Art 2017

Exploring and Developing Ideas

8/2/17

I started exploring ideas for my folio for the year. I brainstormed ideas about what I care about the most and then expanded on each of the words I wrote down. I then chose the three words of Justice, Betrayal and Passion for Music to develop further and translate into my planning.

My First Ideas

9/2/17

my first ideas under the theme of betrayal I am thinking of portraying two characters, one is innocent and is imprisoned and the one who betrayed them is guilty walking the streets free. I also drew a broken lock to show the broken trust/relationship between the two characters. The final drawing I did was a burning bridge.

First Board Layout Ideas

10/2/17

doing a quick board sketch up of my two main layout ideas for board one. The left side includes a man 'imprisoned' as a result of the betrayal because he got blamed for something and ended up in jail and the locket in his hands linking to both sides of the story. The broken chain to show the betrayal. The guilty person waling along the street, trying to leave the past behind him and also the person he betrayed. A rose which I would like to do various stages of to show that it is dead received help to grow and then wrapped it's hand around the one who helped it. Also a burning book to sow the story the characters built has been destroyed. 

12/2/17 Exploring Artist Models

Marc Chagall

Marc Chagall was born 6th of July 1887 in Liozna, Russian Empire and died on the 18th of March 1985.

March Chagall was an early modernist. He used many different artistic styles and worked in almost every artistic format including painting, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramic, tapestries and fine art prints. My favourite part about Marc Chagall's paintings in particular are his backgrounds. Such as in these paintings.

For my first board I focused on Rene Magritte's idea of surrealism, simplicity and morphing objects together, so for my second board I am going to focus on Marc Chagall and using his ideas of using backgrounds that are very eclectic have a lot of texture and are often very disorientating.

Rene Magritte

Rene Magritte was born in Lessines, Belgium in 1898 and died in 1967.

 I found Rene Magrittes artworks very intriguing and interesting. I like the way he uses use surrealism to tell a story and convey a different way of thinking. I also like the way he uses the human body and fuses it with other objects, such as in "The Philosophers Lamp" I also like the way he paints painters such as in "Clairvoyance" , I think that it creates a really cool perceptive on the way reality is set out for us and how we all view the world. 

I also starting sketching some of Rene Magritte's artworks along the lines of what would link the best to my story line and ideas.

Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see.

The Philosophers Lamp

Clairvoyance 

Exploring Artist Models Artworks

14/2/17

On this page of drawing I decided to draw two of my favourite pieces by Rene Magritte so I could learn his style and learn how to incorporate it into my own work. I liked the use of the clouds behind the eye and I think I could use that on my board, placing things where they wouldn't normally go and also the use of shadow in the door I thought was really cool and I think that would also fit my board quite well.

Exploring Some Ideas

15/2/17

On this page of drawings, (which includes colour) I drew a shattered mirror to signify that reflecting back on what betrayal does it leaves everyone that is affected broken, beat, and scarred. I also drew three different roses, a dead rose signifying a dead friendship/broken trust, the second rose is healthy signifying someone has given it strength, and the third is a healthy rose with many thorns signifying that we give people the power to destroy us and I will possibly wrap the final roses thorns around a pair of hands or something similar. I was also thinking that the thorns could be a reoccurring theme in the board or possibly the chains from the previous page of drawings.

Some More Ideas
16/2/17
I drew a Raven which apparently if it appears in your dreams represents betrayal so I drew one raven flying away from the other leaving the other one behind. The hands and the rose represent the power we give to something beautiful and vulnerable but we also give it the power to destroy us in the process.My second page of drawings is a man drowning and the man above him is watching drown. Also a match lighting a book on fire which will be a reoccurring theme in my boards.

More Drawing
17/2/17

I drew a book about to be burned by a lighter which represents the story of the two figures which are a main part of my board. I also drew a person drowning with a shadow above the water watching them drown as if leaving them behind. I also experimented a little bit with some colours that might go well together on the piece with the lighter.

Exploring Some more 1st Board Ideas

18/2/17

working on a few ideas for my first board, I originally planned to have a lock and chain broken but decided to keep it just as a chain to make it a more fluent connection between other pieces. I also started working on ideas for a woodcut which include a framed mirror, a shadow and a gun connected to the shadow parted by the frame in the middle of the image.

Band Inspiration For My Board

21/2/17

exploring some further ideas from the band that I got my theme from. Bullet for My Valentine with their song Your Betrayal gave me ideas which I ended up going with as I had more idea of what to do with this than any other one of my ideas which I brainstormed under the heading of stuff I care about. I was experimenting with a mirror which would have a reflection of two people one with a gun behind the person in the forefront of the mirror image sort of showing the moment before the betrayal or something along those lines. I was also experimenting with some more natural aspects such as roses which is what I want to include more of in my second board. I also tried working with a trap but was not quite sure how to enhance that idea so I didn't manage to extend that idea any further, but there is definitely some promise in the mirror, rose and gun.

