Final Major Project Evaluation

Hello again everyone, I'am going to evaluate on my final major project, and I'am going to elaborate on what research I had done in order to create my final piece.

First of all, for my initial research, I had to choose a list of artists to do my initial research on, and use a bit of that research for inspiration.

I had initially looked and talked about the following artists (Gilbert and George, R.B. Kitaj and Banksy) in my previous blog posts, as I had a list of artists that I was recommended to look at, and I had somewhat connected with their work in way because of their use of colour, social commentary and their various visual styles.

However, there was another artist that I also already talked about previously on my blog, whom I had found on my own. His name is Samuel Price. He was the only artist whom I had found all on my own as I was scrolling through the Internet looking for collage artists, and when I showed the artist to a friend of mine, she told me to just go for and I picked him.

I had talked about both him and Peter Clark (who was recommended to me by a tutor) on the same post where I talked a lot about their collage work and how visually interesting they were. I mostly had Samuel Price in mind when I had started work on my final piece.

As part of my primary research, I had used photographs of my dog, Bouncer, and used them as reference for my final piece.

This was the primary picture that I had used to create a few collages in my book. I had taken this picture when me and my family were on holiday in Wales visiting my brother.

For the first picture, I had used newspaper and magazines to create a collage of my dog. (This was a major improvement of the first collage I had created, which I will be talking about soon.) I had to stick the newspaper and magazines together using PVA glue.

Original scanned in picture.

Photoshopped Bouncer painting. This was really time consuming to make

I then had the collage photocopied so that I could use pastel crayons to create a completely new picture all together. When I had scanned in this particular picture, it initially looked rather bleak, so I had used Photoshop so that I could use Hue/Saturation to make the picture as colourful as it was supposed to be in the first place, but much more appealing to the eye. This was the picture were I had done most of my work from. I gave the background more exaggerated colours, because the idea was to have Bouncer stand out from the background for his slightly more realistic colours.

Lastly I made another collage using mostly magazines, but this time I had rolled up the more colourful magazine pages into balls in a very similar manner to 'Pointillism'. Once again, I had to use PVA glue to glue all of the bits of rolled up paper together. I also used a bit of rubbish, (i.e. an empty chocolate wrapper that I had found on the floor) and I used it because I had thought I would use something different for this collage. Before I had used my primary research, I had done a little bit of secondary research by looking for a few pictures of staffordshire terriers that look like Bouncer, and I had used one picture as source material for my first collage.

Image courtesy of http://www.pets4homes.co.uk

I had found this picture through Google Images and decided to use it due the dog's resemblance to my own. So I had this picture printed out, stuck it into my book, and then created my first collage from it.

I had used mostly newspapers to make this picture and used PVA glue (or Pritt Stick, because my memory was a bit foggy at the time of this writing) to stick the newspaper together. I had improved from this image because this wasn't my strongest picture, seeing how the dog is barely noticeable for some people.

But as it just so happens, I had the original picture scanned in and I had decided to use Photoshop to make the dog more or less stand out from the background, thus improving the overall picture in my opinion. 

My initial idea was to be a surrealistic dada collage of most of the things that sparked my interests, (like animals, cartoons, etc.) because I had collected random images of the things that I liked and when I was learning about Dadaism in Art History Class, and doing my case study on the movement from a previous post, I had thought of using Photoshop to place some of those images and put a picture of myself with Bouncer in front of all the things I liked.

However, as the weeks were passing by, the picture that I had initially planned on making was scrapped because first of all, the picture that I was working on was mainly about Bouncer and second of all, that picture was so time consuming that it took me weeks to try and finish it of (especially when I had to come in on Thursdays and Fridays to do some extra work to make the process quicker). So when I had told my tutor about some of my plans, she suggested that I should stay focusing on my dog for my final piece, due to him being a biographical part of my life, which is fair because when me and my dad first got Bouncer, he filled in the empty void from when our previous dog, Timmy had to be put to sleep. So I did exactly as my tutor said and stuck with Bouncer being my one and only subject.

