Feedback on Assignment 3

The drawing blindfold project was weak and it was suggested that I look at the work of Claude Heath. There are some great loose free abstract lines and it was immediately apparent that I had given up on my drawings too quickly. This is a consistent theme with my work I need to keep pushing a failed drawing as perseverance is where the improvements and discoveries are made. I found Heaths work difficult to get close to without a written explanation but fortunately I found one here and here. The use of an anchor in the form of a blob of Blu Tac would definitely change the way that a blind drawing evolves. Heath also says "skill in drawing was something to be on my guard against, that it could replace meaningful content if you were not careful" This is a completely different approach to drawing to me, and maybe represents a more academic or educated approach to making art? 
I had another go, first using the Blu Tac anchor and a random purple felt tip.

The anchoring helped with the drawing of the lamp but its still stilted dull and squiggly. You might like it but I found it very unsatisfying. The thinner lines were Bic biro, still very squiggly but the computer mouse (mid right hand side) might hint at something more interesting. Part of the problem is that the drawings are too small, though if it gets too big I won't be able to stop myself seeing what I'm doing without some more technical equipment. These are biro again, about A3 size, I abandoned the Blu tac which was distracting me with it's stickiness;

 This one works best, the multiple lines give a feeling of movement and fractured views

This is more like a bike but not detailed enough, again I stopped too soon. Once you've looked at the drawing the spell is broken and you can't continue in the same way, the relationship with the resumed drawing is different. In both drawings things worked best when I relinquished control and let my hand move freely from the arm rather than fiddling. I can see potential here but it still don't find the process of creation satisfying enough to hold my interest. I might try this again when I need a creative kick.

For the Drawing Machines project my tutor suggested I look at Tim Knowles  specifically his drawings made by trees Its a great idea but I don't feel that they make enough movement to get an interesting enough trace. I prefer his drawings made by the movement of cars which create some interesting lines and curves, controlled but random, and the Nightwalks photos which are atmospheric and beautiful. The variety of his ideas are exciting.
My tutor asked what is the role of the artist when using a drawing machine? They are the generator of the ideas but also the editor of the finished product, choosing what and what not to include. Photography plays an important role in this sort of art, documenting the project but also creating visually pleasing images of the set up which may be more interesting than the finished drawing. Again there is the theme of loosing control which makes a more fluid drawing and a more interesting response.

Other Artists;

Barbara Dougan  

A variety of projects around the theme of "threat, constraint, resistance and adaptation" Channel your angst involves the the participants constructing of the web that constrains them. They seem to find it enjoyable, like a three dimensional version of the childrens' game Twister. the project demonstrate how we create our own boundaries. There are some bold charcoal drawings in the film from her project Fitting In which involved occupying the Minories Art Gallery in Colchester. It is interesting how she takes the drawings project further using film and performance. The smudgy results of her Action Drawings seem more valid when set alongside the film of her and Darren Ellis writhing in charcoal in the gallery and if this is viewed through the themes of constraint and resistance it is an understandable response. I became a bit impatient with the film, I preferred watching them occupying the gallery where different angles views and times are played out concurrently on a divided screen. It held my attention as I tried to link the action between the frames. I am interested in the details of ordinary daily life which so often goes unnoticed and I felt like a spy watching a security camera.

Diogo Pimentao 

Sticking with charcoal I was immediately attracted to Length(Fraction) it's even more interesting when you see how it was made, dramatic and physical. (Then I got distracted by geometric shapes at Polyhead) There are different shapes made by different folds but you have to work through the websites to see them. His work is very geometric and simple. There are some three dimensional sheets which peel off the wall. I'm not so taken with the planks or columns but I guess that they may have more presence in real life.

