Asian Armies

Revamping shirts and 'armies'

First pic is of me wearing black linen shirt with black cotton armie underneath about a year ago and 4 stone heavier.

Then follows pics of armies too big on, then made smaller, the linen shirt made smaller with some complicated darts.  Lastly a couple of shirts made smaller simply by taking in sides 3" each doen to bust or waist then leaving flare out of original size at hip level.

Artist friend Victoria Kiff is now becoming more known - I have bought3 of her works over the last couple of years.

She has now had 3 major magazine articles and increasingly more exhibitions.  I wish her well of course, but I also think my investment was good.  This was in one of the major home decorating magazines.  Hers is the top right mixed media - print/drawing/painting/collage.

Latest DegreeArt gallery, vyner st preview - portraits

I had meant to book 1 hr session to have portrait done but missed it.   U didnt have to buy but at least half were bought, £80, by the time of the preview on Tuesday.  Have been tweeting to get enough people to put name down to get artist, Ellie Young, to come back from Cardiff to do another few days, tho it would have been nice to be part of the original 'event'.  She did all these portraits over a few weeks.  Quite an event.

Fantastic app on Colour

By Yale University Press.  For ipad only i think.  Download free version to see what it is about.  Pay £6.99 for full interactive version.  It's basically the whole of Albers Classic book on colour theory that I was introduced to in my summer school class on colour.  Is going to take a while to get thru but a good reference i think.  Will see my teacher next week and ask his opinion.

It's interactive so u can read text then drag or change colours to apply theory or see how it works.

http://yupnet.org/interactionofcolor/

Last of the Vyner St workshops - Deconstructing Deconstructions! with Patrick Simkins

Warning this wont make sense and the pictures are all at different angles as its just to remind me and I cant be bothered rotating pics.  I have included 2 works by the teacher who was an artist for the Olympics last year - a painting of athletes, and a head of a girl made with torn up paper pieces pined onto board.

The days was very freeing and results were surprising.  Will def try some more, some also in photoshop perhaps.

1. Looked at how representational art has been deconstructed thru the various art movements starting with impressionism and how current artists are doing it.

2. Drew in pencil a still life, 4 times under various restrictions - 40 secs, one continous line tc.

3. Drew portrait of person sitting next to us on top of 2 of the still lives

4. On 1 of these and one of the still lives with no portrait, traced geometric shaped cards - square, circle  etc.

5. The 2 pics without geometric shapes, we cut in half to give 4 halves.  On 2 halves coloured in contrasting colour with oil pastels.

6. Swapped a half with neighbour, taped to our own half then drew over it.

7. Coloured one of last 2 halves then cut into strips.  Kept 1/3 then putmrest into communal pile, taking back enough to glue onto a blank sheet to create a strip owrk.

8. On reamining 2 whole works that we have drawn geometrics on, we cuts out the shapes then used rest of the drawing a cuttout to place over strip picture to create new works reminiscent of some famous works we were shown - cant remember names at moment.

D

A timely e newsletter from Making a Mark blog on Colour

I shall be investigating this handy link to colour information both online and best books.

makingamark.blogspot colour guides

Intense pencils and blocks on fabric

I have intense pencils and blocks, so must try this and as author says, heat set on a sample to make sure it sets.

http://www.quiltingdaily.com/blogs/quilting-daily/. a-new-method-for-painting-on-fabric-tips-for-using-inktense-blocks.

Inroduction to Colour 1 day. Last of the summer schools

In the morning we we did analogue, complimentary and dominant colours in watercolour, tho mywatercolour  scene didn't work well. 

  In the afternoon learnt about colour mixing in oils using restricted colours to avoid muddiness and allowing colours to mix on the paper.  Its a really exciting idea and i now want to test it with variations on whites and greys.  The body i did worked better.  The idea is take only 3 colours (not primary, not too many earthy, not too similar, but strong and bright colours good).  Mix them to produce 7 colours, then add white to half of each of these 7 to produce lighter version and end up with 14 colours.  Because only started with 3 colours, means all the colours are related so will not turn muddy.   This rule applies to pastels because they all contain white so work well together.

Notes done in class:

True primary colours are Magenta, Cyan, Yellow (some paint ranges have these and of course are used on computers) and their secondaries are red, blue, green. 

Computer colours are additive, ie add them all together and u eventually get white.

Painting colours are subtractive, ie they add up to black.

Harmony in colour

1. Analogue - start with one colour, add another to make new, add another to make next etc.  these next to each other should harmonise.

2. Complimentary - opposite on colour wheel.  Look vibrant agsinst each other, eg red and green.

3. Dominant - full strength colour thru the various stages of watering down.

Two handouts pdfs to be added.

Two books: