Art and Time

Can’t believe that the first year of college has passed so quickly and has already come to an end.  I think the end of year show coinciding with my birthday amplified my awareness of the passage of time.  Yet another year notched up and as usual, just an ordinary day marked only by my knowledge of having a different age attached and the acquisition of a new stock of chocolate from the sproggies.

I did however keep myself busy and spent the day doing a piece of homework for my daughter with marker pens on one of the class’s current themes of graffiti art.

The owl is the school logo rather than the influence of some weird fashion trend that currently appears on clothes and bags.  Of course the teacher knew I did it but seemed happy to have what she said was her ‘own’ picture, which I assume was in reference to the teacher next door that still has the watercolour illustration I did last year on his wall.  

That’s one thing that has occurred to me in terms of drawings and paintings,…..the longevity of them.  I mean potentially anything I produce now could last way past me and as long as the materials used on them will.  That’s assuming that they don’t get destroyed or used for anything else that a canvas could get used for.  A tea tray?, wind break? Trampoline for small pets?

I wonder how long this one will last?

.....until someone gets fed up of storing something that takes up too much room and collects dust I expect.  Well it’s not like me to plan ahead but I will paint car boot sized canvases, for the immediate future at least.  Hmmm, now I still have to get this one out of college somehow.

Project 3 : Mum (the queen) painting

Can't seem to photograph the colours quite right.  I'm sure it wasn't quite this green.  My biggest one yet.  Measures approx 4' x 5'5".  Measured it today to see if it would fit in the car.

Patrick Hughes

I love Patrick Hughes reverse perspective paintings.  I like the idea of messing with perception and things not being how they seem.  They are a kind of surrealist op art and quite simple yet very clever at the same time I think.  I'd love to see some of them in person.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-OuPNZmX-0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TGYzo0J-A4

Project 2: The begining

I've spent the last couple of days scouring websites and reading up on moulding and casting materials.  It seems there is nothing you can't make providing you can sift through the mountain of information on materials and techniques, oh, and you can afford to buy it all of course.  I find it all very exciting but at the same time I'm quite befuddled by the different types of materials including resins.  I did buy some general purpose polyester resin as polyester stuff is what I was familiar with, having spent some of my childhood encapsulating any unsuspecting bug in the water clear kind.  What a cruel child I was, but I did move on to making polymer clay models and casting them instead.  What does amaze me, with all of the health and safety data included these days, is how it was non existent then.  This was in a kid's craft set back in the 70s and I did this in my parent's kitchen, well, before being sent to play in the garage.  The stuff stinks, in a real toxic kind of way, they recommend masks now and I used to get covered in it.  It would never wash off, instead turning black from all of the fluff and dirt that adhered to its stickiness.  Well what I didn't know then, but do now is that acetone will do the job.  So anyway, this is very much an experimental journey, and not being ready to get plastered or unleash the smelly toxic resin fumes, I thought I would dig out these hand casts I did a couple of years ago with alginate and crystacast, and start by trying to seal them with the idea of then applying test materials, hopefully stiffen them (somehow) with the intention of pulling the material back off and it retaining the cast form.  So far they have had a coat of shellac.

My kitchen that has gradually been morphing into a studio is now going to become a workshop too I'm thinking.  Ah well, eating is overrated.

During my searches I came across this useful site, (for me anyway) and there is an interesting bit on the resin casting of Rachel Whiteread's 'Monument'.

http://www.smooth-on.com/gallery.php?galleryid=173

Project 1. The Piper painting

This composition was based around the penny whistle player that sometimes sits on Queen’s road.  He looks to be a homeless person as his clothes are grubby and even his shoes appear to have been repaired with glue and hand stitching.

Original reference photo

I liked the idea of making him the focal point as this seems to be the opposite of the reality, where as a rule the public tend to ignore people like this who seem to be on the outskirts of society.  I was looking at the aspect that he is not fully involved in the system and for whatever reason he doesn’t fully participate in a usual or expected role in society.  However, to me he appeared quite content and happy.  He was more than happy for me to take photos, even playing more each time I brought the camera up to my eye.  So in my painting I wanted to portray this, him being quite happy, opting out, content while watching all of the others rushing around.  To further emphasise this point I put a businessman going up some steps to the side of him.  The businessman I purposely made nondescript, as he was representative.  I wanted to make him seem to disappear into greyness and darkness of office world by using flat grey tones with little definition and contrast around the top of him.  In the original reference picture he was carrying a red bag, which I considered too vibrant, so changed this to a more sombre brown one.

Original reference photo

 

I changed the original setting of the piper to coincide with the idea of offices and traditional official type buildings.  I used a picture I had taken locally of what was originally a cinema but is now an evangelical church.

 

I wanted to imply the consumer-focused world by means of the advert on the wall behind.  I wanted something advertising yet another thing we don’t need but work 9 – 5 to buy.  The TV add seemed a good choice in that the TV serves as a means to further impress and condition us.

 

Whilst wanting the piper to look colourful, I had to compromise this in order to incorporate the dirt on his clothes so that he didn’t become just a busker, but also homeless.  I wanted him to appear content as if to point out that you can be happy in other ways, with a more simplistic life that is not about possessions.

 

I’m sure in reality he has quite a personal story and toyed with the idea of making his money collection pot a felt army hat.  (A lot of ex army individuals sadly do end up homeless).  I was originally going to put a bag of chips on the ground with the Financial Times as the wrapper.  Having painted the newspaper though I decided it ironic to make this his money pot and painted some coins in.

The chips and a coffee cup were to symbolise his simple food needs having been met and I still kept the coffee cup.

 

I thought hard about the bag he was sitting on.  For a while thinking ‘Homebase’ would be a good choice in respect of the bag being as good as his home and possibly containing all of his worldly possessions.  The Homebase logo colours were no good though as based on my overall colour scheme I knew I wanted it to incorporate red.  I had already changed his trousers to brown due to the overall colour scheme as well.  I found a M & S bag for life image online with an apt message which I felt tied in with my general message and theme and so used that for reference.

I had intended to paint a fictional band flyer on the wall but before I did I realised it made more sense compositionaly and in meaning to have this on the ground.  The fictional band name ‘The System’ was used to further impress the idea of the system we’re are forced to participate in.  I wanted it to appear that the flyer had just happened to land on the ground and that’s why it was there, yet by having the tip of the piper’s foot on it, it would symbolise his rejection of this system. 

 

 One of my first thoughts had been the possibility of giving the piper a jester’s hat as I liked the idea he was mocking and laughing at the rest of us in the rat race rushing around while he had time to enjoy playing music.  This I decided deviated too much from my original character so instead, more subtly gave him harlequin patterned socks.