University Campus Suffolk

The last few weeks have been busy busy busy.

Handing in the official blog on the deadline, gave me a chance to stop stressing and get back in the studio for the final half a term of making art and preparing for the degree show. This post will hopefully explore the path I have taken during April and how technique, the weather and my home life has all changed my work recently.

Firstly, I have become more experimental with gravity and the way in which I hang my work, whether that be horizontal or vertical, or with or against the act of gravity on my drips. The dripping is still the main part of my work, it symbolises the life paint has after leaving the brush or cup (or whatever I happen to be using) and will remain my main focus. What I have been enjoying the most is the freedom I have had over the last two weeks.

My mind has always been torn between small and large scale work, and I think I have come to a realisation that maybe a mixture of both could work well for me. My most recent paintings have been on a large scale and exude texture and rustic vibes. Larger scale pieces give me r opportunity to use multiple mediums including, paint, sand, coffee, tea and gloss, just some of the range I have loved using to make texture and a three dimensional effect on my canvases.

NATURAL MATERIALS. NATURAL OUTCOMES.

Brick dust, wood, coffee and tea are all regular things I use in my art, and are all natural materials and help support my body of work. I have been keeping my palettes as well to show the progression of my colour uses and how I use paint. I’ve noticed that I have started reverting back to using blue a lot in my work as a focus point, something I did last term and tend to do when working on a larger scale. I have also been turning my work from longways to sideways and spraying with a bottle and leaving it, is has been brilliant to leave the end result up to the paint itself. This seconds the strength in my gravity themed work and the contrast between drippings.

the weather lately has been surprisingly nice, the but rain and greyness has been somewhat of an inspiration on my work. Especially the rain. I invested in a spray bottle, a FANTASTIC thing for my art, it enables me to make the paint run without touching the canvas. ITS AMAZING.

i am hoping to make a few smaller paintings and leave them out in the rain and see if a similar effect occurs. It’s to do with the physical activity of the drips and the mixture of water and colours.

I have aver also been spending a little time in my back garden and have enjoyed being around the colours of a spring garden. Deep browns, yellows and greens. Also some oranges and pinks and although I wanted to stay away from artificial colours I have loved the brightness of orange and turquoise in my art.

All these influnences have have helped create these paintings which show my progression, my colour connections to nature and the rustic and textural technique of my art.

Stage Three

Size, scale and techniques are all parts of the final stage of how my term has changed. Having previously been afraid of going very large, lately on paper and canvas it has been my main thing..to create art in large scale and chop it up to find the small intriguing parts that might be overlooked purely by the scale, just like in the nature of the world. I sometimes find my work can be overwhelming when too large, maybe that’s just me but I think because of the spontaneity of my process, a large piece always feels too much of a challenge and can stress me out whereas my tiny mind copes better with finding beauty and peace and almost satisfaction with a5 sized works.

I’m very physical with the way I paint, it’s almost like an act, which is why naturally my work starts large…interesting really. I hack it down and find the purest parts sand frame them, highlighting what my eyes are drawn too, almost an insight into my mind.

The next step for me is to experiment with the end result of my work. I feel I have gained a confidence with my painting and use of different mediums but this is the start if my leap if faith…THE DEGREE SHOW!

I have been thinking of using bricks as a plinth to hold my work as it will be more structurally unique and three dimensional.

As of yet I haven’t started this idea as I’ve been so busy…but I’m excited just thinking about it as it almost verges into sculpture! Making the stand that holds my work part of the work, as well as it being a tool I am using to creat work. Double whammy.

But for now I am moving forward and this video of artist George Oomman, is my next big step…

A spray bottle may be the next buy for me!!!

Experimentation with scale and technique is all my work has ever been about and I’m hoping that I can continue with this…

George Oomman, American artist who depends on both gravity and water/turpentine depending on his medium, just stunning.

Stage Two

Subject. Process. Sorted.

The journey of the paint as it leaves the brush and enters the canvas. It’s such a small thing really but my whole project is based on this.

Who has more control over my work, me or the medium?

With water being a huge part of my art it helps create fluidity within my process. And this led me to the obsession I now have with natural materials and using them in my art; chalk, brick, sand etc. Texture is a thing I have looked at because I feel it has a more emotional representation than just an image on its own. Running water is the perfect example of a medium that has LIFE and I like seeing this being shown in my watercolours and prints. This work is not about an emotional connection per say but more about a trace that paint or chalk or dust can leave on this world after it parts, because the time a drop of water lasts on the paper before it soaks up isn’t long but can be beautiful and captured on watercolour paper and with glimpses of colour. This makes very intriguing imagery because whereas it may have been my idea to focus on this, the water is the artist and creates its trace through the path it makes on the paper.

I love art that is delicate and small and unique, and my final project will undoubtedly be a collection of tiny traces of brick and paint and water in interesting wooden frames that together show an unknown beauty (without that sounding cheesy)….

Being able to see something is a human nature but being to see and feel, gives us the ability to be consumed. To understand not just view what is in front of us…

My work has really been through three stages so far…I want to take this opportunity to reflect on how my work has changed and progressed.

Stage One

I started off with very floral and decorative prints in level four and moved onto this in a bigger scale throughout level five until I did my collaboration. This pushed me to do bigger abstract pieces that left the pretty floral patterns behind and produced a more mature art. Level six is where this all begins….

My dissertation let me obsess over Rothko and Colour and really emerge myself into the world of modern abstract art and this is how my project this year began.

Stage one is that of colour, the choices are all mine yet they come from the subconscious, so are they really mine? I did find a small link between my mood and the colours but I felt that this was too much of a an emotional topic to continue with and linked almost too closely to my dissertation. You know as simple as happy being pinks and yellows and moody being blues and browns. I never felt there was enough to say with this theory in practice.

This has been the biggest change for me and I feel it comes from a maturity I have now towards my art, natural materials make my work unique and powerful for me, that my art is a collaboration makes it that much stronger…colour is what draws me into most art, the warmth or isolation that colour can bring, it consumes you. The earth and the natural world have been the biggest influences and making art that shows this has been my aim; to show a journey of a natural material and a paint on the paper or canvas….natural being the main word for me at this moment in my art life, and it holds an originality for me, that I feel more connected to art that comes from nature and the earth. Full stop.