Matisse inspired mobiles

At the Tate Matisse Cut-Outs course this Monday Sarah (Tate tutor) set us the challenge of creating a 3D object or mobile inspired by the work of Henri Matisse and the sculptor Alexander Calder.

Alexander Calder's kinaesthetic sculpture 1960's

Whilst I got my head around what I wanted to do sculpture-wise in the workshop I completed a couple more collages in my sketchbook. I wanted to continue with the loose theme of birds from the images at the start of the sketchbook and used a peacock feather as inspiration for the following collages.

After completing the feather collages I knew how I would tackle the 3D challenge - I chose to collage onto both sides of a square piece of card then cut out a 'square-spiral' a bit like the below diagram:

And then you get this!

I created on larger stand-alone hanging sculpture then created a second more complex version by producing four mid-size square-spirals and attaching smaller square-spirals to those with fine wire.

Its amazing how quickly time goes when you are having fun!

Matisse art course at the Tate Modern

I am half way through a six-week art workshop at the Tate Modern that is based on the current Henri Matisse Cut Outs exhibition. During the first session we (30 fellow Matisse lovers on the course) pretty much had the full exhibition to ourselves to look at the amazing collage work of Matisse's later career.

We were then set the challenge of creating a collage of our own using three colours based on image that we had been given. I selected the bird-in-flight image below left.

For homework we were given a list of themes to work from and as I had selected the bird image in the first session I chose to continue with the bird theme and produced the collage below using five colours this time.

We have been encouraged by our tutor Sarah to ONLY use scissors to create the collaged images. Not having to use a pencil has been quite liberating and I have found I am being more accepting about the shapes and textures I have created.

The following week we worked into our sketchbooks building on the images, shapes, colours and motifs from our previous works and I explored a range of quick 10 - 15 minute collages below.

On Monday we got another change to look around the Matisse exhibition to specifically engage with the larger pieces of work he produced to get ideas and inspiration for a large scale group piece based on the word 'cornicopia'.

I was initially a bit retiscent about working with others because I had really got into my own artwork, but I need not have worried because it was lots of fun working with the group that included cool chaps like Bryan, bubbly Robyn, Jessica, (another) Caroline and Juliette.

Below is the large scale artwork we created - to get an idea of the size, the top of the paper was about 6 feet from the floor! To get our creative juices flowing and to share out the work load we swapped sketchbooks to see what motifs, shapes and images we liked in each others work. We came to a general consensus so that each of us had an equal share of the images. We all agreed on the blue background fairly quickly. So onto the artwork....

 Who did what?

In three weeks time we will all exhibit our work in the Cloires Studio at the Tate Modern and we can invite guests along! I can't wait. 

What do you think?

Do you like Matisse's work?