Lucy Skaer

I usually start my research by Googling the artist then looking at images to see if anything catches my eye. With Lucy Skaer I'm struggling a bit. A lot of busy looking images come up on first search. I did find this piece about a film which does sound interesting. I looked at her pages in Vitamin D which led me to a more interesting set of drawings. I'm squeamish and a bit disturbed by her drawings of corpses which feels like an imposition on the newly dead but if I forget that then A Problem in Seven Parts is visually appealing. Should I be responding to the back story and the meaning of a piece or my gut reaction to what I see? The two are often very different. this drawing has similarities to Diorgo Pimentao's monochrome work, I'm not sure what it is called as I found it by Googling Bevelled Map 2004 which gives me a completely different set of pictures than what I have in my book.

Study Visit - William Kentridge at the Whitechapel Gallery

This was an OCA organised visit which, luckily, was on a Sunday when I wasn't working. William Kentridge has appeared in the course at various times and it was great to see his work in real life rather than on a screen or in a book.

The show consisted of drawings, books, tapestries, installations and animations and was mesmerising, I missed the get together discussion at the end because I was so engrossed in the films. The first room was the piece that I found most interesting. A mixture of a mechanical bellows that silently beat out time throughout the projection and a series of films which played out around the walls. I particularly liked the procession shadow figures which went from carnival mode to refugees and the soft feint lines used to define the different figures when they overlapped.. Thought provoking and topical. Kentridge packed a lot in to this piece and it would have been good to watch it through more than once as I'm sure that there were many details that I missed.  It is said that his works political and I felt a tension in the pieces. A sense of unquiet and brooding storm. I suspect that there is a level of understanding of his works that can only be reached with a familiarity with politics, particularly South African politics, but without that knowledge it is possible to feel his frustration with an unequal regime and that is not confined to South Africa.

Sketchbook drawings from the day

He is clearly fascinated with how things appear when film is played backwards, maybe wishing to undo past actions or events. He also uses very simple techniques to get his message across, film in the style of flip books and animations made by erasing and redrawing. His drawings are bold, gestural, and lively. There was lots to think about in the way of techniques to convey a message.

The erased charcoal animations were the most interesting technique and the project from the last section "An emotional response" wasn't very good. Referencing Kentridges technique I made a very short and rather poor quality video on my phone.

The technique needs a lot of work to take it further but has potential....

Part 4 - Project 2: Interacting with the environment

I walk in these woods two or three times a week with my dog. It was a rainy day mid morning so that most of the dog walkers had been and gone which gave me a bit of space to think.

To get in the right frame of mind I started by plaiting the ivy. You can't really see any difference and the wind unplaited it while I continued my walk.

There was a angled branch which made a good support for a sort of cairn of sticks, the sort of thing children and survivalists make on a large scale to shelter from the elements. Pleasingly it was still there when I walked the same woods a few days later.
I tried a few tentative interventions, lining up sticks and tying fallen leaves to a branch which were uninspiring and difficult to photograph. Then I found this fallen branch which had a partial saw cut which supported a few twigs

The twigs should either all be the same length or evenly gradated to get bigger or smaller or form a wave like the fence from the previous exercise.

The same tree trunk had a hollow and there were some berries on the floor close by.

This is a bit better. It would be nice to gather a larger number of berries and fill a bigger hollow in another tree or better still a pothole in the road...

Some larger berries fitted into the hollows of another tree stump with some twigs and a leaf

It's not a sophisticated response but something that could be developed further. I can see faces in so many abstract patterns. Maybe this could be used to attract children to the natural world?

There is a lot of fungi in the woods at the moment and some of it has holes in it so I added a bunch of fallen leaves.

Someone had dumped some rubble which included some tiles and a large block so I tiled the block.

It's rather unimpressive. It could be a comment on fly tipping or represent human interaction with the natural world but I'm not convinced.

I've been experimenting with making tracks by walking on a dew laden field. This is difficult to photograph but in this mornings bright sunlight when the dew had a touch of frost I did this.

Reflection: Make notes in your log about how you felt about making changes to the ‘real world’. What were the frustrations, what were the successes? How do you think the way the viewer experiences this kind of art differs from looking at drawings framed under glass? 

