- Liverpool Walker Art Gallery
- Preston Harris Museum & Art Gallery
- Manchester City Art Gallery
Along with my visits to the exhibitions I began researching into a few artists whose styles and techniques had caught my eye and I wanted to recreate for myself. The idea to use Van Gogh's style came to me during my visit to the Walker. I really like his style particularly in 'Starry Night' & 'Country Road in Provence by Night'. I chose these works for the way in which paint and colour is applied by Van Gogh and the way in which that it looks like there is a movement within the painting through this colour.
To begin with for my FMP I took the image of the crucifixion and began exploring the style of Vincent Van Gogh. I started by using black and white acrylic in order to make my marks within this prelim, I wasn't aware when I started doing this just how time consuming it would be in order to build up tone using dashes. It took me quite some time to complete this A4 prelim but I was very pleased with the end result and whilst still being a rough interpretation of a Van Gogh's style it was a starting point for me to begin working from.
Continuing on my first prelim I began working on two others simultaneously working on one whilst the other dried. I brought colour into my exploration of Van Gogh's style but scaled down the size of the prelim in order to save on the time in which it takes to complete a prelim working in this style. Another artists who's style I tried for myself was that of Joseph Ray York. Whilst I found his style harder to work with trying to mix the right consistency of the paint to get a particular type of mark on the page, I found his style to more enjoyable to play around with. That being said it's a style of working where less is definitely more and I think for my first attempt at this I should have held back a bit more with my mark making.
This prelim was the last one that I did in the style of Van Gogh or in the style of any other artist for that matter. I scaled up for this piece as working small isn't something that appeals to me and I tried to recreate the same style using larger marks to build up tone. Whilst some areas worked really well like the circle of tone that is pictured above this precise mark making is better suited for smaller scale compositions in my opinion.
Following on from my prelims I had a discussion with one of my tutors about where I was at with my work and he advised me that I wasn't allowing my own artistic style to shine through and I was imitating the style of another artist as opposed to making that style my own. Following his advice I began looking back at the work I completed for the mark making project at the start of the year and I drew this style of mark making into my new work.
http://adamthomasaspiringartist.blogspot.co.uk/p/personal-development-plan.html
Above is the link to the page with all my mark making project work documented within it.
Proposal
For my F.M.P I am expanding on my previous project where I looked at icons and took the images of celebrity icons and recreated them in my own abstract style. Whereas I previously only focused on celebrities, I am broadening my horizon in this project and looking at all forms of ‘icons’ such as computer graphics, pictograms and religious paintings. I also want to go down a route that is more personal to me such as iconic relationships in my own life like family and friends. I am aiming to produce a series of non-functional outcomes recreating images and a visual dialogue of these ‘icons’ in a range of styles and techniques.
To influence me in this project I am looking at a range of artists for their particular styles and techniques that they implement in their own works or based on their status as an ‘icon’ themselves. Artists I have chosen include, Vincent Van Gogh for his impressionist style, Joseph Ray York and Ann Deutermann for their abstract figurative style as figures are going to feature quite heavily in my work being the most obvious example of ‘icons’. To gather primary research and help me in generating ideas for my outcomes I am going to the Liverpool Walker Art Gallery, the Harris Museum & Art Gallery and also Manchester City Art Gallery. I have chosen these places for their collections consisting of religious iconic paintings as these are a good starting point for one aspect of my work.
During this project I am going to experiment with a range of styles and techniques taken from the artists that I have chosen to look and also expanding on some of the abstract techniques that I began to play around with in my previous project. For my final outcomes I will be exploiting the techniques that I feel work best for the scale and subject of the compositions I choose to take forward for the exhibition that we will be putting on at Cross Streets studio in Standish. I will be using a combination of acrylic and oil paints for my work in this project as there of benefits to using both, acrylic blends well together whereas with oil different coloured brush strokes stand out well against each other.
At the end of this project I will be able to evaluate the work I have done throughout and the work that I choose to have exhibited at the gallery, analysing the strong points and points that could have been done in a differently and the possible outcomes that could arise from these changes if there are any.