Trying Some More Layout Ideas

23/2/17

Finished up another first board idea, added some more ideas at the bottom trying to get some inspiration from my other pieces to figure out how to finish it off.

Creating My First Woodcut

25/6/17

this is a woodcut design I have for board one, it is a combination the shadow which is a reoccurring figure on my board, a gun which is linked further on in my board with a shattered mirror/glass and the shadow somewhere in between the cracks. this piece is sort of a foreshadowing of will happen later on in my board and I enhanced this idea from the idea of having two people in front of the mirror with the person in the background holding a gun as a sort of 'moment before it happened' type thing.

Creating A New Piece

27/6/17

Enhancing one of my ideas for a painting into a full size sketch. This will probably go after my woodcut with the shadow and gun. The cracked mirror is a result of that but the shadow still remains as if it is reflecting on what happened. The chain shows connection between the other 'character' and pieces on my board. The bullets might be a link further on in my board but I might remove them from this piece to create a stronger tie to certain pieces without adding to many new aspects.

First Board Conclusion Piece

30/6/17

exploring Ideas for my conclusion piece of my first board. Trying to figure out how to tie everything together was a pain but I ended up thinking that I could do two sides one that faces the full impact of the betrayal with the book bearing down on the bars, the book and bars will be burnt and the book is used earlier on in my board as a representation of the two main 'characters' so to speak are connected. This painting will have a varying gradient of blue going from light on the top to dark on the bottom. This shows that everything bad is happening to one 'character'/side and better things are happening on the other side of the book. the second piece will be the shadow figure with an umbrella. This umbrella is a representation of the shadow shielding itself from all the bad things as a result of this betrayal which are the bullets raining down. This painting will have a gradient going from light on the bottom to dark on the top which has the opposite affect from the first painting where the bad is on bottom with the bars.

Starting Another Piece

6/8/17

This is the beginning of the piece with the raven. I am thinking about putting a chain around the bird to create a link between the first and second board and I am also doing another piece which involves a cage which will have a chain and a vine wrapped around it. The chain around the foot will show that the raven is still trapped in the cage. The vine will be dangling off the cage like it has been broken and On this piece there will be another bird which is flying off which will also have the vine dangling over it.

Rose Etching

10/9/17

this is another painting that ended up as a etching. I am using this idea as a part of the progression of roses where there is a dead rose, a healthy rose and then a rose overpowering and 'betraying' the person who helped it back to it's former glory.

Bullet Etching

20/9/17

This is where the bullets from a previous painting ended up, I felt they didn't fit that piece and that they were more important thus needing their own piece. This is an important piece because I think I will include them in the final piece/s of my first board as a representation of the betrayal. I originally started out with a painting but realised I needed more etching/woodcuts on my board so I decided to etch this piece as I thought it would look pretty cool.

this is how the first etching turned out, I will keep trying them until I get one with nice clean lines but I really like the old, black and white, cinematography type look it has so I probably won't clean up the actual etching itself.

Final Piece/Lino Cut

this is the last piece I need to do to have my board complete. I am using this as a continuation of the piece that goes before this piece. The piece before is a chain and vine connected together but I am using this piece to show that the vine has actually broken away and it is now free while the chain is still intact and trapped.

First Board

Second Board

Finished Board

9/5/17

Art History

The False Mirror

Rene Magritte Painted the false Mirror in 1928 on Canvas using oil paint. In 1928 the surrealism era was still relatively new when this artwork was painted. It was popular because it let painters delve into the subconscious minds of their viewers while evoking interesting and sometimes even disturbing questions in their mind. Surrealism often depicts an everyday object in a new light whether it be morphed with another object or even just manipulated into another form making the viewer question the plausibility of what is really being shown. Magritte’s paintings are very simple but cause the viewer to dig deeper into the meaning behind it because of the thought provoking way he displays his ideas.  Rene Magritte painted this picture to convey the thought that what we see isn’t necessarily what we believe and to evoke the viewer to question their reality and the world around them. The eye represents how we see the world and the sky within representation of viewing the world in a different way because the sky could be a reflection or even a look into another dimension. The main focus is the inside of the eye where the clouds and sky lie. The eye and the sky within link together the idea of the false mirror very well because the eye is the most realistic part meaning what we really see, but the sky is a reflection of a deeper thought, meaning the mind, and how the mind and the imagination actually create what we see, disguising what is truly there. The colours throughout this artwork contrast very well with the dark colours around the outer edges with the brighter colours within the eye. This creates a focal point for the artwork which is the eye and highlights that it is the most important part of the message that this artwork portrays. One of Rene Magritte’s quotes is “everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see.” Which I think is a perfect explanation of Rene Magritte’s Oeuvre of work but this artwork and it’s meaning in particular.