Paolozzi Exhibition Inspires Sketchbook Explorations

 

In anticipation of the screen printing workshop I attended on Saturday I worked on some ideas and designs for the screen-print design in my sketchbook.

I was inspired by a recent visit to the Eduardo Paolozzi exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery two weekends ago. It was full of amazing art, prints, collages and sculptures.

Paolozzi Tapestry

Paolozzi Screen Prints

Paolozzi printed dress, 1970's with Wedgewood Plates 

Paolozzi Screen Prints, 1960's

1953 Cocktail Dress in Paolozzi designed fabric

Screen Printed Designs 1950 - 52

1950's Screen Printed Fabric

I love Paolozzi's use of abstract shapes, blocked colours and contrasting lines. Using these ideas as a starting point for my designs I developed a range of ideas in my sketchbook.

Collage and scrap-booking in my sketchbook

Mixed media design using acrylic, marker pens and washi tape

Detail of scrap-book collage

Mixed media piece with watercolours and marker pens

I ended up choosing something completely different from the images above for my screen-print design, but I had a lot of fun creating these art works.

Which is your favourite design?

Raku Clay Effect Shells

I have been exploring the simple properties of line, texture and form in the art classroom with students and really enjoyed creating these examples.

Observational studies of shells using mixed media. Collage with pen and ink.

I then started to investigate texture and form using clay. Using a basic thumb-pot / pinch-pot method I produced a likeness of the shells then imprinted texture and used shallow relief techniques. The tools I used were the traditional clay tools alongside old screws, a metal fork and a handle of an old paintbrush.

  

If you do not have access to a kiln you can use air-drying clay or Fimo home-oven bake polymer clay. 

After firing the clay shells I decided not to use a traditional glaze but to layer acrylic paints on the surface. First I used a layer  of black paint ensuring the paint goes deep into the cracks and textural areas. The next step is to wash away the paint using a cloth - it's best to do this quickly before the paint has a chance to dry onto the outer surface.

This leaves the dark paint in the crevices of the clay. I then used a pearlescent paint and a dry brush method and gently brushed the silver paint over the surface of the clay shell.

The final finish is to create a raku effect glaze but without the need for fire-pits and sawdust. The process of what you would need to do to create raku pottery is quite dangerous if you don't have the specialist equipment!

After firing the clay in a traditional kiln, whilst still hot you move them using metal tongs and place the pottery into a metal container that can be sealed. In this container you can use sawdust / dried leaves / dried seaweed which when the hot pottery is placed into the container will ignite and burn. The container is sealed so the fire continues until all the oxygen in the space is exhausted. This process causes chemical reactions that affect the pottery and glazes and produce the most beautiful effects.

Image source: Clayhouse Studios

What do you think? I really enjoyed making them. You could you use them for ring dishes or use them purely for decoration.

More Matisse inspired collages

I bought some fab Japanese Washi tapes from the Tate Modern shop in insanely bright colours that spurred on the next collection of Matisse inspired collages during the Tate workshop on Monday.

I have been abstracting and simplifying the peacock feather motif then moved away from that entirely towards a more linear direction in a fresh new palette of red, yellows, green and black. I used quite a number of the 'left-over' sections of paper to create this new collection of collages; which is something that Matisse did himself to create a wider range of negative images and motifs.

I had made the decision that I would make an item of clothing using my Matisse sketchbook work as inspiration for some applique / embroidery decoration. Last month I volunteered to pattern test the Dolores Pocket Skirt by Beth from Ready Ruthie. I am going to share the full write up next week because I need to send Beth my comments and findings by the 20th July, so you will only be able to see some sneaky peaks at the work-in-progress and the collage that partly inspired the design is top left of the photo montage below.

The added bonus to this current skirt is that its made entirely from stash fabrics including all the coloured appliqued sections too!

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?

Design Museum inspires work for the Tate Modern

I have been very busy at work and doing crazy DIY on my house but luckily I have managed to squeeze in a little bit of arty fun too.

To keep creative I signed up to the Tate Modern six-week evening class based on the Richard Hamilton exhibition. The course covered techniques such as dry-point printing and collage which was right up my street!

The course started with a tour of the exhibition with the evening course tutor Ling, who explained the concepts and intention behind Hamilton's work. It turns out that Hamilton felt his work should be seen in groups or collections so they had a dialogue with one another and that as a viewer you could read them as a series that inter-connected. It was an interesting starting point for being creative!

Onto the art. We were given the theme of perspective (one of Hamilton's reoccuring themes) and were asked to define the meaning of the word in small groups. We had to do this with drawn images only. Our visual interpretation was then re-interpreted by a different group.... an interesting start to the class. Towards the end of the session Ling mentioned our homework (WHAT?) for the next session - which was to read two essays and to etch a dry-point plate based on the 'perspective of a space'.

The main room of the Hamilton exhibition at the Tate Modern

One of my favourite Dada-esque pieces from the Hamilton exhibtion at Tate Modern

The reading part of the homework was easy and interesting, but I was a bit stuck on what to etch onto my aluminium plate. That was until I visited the Design Museum's 'Hello, my name is Paul Smith exhibition...

The Paul Smith exhibition was full of fun bright, beautiful and inspiring things; take a look for yourself:

A recreation of the Paul Smith design studio at the 'Hello, my name is Paul Smith' exhibition at the Design Museum

The stairwell in the Design Museum

I used my photo of the stairwell to create the image for the drypoint print plate. Which I will post about seperately. The work I enjoyed the most was creating collage pieces with a restricted palette of colour and materials (red, white, yellow and green) based upon our printed image / print plate.

The final collages were then worked into with text and imagery from newspapers and magazines.

Caroline Joynson - Tate Triptych 2014