After my discussion with my tutor I began working on much larger scale prelims, for my first I still retained the image of the crucifixion that I had been using for my all prelims prior to this one but instead of imitating another artist I imitated my own style of working with the quick emotive marks that I made. Since my theme for the project is 'icons' it seemed only fitting to be working largely.
I wanted to step away from the focus of the crucifixion as a religious painting isn't the only thing that can be labelled as an 'icon'. For these prelims I wanted to draw on something more personal to me, and that is exactly what the subjects for these became. I used pictures so that I could get the rough outline of the figures. The prelim pictured on the left was done in the same style as my crucifixion prelim but whereas the marks I made followed one entire circle, this was done with three. Two different tones of yellow for the figures circling out from the centre of the individual figures and the background was done circling out from the top left corner. The blue prelim followed the same steps to completion as the crucifixion prelim so I experimented with having different points of origin for the circular mark making in order to see how it looked. The difficultly with doing this was with the breaks in the background and I would have to try and keep the angle consistent either side of the foreground, but I couldn't use the direction of the marks in the foreground to help me with this like I had done previously.
Starting on canvas was incredibly exciting as it was something that I had never done before. I wanted to explore my emotive style of mark making even further for my canvasses and drop the subject matter of my prelims. As this canvas was being done using the emotion behind the crucifixion I used relatively thick paint to create the initial marks the using water to cause the paint to drip down, I always squeezed paint directly from the tube and dabbed my paintbrush into it spreading it out slightly in order to create texture within my canvas.
For the base layer of this canvas I continued with using relatively thick yellow and green paint but refrained from using water to create a dripping effect throughout. Instead using the cardboard from an old roll of tissue I began to pull away the green paint revealing aspects of yellow paint underneath. My aims for this canvas was to play and explore different mark making techniques and see what comes of that, unlike the red canvas I had no preconceptions about what I wanted to do with it.
Like my red canvas was going to be based on my crucifixion prelim this blue canvas was inspired by my blue prelim. Here I thinned my paint and applied it in a softer more flowing manner more like a wash. I worked on these three canvasses at the same time so I wouldn't have to stare at the same canvas all the time making it easier to see what was working and what would need to be over painted.
Back at college I continued working with my canvasses layering over what had previously been done. After applying my first layer to the canvasses I used tissue to mop most of the paint on the floor, after leaving the tissue it became very hard and I used this to add texture. Starting small only using a small amount of tissue this expanded across the width of the canvas and grew even further down the length of my canvas. After sometime I stepped back from the canvas recognising that enough tissue was in place and began lathering it with a watered down PVA glue to secure it to the canvas and to stiffen up the rest of the tissue.
Sticking with watered down paint for this canvas I applied an orange layer over the blue but so that the orange wouldn't take over completely I got hands on with it and began pushing the paint and dragging it around to bring the blue layer back through, I then left this to dry completely as it was impossible to work over whilst the paint was wet.
I returned to my red canvas and began applying vicious marks on top of the background. I describe the marks as vicious because I was using the paintbrush in a violent way to get the paint onto the canvas, the paint I used was relatively thin so that it would not just drip down the canvas but would also splash around the point of impact. I also squeezed red paint directly from the tube onto the canvas and then rapidly spread it left to right as it dragged down the canvas.
I started working on another canvas similar in style to my blue canvas in that the back ground was applied as a wash of yellow colour, I didn't even try to cover the entire canvas with this as I knew that all the white would eventually be covered up anyway. Before it had time to dry I mixed a small amount of yellow-green paint with water and then poured this in a line on the canvas. The water then started to spread and mix with the yellow paint. Luckily working on this canvas on the floor allowed me to tip it in all four directions so that the paint would drip these ways.
I felt as though this canvas had too much green within it so I went over it with red paint, squeezing it out the tube in a circular motion. I fanned it out with a brush and continued with it down the entire length of the canvas. I also added more drips in red to go over the top of the green drips and left the canvas to dry out. The canvas wasn't completed but I'd reached a point with it where I was unsure of where to take it next.