I found this difficult to do.  I don't think that I have enough conviction in what I'm doing to have the courage to be caught in the act by random passers by. This is an ordinary suburban town where art is something other people do somewhere else. I'm likely to be arrested for loitering and suspected of intention to damage or steal something. It's also much harder than you would expect to come up with a simple, visually pleasing idea using just what you find around you. Ideas are coming slowly and I need to work through them to see if I can do something more effective.

Photography is a frustration. I draw because I can see and focus on what I wanted edit out what I don't like, what is not part of my preferred view. With photographs, although it is possible to manipulate them, the initial photograph has to show the bare bones of the subject which requires a different viewpoint, literally in that I need a ladder or a drone, and mentally in that I need to look at the world in a different way.

The successes are potentials at the moment, by opening my eyes to see the possibilities around me.

I think that this sort of art is really important as a way to draw people in. Galleries can be seen as impenetrable and elitist but people who would not go into a gallery are exposed to art if they find it in the world around them. There is a sense of achievement or privilege in finding an unexpected piece of art as you go about your daily business. Work without a frame or a protective cover feels more part of the real world, you can touch it, it may be temporary, you could destroy it and nobody would stop you. Does that make the observer feel more protective of the work? More powerful? More involved?

Do you think that viewers will necessarily know that what you’ve done is art? 
No. Children playing maybe, random accident in the case of the berries and the fungi. To be honest I don't think that most people would notice anything. Partly because the brief said "make five different small drawn interactions in the environment" and they were small... and partly because people in general aren't very observant and will just amble past without noticing even quite big things ( I once met a doorman in a dock who hadn't noticed a 68ft boat moored outside....)

Tutor feedback

Does my site specific work comment on the following , and if so how?

2. a) the landscape
3. b)  scale
   
4. c)  colour
   
5. d)  form
   
6. 
   
7. e)  understanding of place 

I don't think that I have successfully commented on any of the above with the possible exception of d) form. The works, with the exception of the footprints in the dew, are very small and relate more to my feelings of insecurity at being asked to work in public. They are tentative explorations of the concept of environmental interventions. Successful works will take into account at least one of the 5 points and probably more. To do this requires more planning, more confidence and a lot more consideration as to what I am trying to achieve by making them.

Study visits - Touch. Maggi Hambling at the British Museum

I've had a few days off this week so I've taken myself on some study visits. Today I went to the British Museum to see Maggi Hambling's drawings in the exhibition Touch. There are a few images here to give you a flavour of the exhibition. I confess that I knew already that I love Hambling's work so I'm predisposed to be positive.

I think that her drawings of people are more successful than her sea drawings but I guess the sea drawings are preparatory works for her paintings which are brilliant but for me the drawings don't work as pieces in their own right.

She makes many lines and marks to form a drawing as she feels her way around the shape of her subject but somehow she also manages to have an economical use of line to actually define the image. It appears that she works very fast which makes her drawings lively and energetic. Her drawings from memory are impressive and included a bull fight and her former tutor. She must have a fantastic visual memory.

I copied a few drawings in my sketch book to get the feel of them. I was particularly interested in Tory looking down which has many light lines across her face. In my hands this would make her look aged and tired but Hambling has drawn a soft feminine portrait. I can't find an online reference and my copy really doesn't do the drawing justice, go see for yourself if you are in London.

Part 4 - Project 1 - Found images

I found it difficult to get a reasonable photo of this piece of wire that had broken loose from a concrete fence. The line changed depending upon which angle it was viewed from.









Below are marks I found on the tarmac at Silverstone which I suspect were made by someone spraying something from a car and were incidental rather than deliberate. I'm not sure that they count but they seem primeval almost like cave paintings so I'm including them.

The silhouette of tree branches was given as an example in the brief for this project so I feel a bit that I'm cheating here but I was attracted to the dark lines of the branches against the canopy of leaves here.

I found these fantastically twisted branches.

 There were these fallen logs with lines of peeling bark.

and sweeping lines on the top of this tree stump which looks as though it has been painted though I'm not sure whether its some sort of rot or fungus.

Tree roots

Ivy growing up a tree.

