Research point - Patrick Caulfield Gary Hume and negative spaces

 Patrick Caulfield and Gary Hume exhibited together at the Tate in 2013 http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/gary-hume

I did some more detailed research on Patrick Caulfield for the earlier version of Drawing 1. He was a painter and print maker who lived between 1936 and 2005. He represented objects with a black outline on a flat coloured background. In his earlier works he chose quite simple objects such as "Vases of flowers" (1963) where the complex leaves of the flowers are created in black outlines. In "Battlements" and "Coloured still life" both 1967 he simplified his techniques further.

As time went on he expanded his range to include the backgrounds such as in "Pipe" (1972) then included hyper-real elements for example in "After lunch " (1975). I'm not so keen on this piece as the fish tank and window seem out of balance with the rest of the painting. His work always had an element of abstraction because of the way he isolated individual elements from their surroundings, but he moved much more to abstraction in later years with a series of jugs and pitchers in the early 1980's and prints of white ware in 1990. These have stylised shadows and partly viewed elements to create tension such as in "Lamp and Kuan ware" or "Lung Ch’uan Ware and Black Lamp"

He didn't like the label of Pop art but it does seem very apt to me. He does appear to have been a prolific artist though the Tate website says that he was a slow worker.
His work is a combination of simple shapes both positive and negative which we read as images because we always look to make sense of what we see and fit it into our memory bank of images. I read "Lung Ch’uan Ware and Black Lamp" as a jug on a sheet of punched paper such as you would find in a ring bound sketchbook and only realised it was a lamp when I was reading about the work. I think he must have been influenced by the famous image of 2 faces that look like a lamp but his work is a lot more sophisticated than that. 

Gary Hume uses flat clocks of colour to create images such as Pecking bird or Cuckoo in the nest The negative space is necessary for us to read and understand the image.  The Guardian contrasts their work here

There are some great examples here using negative space in a graphic design context  MC Escher was a master of its use, see this Victor Varsarely was considered to be the grandfather of Op Art and did a lot of patterned work but also lots of images using zebras and negative space. There is a very irritating website so I preferred to look at his work through Bing Images

My tutor suggested I look at the work of Alighiero E Boetti and Hughie O’ Donoghue

Alighiero E Boetti Aerei (1989) is a good example of the use of negative space and I think
Hughie O’ Donoghue's work is also very dependent on the surrounding area as much as the "main" image. I like the Memory of the House  pictures but they're difficult to see in detain on line due to copyright issues. His figures also rely very much on the negative space I would love to see his work in real life as the images are quite captivating.
 
References;
http://www.patrickcaulfieldprints.info/biography.php?cur=EUR
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/patrick-caulfield-873
http://www.alancristea.com/artist-patrick-caulfield
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/artists/patrick-caulfield

And of course wikipedia (it would be rude not to!)

The older Drawing 1 asked for an image in the style of Patrick Caulfield;

I did some doodles in my sketchbook. I was inspired by the picture from a gift card and a glass vase/pot that I have so I tried different ideas with both.

I took one of the early card sketches and modified it with the computer. Is this still drawing?

 

I like the idea but I think it's strayed away from Patrick Caulfield's style.

I tried some collage

 His work is deceptively simple but difficult to replicate. Trying to do something similar certainly increases my appreciation of his skill

 I think the collage is a bit more successful but I find it really hard to cut or draw smooth curves

I took the second collage and manipulated it a bit. When I stuck the leaves/petals on I didn't get them in the same place as when I was mocking up the layout. Is the stem/curve above the pot too obvious?

Was it better without?

Trying to do something in his style certainly helped me to understand the work much better