page again.
Now onto the seasonal clothing section, I went for pink and beige colours for the cardigans as I thought that those colours would be quite fresh colours. I also when with cardigans for spring as I think that it’s still a bit chilly to just wear a top but too warm to wear a full on winter coat so I think people like to wear cardigans, plus there’s pretty fashionable in my humble opinion.
Melissa Ann Shoesmith Final Major Project - Personal Project - Level 3 Creative Design - Year 2 