Yesterday I went to art class again. It was an absolutely brilliant day, and left me totally mindblown and exhausted. What I like about this class is that it is with a small group of intelligent women and we discuss all sorts of art issues. It enables me to draw some fundmental conclusions about my artwork, and to watch others working, and learn from what they do too.
I started by showing Vanda my yoke fabric printed with the kitchen utensils, and the 12" cushion. The yokes work quite well - I just need to have the confidence to cut them apart. I was not very happy with the cushions printed with the kitchen scales but could not quite identify why. I know I did not like the style in which they were drawn - I am a bit fed up of the fine lining. I can do it quite well, but feel I am a strong gutsy personality and the fine lines do not represent me - they need to be used selectively rather than constantly. The drawings at present are too neat. Too much like a "nice little drawing". I am not a "nice little person". I am strong, noisy, gutsy, opinionated, and inspire strong reactions in people. I made up the cushions because I wanted to make something (instead of constant angst, thinking about my artwork) and I definitely needed to improve my cushion making technique. However, Vanda took one look at them and said "You state you do not want to appeal to the middle age, middle class women market. This is the market to which these cushions will appeal". Spot on feedback in 2 sentences! Also:
- Push the boundaries of the cushion. Could they be back cushions that are tied on?
- Redefine the cushion, if this is what you are focussing on.
- Redefine yokes
- ALWAYS CHALLENGE YOUR ASSUMPTIONS
- Focus on creating interesting artwork and reasons why you want to apply your artwork to textile.
- Stop thinking about applications. That comes after your degree. "Safe" work can be done by someone else.
- Concentrate on creating lots of collections.
- Think of a collection as being a multiple.
I had my money's worth for the day, just with this feedback. And the day just got better and better!
Yesterday's class was about blending greys. I'm not sure that I agree with the term "grey". I would have called it blending neutrals, or more accurately blending complex colours. This made me think about how to define grey. To me, grey is a tonally variable colour, but is basically a dirty, complex blue. Beige is a dirty, complex yellow, which can vary in tonal value. So this means a dirty complex red must be brown. Whereas I think Vanda was using the term grey to mean a dirty complex colour.
We compiled a grid of blends, using a column of grey/blue/purple colours, and a row of orange/umber/sienna colours. This made a wonderful selection of purply/greyish/brownish colours. All lovely complex colours. Then we took a postcard image, and reinterpreted it, using all the colours from one row in the grid, including one of the pure original colours in the blend. If we are interested, Vanda suggested we should repeat the exercise with other combinations from the water colour box. I have blended combinations around the colour wheel, using primaries and contrasts, but not in this way before.
I had created my grid and blotted out some of the colour, so I could see what happened when the excess paint was removed - you get a very pale version of the wet colour. When I painted my postcard image, I forgot to try blotting out some colour. I sat watching Jane opposite me, painting a landscape, flooding with colour and very confidently blotting it away, and it worked wonderfully.
Then we had to paint an object using drier paint and texture. I struggled with this. I found it really hard as I keep wanting to draw the whole object, and it is not necessary! You don't need to draw it all in order to convey the nature of the object. (which was another thing I disliked about my kitchen scales cushions). I finally managed a wooden spatula which was ok, by using fluid paint on the handle, and drier paint using the brush horizontally to texture part of the head. The hole for the hook was painted by manipulating the brush hairs into an interesting shape, then creating a dark, shaped, spot, rather than carefully drawing the circle of the hole. I frequently struggle with the application of accurate observational drawing, and interpretative drawing. When I try too hard, I end up doing accurate observational drawing, but I know my best work is free interpretative drawing. Then Vanda suggested drawing into it with pen, or drawing over it with pen, and I could see how it could all come together.
Finally I spent time looking at the watercolours of Michael Morgan. This book was simply amazing. I love the gutsy, energetic colouring, and the detailed free texturing of the paint. I don't normally like landscapes but these were intriguing, and made me realise how often I look at ploughed fields when travelling by motorway with my husband. I also realised that this type of coloured and textured art technique would work very, very well in digital print, to give an effect that would be very difficult to achieve using screen print. It could be done in screen print but would need high skill levels and a lot of layering (and time) but would also required many screens to be prepared and a lot of screen washing, which is not actually very eco-friendly. Digital print is slow (1m per hour) and requires queueing time to process but is probably more efficient for layered colour and texture.
No wonder I was exhausted by the end of the day.
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