Art Blogs to follow

Please visit this art blog, for posts on printmaking and life drawing. This guy explores a range of techniques and some of his outcomes are truly remarkable : https://greenmangle.wordpress.com/

Colour and Composition: Barbara Rae Artist Copy

This piece is an artist copy of Barbara Rae's "Achill Fence" silkscreen print, however, I used acrylics to create this piece and to try and convey Rae's abstract art style. 

I found this technique a bit difficult as it was hard to decipher what some of the shapes  were supposed to represent in Rae’s painting as I don’t have the original image I didn’t really know what they were supposed to represent. However, I enjoyed using acrylics as it is a great medium to do layering processes like Barbara Rae’s work and the colours were vivid which I loved. I liked layering up the colours and how each layer helps bring the image to life. Creating textures was an interesting process, the textures I applied helped the image become more lively as it adds depth.

 If I were to do another painting that resembles Rae’s style, I would try and take my own picture so can know what the shapes are and can build up the colours and textures that emulate her style a bit easier as I wouldn't have to guess what I am trying to paint.

Colour and Composition: Seth Clark Artist Copy

 

 

This work is based on the work by Seth Clark who focuses on abandoned and collapsing buildings, and so much alike Clark I chose to produce a piece based on and abandoned building I found on Google images.

 

For this painting I used magazine articles and torn up book pages to create the first layer of my piece. The magazine pictures were placed where I wanted block colours for the windows, doors and even the pillars  gave quite a nice shiny effect , the material was lovely to paint over. The torn up book pages and some magazine pieces  were used on the wooden panels of the house, to give the peeling effect of the paint to create this worn down look of the building. With the acrylic I painted over the wood panels in an offish white, to give the effect of the years of yellowing the building has endured. And I used the acrylic is areas of highlights or dark areas, with the acrylic I can achieve a variety of different tones that may have not been achieved through collage. Then I used a fine detail brush to create the impression of wood panels on the building as well as to add extra details in the building.

 

I liked the combination of collaging and painting to help create worn down look of the building. The difficult part of this piece was working out how to develop each step and how to start the piece, because Clark uses collaged papers as well as other materials and it was sort of trying to find out what comes first between these mediums and what goes next. Another difficulty was not trying to smudging the paint whilst I was working, especially on the roof section. However, the paint smudging's looked quite nice on the wood panels to add to the worn down effect.

 

Next time, I would like to try adding more mediums like charcoal that Clark used in his works to help build up on my piece. Or I would like to try to create a building that has collapsing and try to create the remnants of the building using materials like acrylics, torn papers and charcoal.

 

 

 

Artist Research: Seth Clark

 

Seth Clark is an American mixed media artist, whose pieces focus on abandoned and deteriorating buildings. In 2015 he has been awarded Pittsburgh’s 2015 Emerging Artist of the Year by the Pittsburgh Centre for the Arts. And has also received three design excel  Excellence Awards from the American Institute of Graphic Arts, Pittsburgh. His pieces are done with a complex layering process, he collages bits of found papers to create the worn down look of the architecture, it resembles peeling wallpaper or paint. Once the foundations are laid down, he begins to work into the buildings with various materials such as pastels, acrylic, charcoal and graphite to define and bring depth to the desolate fragmented buildings. Clark alternates between the collage and drawing to create a coherent blend of these mediums. He focuses on the gentle disintegration of architectural buildings because although they are on the brink of falling apart they appear honourable and magnificent in their state. These buildings were designed with the purpose of being permanent are now collapsing in on themselves:

“Something very energized and present is trying to escape out of a slow history of abandonment .”

 

 



Collapse XVII (42" x 33"
Acrylic, Collage, Charcoal, Pastel, Graphite on wood
http://www.sethsclark.com/work/#/collapse-xvii/



 



Windows (36" x 36")
Acrylic, Collage, Charcoal, Pastel, Graphite on wood
http://www.sethsclark.com/work/#/windows/
 

Like many of Clark’s other pieces, "Windows" is of an abandoned building that is slowly deteriorating due to lack of care and time, however, this time focusing on the windows. This piece of artwork is a realistic piece that fits into the category of still life. Clark uses the found bits of paper to create the worn down look of the windows as well as to create texture of the peeling paint/ wallpaper. Working into to piece with graphite and charcoal adds to the rough texture of the buildings it adds to the realism by add. Clark uses the collaged papers to incorporate colour, texture and even shape by building up the foundations of the building. He incorporates the formal elements of line from the windows and the structure beams of the building. There is no real focal point for the viewer to follow from but it only adds to the piece because it makes the viewer look harder at the windows as well as within them. Focusing on the windows to the disintegrating building I think lends to the phrase the eyes are the windows to the soul, it lets you look into the history of the building to make the viewers imagine what might have happened within this building that the windows have captured. The whole piece has a kind of haunting feeling, the gray on top of the black in the windows kind looks like ghosts or spirits.Most of his pieces contain very subdued hues ie creams, browns, whites, greys and often blue makes an appearance. But this piece also makes me feel kind of  depressed through the use of these dark colours and broken objects depicted within the piece, probably was a lovely home but is now falling apart and is worthless.


on of my favourite things about his work is how Clark uses bits of found paper that resembles peeling wallpaper or paint in order to create the worn down look of the abandoned buildings and helps to create that extra bit of texture. I like how he often works into his pieces with charcoal and dark acrylics to create dark shadows in the windows and in-between wood planks and I gives his piece an almost empty feeling surrounding each of these buildings, they were once proud and full of life and now there is nothing. His use of a subdued colour palette i.e. greys, blues, blacks, creams and whites to represent its history of love and attention being washed away in and worn down by rain and time.

In my own piece, I would like to  use Clarks use of layering process  to help create my piece and making me think of the types of mediums I could use for f my own piece. I would like to use found papers and collage them into as a foundation for my work and building on top with acrylic to create a realistic or semi-realistic piece. I would also like to incorporate the use of colours to depict  a certain mood much alike how Clark uses a subdued colour palette to convey a haunting or depressing feeling.




 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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