Out of all the artists that gave me some inspiration, I would have to say Samuel Price, because his dog pictures can be very interesting to look at, and the fact that even though he makes collages, his pictures tend to look a lot like traditional paintings that look very pixelated. R.B. Kitaj is another inspiration because of his versatility with different visual styles within his artwork. During the course of making this project, I had scrapped my original plan of making a surreal dada collage of me and the things that I'm interested in as stated above, but due to some guidance from my tutors, I had changed my mind about the subject matter and stuck with making pictures of my dog, as mentioned a few times before on this post. As for the picture itself, It had been very time consuming to make due to the fact that I painted the over the original scanned in picture by using another layer for the paint and kept the original as background, had another layer for the outlines to keep the colours in and used eye dropper to select some of the individual colours. 

So I had thought that in order to have this picture finished of, I had to add in a few more layers, tone down the opacity on a few of those layers, and be brave enough to use a single colour on the first new layer to colour all of Bouncer in. Plus I also used Hue/Saturation to change the colours of the entire picture to make it more exaggerated.

When I had finally finished the picture, I not only had to print out all of the screenshots that I had taken when I was working on this picture and put them into my book, but once again under the suggestion of my tutor, I had decided to create a traditional painting for my final piece, with the digital picture as a companion piece.

For my final traditional piece, I had used acrylic paints, to try and capture a similar feeling to my digital composition which pretty much already looked like a painted picture.

The original idea may not have been appropriate in and of itself due to the fact that I would've used characters that other people had created and therefore it would not have anything to do with me or my personal life. But because Bouncer is my dog and therefore a member of my family, he actually has a bit more to do with my personal life than all the media in the entire world. As for the art techniques for my pictures, they seemed alright for experimenting, so that I could try them all out, because then I would develop my versatility as an artist.

My final idea is alright, because once again, my dog is a personal part of my life. The overall painting that I had finished has turned out nicely as well, because I had worked really hard on it, trying to put a lot of effort and concentration into the final product. But the colours on the Photoshop piece, though well made can be a bit constricted, because I never let the colours flow due to the outline that I had drawn over it in a separate layer.

I think I might have somewhat answered all of theses questions as thorough as I could, because these are pretty straight forward answers in my opinion.

The qualities of my pictures tend vary with how visually different they all tend to be, especially my final hand painted piece, or at least that's what I believe. Most of my pictures tend to have been pretty decent at best, I really like to use bright and vibrant colours sometimes, mostly because they bring in a positive sense of simplicity. (I love the colour green mostly, and my favourite shade would have to be lime, because I like the unique brightness and creativity it can bring to my pictures.) In my spare time, I tend to do sketches and doodles, because the more I draw the better I improve, and if I had the chance to I would scan these sketches in and colour them in on both Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.The tonal qualities of my pictures tend to mostly be bright, because the quality of my work should always have a positive impact on everybody. For my traditional final piece (the one I painted) the texture has a rough feeling due to the fact that I had used a wooden board, with white painted over it.

My biggest strength would have to be how much detail I have put into the final picture, and the strong vibrant colours that I had to convey. My weaknesses would have to be the fact that I had never really been very connected to the artists that I had done my research on, and the fact that the colours on my digital piece don't interact together due to the black outline keeping them inside the picture, but my biggest strength would have to be how much time and effort I had dedicated into the production of the finished digital piece.

To improve the digital picture, I would have to get rid of the outline, just so that the colours would flow together. I would've also spent a lot more time trying to make the picture as much more detailed as I could if I had a lot more time. My traditional piece is fine and I honestly don't think there is any room for improvement for it, so it's all good.

And that is all that I have got to say on my evaluation, sorry if it's a bit lengthy, but I really had a lot to say about both my final pieces. So until next time, I will see you in the next blog post and have a nice summer!

Dadaism Case Study

Hello everybody! I have been on holiday for the past two weeks, so I didn't get around to doing this blog post until right about now, because now is a good enough time to start doing my case study on an art movement known as Dadaism.