This is another incidental man made image.

 It looks like an a semi abstract landscape. Again possibly stretching the brief a bit here.

The wind blowing the grasses and nettles at the base of this fence make sweeping lines as it scratches the weathered wood.

 

Another fence running over uneven ground reflects the line of the land beneath. (sorry not a great photo here)

This field runs alongside a small stream which burst its banks in the recent heavy rains and drew a line of leaves and debris in the grass.

If Donald Urquhart can draw in water with poles then the pillars of the Charring Cross Railway Bridge in the Thames must count as drawing too.

I made some drawings from my images. First some simple experiments prompted by the loose wires.

 I feel that there is some potential to do something with these but I haven't found it yet

The tree stump which looks like a flower, there are many repeated patterns in nature.

 the twisted branches 

 and the ripples from the bridge supports

I liked the twisted branches best so I developed the drawing using charcoal and a rubber

Best with a hint of green pastel for the background I think.

I'm quite pleased with this. It does have a rather illustrative quality, I could see it as the cover of a book or part of the forest from a children's book with furry characters hiding. It is quite old fashioned in feel, sort of Toad of Toad Hall.

Reflection

I didn't expect to but I've really enjoyed this exercise. It's a good way to find inspiration for new work and I think it could be a useful exercise when I'm uninspired and blocked to get me working again. The marks in nature are actually quite difficult to reproduce without making them look stilted and selfconcious, this is an encouragement to relax my hand and loosen up with my mark making.

Tutor feedback
Suggested that I asked myself questions about the works;

Why do I consider this a drawing/or not?
This is contentious and the answer will depend on who you ask, but for me at the moment I define a drawing as being primarily about line. Something that is created by the artist thinking about the boundaries and edges rather than mass and volumes. This is why I don't classify the side of this lorry as a drawing.

Am I looking at the landscape differently?
Yes. I'm drilling deeper into what I see, not just looking at the surface and the overall view but isolating elements and assigning different values and meaning to what I see there.
What is the difference between a found drawing and a studio drawing? 
In a found drawing you work with what you have. The art is in spotting the drawing, like a hidden shape in a children's comic. It's more like photography in that the basic elements are there whether you see them or not, they depend on the way that they are interpreted. A studio drawing is about control inventing shapes and lines, making decisions. The studio drawing may be of a found drawing but if that is the case then there is still potential for the artist to change the lines, adding something in or leaving it out. There is more choice, the lines are interpreted and translated with varying degrees of accuracy, either accidental or deliberate.

Part 4 - Environmental interventions research.

I was lucky to have been told about the BBC 4 documentary about land art, Forest Field and Sky whilst it was still available to watch online. These photos give a flavour of the programme.

Struggling to find anything much about Donald Urquhart and the link in the course notes no longer works. The only photo that I could find of Birked Scar was in this report from 2009 about the dissolution of the trust that managed the sculpture trail. There are some discussions elsewhere online about some of the sculptures looking tired and a number of initiatives to revitalise it. I guess natural sculptures which are exposed to the elements (especially in Aberdeen) need care and attention if they are to survive. I found this short piece about Glimpse in which he wrapped paper around tree trunks at the same level. This is a very simple idea which confuses the eye and makes the trees appear to float in space. There is something quite beguiling about the installation which I am struggling to pin down.  He also made Lines/Plane; Larus/Cygnus  which is difficult to fully appreciate from photographs. There are some more photos here with a descriptive explanation by Gavin Morrison. I wonder if the swans are using the plinth to nest. Donald Urquhart seems to have had some success with drawings of film stars (a more comprehensive list here) which are very graphic. Again there is a simplicity about his work, pared down, with no unnecessary detail, I suspect that they may have influenced David Downton, however his drawings are glamorous whereas Donald Urquhart's show the unglamourous and rather seedy side of celebrity. I don't know enough about the back story of Urquhart's fallen stars to understand all the references that he makes but as a group the portraits are rather depressing.