Progression on my yellow canvas happened quite quickly and it wasn't long before I had a direction that I wanted to take it in. I started off by applying soft curved lines and left these to drip down down the canvas and then to dry naturally. I wanted to introduce shapes into my canvas to break up the background so I took the shapes from a necklace that I always wear. The symbol of 'The Deathly Hallows' from 'Harry Potter' something that is an icon in itself.
I added the image of the crucifixion figure that I had used throughout my prelims to my red canvas, I did this to add to the layers of my canvas it wasn't my intention to have the figure be the main subject but just another layer.
Like I had done with the orange previously I worked on top of this canvas with a lighter hue of blue, the orange layer still came through this pretty well so I didn't need to pull away any of the blue paint in order to reveal the layer below.
Concealing the figure became my next priority. I didn't want the figure to be completely covered to the point were it could no longer be seen but was more like an impression of the figure. I achieved this by adding the only watered down layer of paint to the canvas, pouring it onto and throwing it at the canvas.
I was discussing this canvas with my tutor what to do next with this canvas and he suggested adding a block of solid colour. I added the yellow and the blue blocks of colour to the canvas to break up the mass of green and red that was present within it. These solid blocks didn't detract from the green and red but instead enhanced the way they looked and drew the eye toward them more.
I started two new canvasses but instead of doing two separate canvasses I did them together replicating a mark done on one canvas onto the other keeping them close to symmetrical. Starting with watered down blue green paint and leaving it to drip down the canvas, then using paint thickened with PVA glue and this was left to drip before it dried adding a range of texture to the top corner of the canvas.
For this layer on my canvas I used both blue and orange paint together but was more selective in where I would be making the marks as opposed to covering the entire canvas. Sometimes it can be difficult to step away from a piece of work and recognise when it has reached a level of completion, this is a canvas I would have happily continued to work on adding more layers to it but I am glad that this is the point that I left it as I feel it is a strong canvas this way.
I returned to my deathly hallows canvas and began layering more and more of the same three shapes over the top of each other. Some shapes I chose to fill in and the rest were left as linear marks, all done in a variety of green hues.
For my pair of canvasses I wanted to implement the mark making that I had taken from my mark making project. I applied the paint in the same fast way that I had always done but whereas previously I used warm thick paint fitting with the mood of the brush strokes I used a cool green colour so that even though the marks were made erratically the canvasses were quite calming to look at.
Copying the mark making I used for my orange and blue canvas I poured yellow water over the canvas and the began dragging my hands through it pulling the yellow away from the surface of the canvas. After this had dried I went over the yellow with a watered down lilac colour like I had done for all the previous layers.
The majority of the red wash that I applied previously to this canvas had almost entirely come away from the canvas revealing more of the figure than I had intended. Over this I applied thick shapes made up of various hues of orange mixed with PVA glue and left it to drip down the canvas.
To finish off my deathly hallows canvas I repeated the two previous steps but swapped round the colours, applying the lilac as a wash and manipulated it around the canvas with my hands. The yellow paint which I used for the shapes that went over the lilac wash acted more to highlight some of the purple shapes that were underneath the wash.
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| 'Myself as an Icon' (2014) |
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| 'Iconic Friendships' (2014) |
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| 'Icon - Deathly Hallows' (2014) |
The opening night of our exhibition was amazing, having family, friends, the artists at Cross Street and even some people that we didn't know at the exhibition was a great feeling. Hearing what people had to say about our work was great because it isn't often that we do get to hear the opinions of others outside of our peer group and tutors at college, you can show people photos of work but it isn't the same for them as seeing the work right in front of them. One gentleman expressed great interest in my work and was happy to hear me explain the ins and outs of how I got to the point that I did. It was a massive confidence boost for me having someone show such an interest in my work since I had previously specialised in textiles and was rather uncertain in my skills as an artist. I am incredibly grateful to the artists at Cross Street who gave us the opportunity to put on a fantastic show and everyone who took the time to come to the exhibition itself, it was a great experience and one I won't forget.
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