Dadaism was an art and literary movement that peaked in Zurich, Switzerland between 1916-1922, before the Second World War began in 1939. The movement was considered to rebel against the war, politics and the government. This movement would soon spread around internationally, even after WWII was over in 1945, to places from Europe to New York City. Dadaism more often than not, overlaps quite well into surrealism, because sometimes the art and literature can have a sort of surrealistic feeling from time to time. It should be noted that Dadaism had actually influenced Surrealism as the artists had to think up ideas for artwork by trying not to think and let their imagination speak for itself. The surrealists had intended to continue the idea of a stream of the human conscience.

The key people that both pioneered and involved themselves with this movement were Hugo Ball, Emmy Hennings, Hans Arp, Raoul Hausmann, Hannah Hoch, Johannes Baader, George Grosz, Tristan Tzara, Richard Huelsenbeck, Beatrice Wood, Hans Richter, (who considered Dadaism 'anti-art'.) Marcel Duchamp (who's work were highly influential towards the development of conceptual art.) and several others. They had wanted this 'anti-art' form to be rather abstract, similar to Cubism, but they had wanted to do something new, while borrowing a lot of it's main influences from Abstraction and Expressionism, with Cubism becoming a part of it's influence later on (and to a lesser extent, 'Futurism'.) Dadaism can come in different forms of art including 2D and 3D collage (assemblage), photo-montage, (which are satirical collages that are created by using photographs.) and ready-mades (which are basically objects that the artists would purchase, modify it into something new and declare that object as art.) The public was at first disgusted by how the artwork was displayed-which was what the artists were initially encouraging at the time. This was due to the artists wanting to provoke the public on purpose, and then it got people into a huge debate of questioning what art really was.

Here are some famous examples of Dadaist "artwork".
This piece is a 'Readymade'

Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917, Photograph by Alfred Stieglitz

This "fountain" has had a lot of influence in the world of art, because it was actually a urinal that the artist had just bought so that he could sign his own name onto the urinal and call it art. It caused a lot of critics and observers to question if this was truly art or not, but at the same it change almost everybody's perspective of what art really was. This urinal was intended as a conceptual piece of art were Duchamp took an object that had a specific context and changed it's meaning and gave it a new context. This piece of work had pretty much introduced the idea of conceptual art into the art universe.

"It has become the work that removed art to the cerebral realm from the physical – or the “retinal” as Duchamp liked to call it – enabling Minimalism, Conceptualism, Performance Art and just about every other significant development of the past half century. It is the work, in short, that got art where it is today." 
(Quote from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-features/9842887/Marcel-Duchamp-His-influence-is-still-everywhere-in-contemporary-art.html)

In other words, every art movement that was developed in the early twentieth century has been influenced by Duchamp's idea that art comes from the mind, and through physical means.

This another Readymade'

Marcel Duchamp, L.H.O.O.Q. 1919, original "Mona Lisa" by Leonardo Da Vinci, 1517

This another iconic picture that had further influenced the concept of art. It is the famous painting of the Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci, but this piece was altered by having facial hair added in by Duchamp. What would normally be considered vandalism if it were done illegally, is actually just an example of artists altering well known pieces of work and putting them into their own image just for their own benefit. The bigger meaning behind this piece was that the artist himself was basically telling the public that they have no resect for art anymore.

This an assemblage'

Raoul Hausmann, Mechanical Head, assemblage, circa 1920

With this piece of art made by Raoul Hausmann, whom was the leader of the Dadaist group in Berlin, "Mechanical Head" is an assemblage piece that represents the artist's fear of technology advancing. The work was created by using a wooden mannequin that he had bought from a shop, with a few things attached to it, such as a wooden ruler, a piece of metal, a tape measure, a tin cup and a spectacles case. These random objects are a visual reference to how the human mind basically works, the watch symbolizes our perception of time, and the tape measure symbolizes how we use our rational thought to quantify the world, because the Dadaists believe that the human worshiping of logical thinking is took us into war.