In the absence of anything concrete about Birked Scar I looked at David Nash's Ash Dome which sounds like it may be something similar. Ash Dome is clearly a labour of love tend by the artist over many years, I feel that a choice has to be made with environmental art whether the weathering process (and inevitable ultimate destruction) is part of the evolution of the piece or something to be staved off with maintenance. It's intriguing that the site should be so secret and maybe that is some of the charm of the piece. There have been some lovely photographs taken of the trees over the years which fully utilise the differences of the piece made by the weather and the seasons. In 2013 he had an exhibition at Kew. The nature of his work is shaped by the wood that he uses and it's good to see that he uses fallen trees and dead wood as his starting point rather than killing living trees.

I'm not so excited by Richard Long's  A line made by walking but you can see his process of thought as he moves on to make lines (and other shapes) with other arranged materials. His work seems to be more about the thought process and the ideas behind a piece and less about the look of the finished image (or the photograph) though A line in the Himalayas is beautiful.
Incidentally, whilst researching for the next project I found a "Line Made by Water" which is entirely natural and scoured into the track by a recent storm.

It links with Waterlines which intrigue me. They are so delicate for something made by mud. I assume that the black lines are the black paper but where did he hold the paper? there should be finger marks, and how did he keep the paper safe while travelling, avoiding folding it or rubbing the mud off it?

Tony Cragg seems to have moved away from the practice of land art but his early works are developed from quite simple ideas, I have a tendency to overcomplicate things and bring in too many elements. The figures in the photographs date them and are a distraction from the ideas (back in the 1970's we made art with stones)
I prefer his drawings http://www.tony-cragg.com/works_on_paper.php the repetitive lines and the way that they flow. Again the simplicity of the idea, repeated to emphasise it. You feel that you are looking into a vortex. After I had written this I went to the Tate and found that Stack is currently on display.

Andy Goldsworthy's work is discussed here in The Independent and here in The Guardian. He produces work that is more visually appealing than the other listed artists. It is more colourful and looks like something anyone could have done if they had thought of the idea. So often art is critiqued because it is something that anyone could do, yet I haven't seen that criticism levelled at Goldsworthy, is that because he generally manipulates the environment and sells the photos rather than making permanent works? Or is it because we know that we do not have such clever ideas and it is his ideas that he is selling. This website has a number of images of works by artists that I have studied with OCA I found it while I was looking for a good picture of Roof in the National Gallery in Washington DC which I was lucky to see for myself last year. They haven't shown a great photo in their description and I didn't take my own photo. This website has a better image. The structures appear to seep through the glass co existing with it but also defying it. Is it saying that the natural world will prevail against our flimsy man made structures?

In a woodland near me someone has installed a number of little doors in the bases of old trees which have been coppiced. There's another one that I forgot to photograph which says tooth fairy on it. They may be a bit twee but I find them charming. Is this art? The doors are beautifully made and sympathetically installed. It is bringing materials in to change the environment so I guess it's not quite the same as Goldsworthy's work but it does make you stop and look and maybe see the woodland in a different way?

Cornelia Konrads work Passage appeared on Colossal I love the way that it stops you in your tracks as you try and make sense of what you are looking at. I was also rather taken with Grass Works, it would take some work to keep the grass trimmed neatly and Precarious Time. She is an artist who succeeds in manipulating the ordinary to make you look at it more carefully. Simple ideas well executed.

Further research

Following on from the narrative project in part 2 my tutor suggested that I do further experiments drawing onto sewn materials. 
This was the first sewing randomly with random materials. 

Afterwards, linking with my parallel project  I drew the outline of a house in ink to connect the papers.
It looks better as a small image.

I found bark from a silver birch when I was out walking. It is very thin and rolls up unless secured so I sewed it onto khandi watercolour paper in the window motif from my parallel project and added a brightly coloured leaf. This is my favourite because it is simple and uncluttered.

The leaf worked really well so I sewed leaf shapes on different materials. For the base I used a thick paper serviette which I picked up when I was having a meal somewhere.

To link the different materials I flicked red and yellow paint at the picture.