This a photomontage'

Raoul Hausmann, ABCD (self portrait), photomontage  from 1923-24

Within this photo-montage poster, the artist is trying to convey a some social commentary about how authority rules our lives and how we as a society are all expected to conform to the standards of the capitalist government, what with all the resources that we use every day to survive in our world. Like most photo-montages, this was created using some actual photographs and cards and posters that were more than likely to have been made for propaganda in the media.

So in conclusion, Dadaism is an art form that not only encourages people to create artwork by mashing up various sources through different media, (even though the original intention was to satirize political agendas and the war,) it is also a basically fun method to express yourself through art, even if it were for more controversial reasons to other artists.

And now this it is time for me to move on towards my FMP, so see you in the next blog post.

Biographical Artists Research part 4 - Samuel Price and Peter Clark

Hello everybody! In this blogpost, I'am doing something a little bit different. Instead of talking about one artist, I'am going to be talking about two separate artists. The reason I'm doing this is because both of these artists both have very similar styles of artwork. So without further adieu, here are the artists.

Here's the first one!

5'1.) Samuel Price

Samuel Price and his dog Buster.

Samuel Price is an artist from San Francisco who specializes in making collages. He uses recycled magazines to create his artwork because using recycled materials is more accessible for him to use. His most common pieces of his artwork tend to feature dogs, though he does other artwork with people, equestrian horses (not to be confused with the fictional world 'Equestria' from the cartoon show "My Little Pony Friendship is Magic", assuming there are any bronies reading this article), other animals, still life art, abstracts and landscapes all of which you can see on his Pinterest at http://www.pinterest.com/mydogcollage/. Now allow me to show you some of what I think are his best pictures.

Rhodesian Ridgeback

Blue Staffy (My name for the picture)

Beagle

American Bulldog

Blue Dog (Boxer)

Redwood Beagle

Blue Pointer

Portland

Saluki

Boston Terrier

I think these pictures are good because I like the way Mr. Price had cut the magazines that he uses and turns the pieces into squares. This in my opinion, gives the pictures a more pixelated feel to them. I also like the use of colours in some of his collages as sometimes they are bright, vibrant and unrealistic colours, which can give the pictures a more surrealistic and emotional atmosphere, while other times, the colours are more true to life, but at the same time they are much more brighter and slightly exaggerated. Some of the pictures can even look like paintings, like the picture of the Saluki dog up above.

Now as for the other artist.

5'2.) Peter Clark

Peter Clark (born 1929 in Simons Town, South Africa) is a much more highly accomplished and versatile visual artist who also works with collages, but he works with a more wide variety of media like newspapers, maps, construction paper and other resources. Before working as a collage artist, he was best known for both his graphic prints and his woodcuts and he still created much more colourful pictures. He was also at some point involved in literature as an internationally acclaimed writer and poet. Being alive for many decades, he has unsurprisingly create a large number of artwork that has been displayed in so many exhibitions.

Here are some of pictures.

Like with Samuel Price above, most of Peter Clark's pictures feature dogs, and like Price, they also feature other animals as well. He also creates collages of clothes, (mainly dresses) just to add in some variety into his work. Clark's overall compositions are very well crafted, because as mentioned above he uses a wide variety of different media. His collages have a bit of a three dimensional feel to them, it helps that he actually puts different layers of paper over pieces of cardboard (at least that's my hypothesis on a bit of the process on how he works). Clark himself claims that growing up in South Africa inspires him to create art, which is a good motivation for him to go by whenever he gets inspiration to create art. 

So overall, both Peter Clark and Samuel Price create the most intriguing pieces of collage that I'll ever see in my life. They both use this medium to creative effect, bringing in excellent results, both their collages have a wide variety of colours that really bring in the viewers attention and the amount of work they put into these collages must really be a lot of hard work, so there must be a lot of effort put into their work.

And that's all that I wanted to say about Samuel Price and Peter Clark's artwork, I will see you all in the next blogpost.